Water source for restarting my 5 gallon betta aquarium

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Vincent

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
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Feb 17, 2016
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After a few months of cyanobacteria on the gravel and brown algae (diatoms?) on the silk plants that just isn't going away, I've decided to restart the aquarium. Aside from providing a smooth transition for my betta, I want to accomplish two things: 1) I of course don't want a recurrence of the cyanobacteria and diatoms, and 2) I want to try for neutral pH (tap is 7.5).

A fish store worker recommended that, with such a small tank, I might be better off with bottled water. I assume non-chlorinated spring water would be easiest. I'd of course test it.

Another option is to run my tap water through a Britta faucet filter. The website says their faucet filter removes or reduces chlorine, lead, asbestos, turbidity, benzene, TTHMs, cryptosporidium/giardia, atrazine, lindane, trichloroethylene (TCE). It doesn't remove or reduce copper, cadmium, or mercury. I don't know what any of these might mean, if anything, for cyanobacteria, diatoms, or algae. I'm letting a cup of filtered water sit and will test its pH, nitrites, nitrates, and KH (the only tests I have) later today.

I could also go with 100% distilled water treated with Replenish, but I don't know if I'd be getting in over my head. So many aquarists say to use tap water if at all possible.

My main question about these options is whether avoiding my tap water will allow me to better control for cyanobacteria, algae, and diatoms.

On to the pH. I hope to have neutral pH to have an environment more favorable to NH3 than NH4. Also, neutral pH will help with having higher dissolved CO2.

Thanks!
 
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From what I understand, cyanobacteria, algae, and diatoms are everywhere and therefore I doubt your water source is your problem.

It's sort of like mold... you don't have to have a certain type of water to get mold in your house... you simply have to provide the right type of environment and mold will grow without having to try to introduce mold spores.

I've never had an issue with cyanobacteria, and the only time I've have any issues with diatoms has been just temporary after starting a new tank with a sand substrait.

But I have had issues with algae, and from what I understand, in an aquarium, the conditions that allow algae to grow is a combination of too much fertilizer and too much light.

Basically, the food you feed the fish eventually becomes fertilizer. One of the reasons you have to do a partial water change on a routine basis is to remove this fertilizer from the tank.

Leaving hood lights on too long or placing your tank where sun light hits it can cause the tank to get too much light.


So the best way to battle algae (and likely cyanobacteria as well) is to work on reducing the amount of fertilizer and light in your tank. Make sure the tank does not receive direct sunlight. Reduce artificial light be lowering the number of hours the light is on and/or reducing the wattage of the light.

Do partial water changes to keep fertilizer levels in check. Until you have a good handle on how frequently you need to do water changes, you should get a test kit to measure nitrate (not nitrite). I have found that liquid test kits do very good at measuring low levels of nitrates, but if your measurements are above 50ppm, you might find test strips that measure upto 500ppm are what you need until you can get your nitrate levels below 50ppm.
 
How long did you deal with the diatoms?

Diatoms are something that nearly every new tank goes through.
 
Thanks for your replies.

From what I understand, cyanobacteria, algae, and diatoms are everywhere and therefore I doubt your water source is your problem.
Okay, so I need to identify the factors that are triggering it in my tank. I feed my betta three pellets at each feeding, and he usually eats them right away. He'll occasionally spit one out and let it sink to the gravel (maybe 1 or 2 a week). I don't know if the occasional rejected pellet is enough to trigger the cyanobacteria.

How long did you deal with the diatoms?

Diatoms are something that nearly every new tank goes through.
The aquarium is about 10 months old, and I've had diatoms for most of that time. I remember them lightening up for a brief period, but lately they've been coating my silk plant leaves pretty heavily.

Here are the specs:
5.5 gallons
Aqueon full-spectrum T8 bulb, on for 6 hours
standard gravel (Petco Aztec Bronze)
Deep Blue Bio-Maxx Nano HOB filter
25W heater at 78°
silk plants
ph 7.4
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 3~4
KH 5
40% water changes biweekly (I try for 25%, but usually end up at 40% by the time I vacuum out all the cyanobacteria)
maintenance dose of Tetra SafeStart+ with each water change

I've read that low nitrates like mine can be a problem, and that around 15 is better. I've also seen posts from people who said increasing oxygenation with an air stone helped with cyanobacteria. I don't know if it was the higher oxygen itself, or if the higher oxygen caused a change in something else that in turn stopped the cyanobacteria.

I know that a tank being well planted helps to keep things in balance. I started with anubias and java fern. It was when I added some temple compacta that things started declining. Also, I found that the pH was rising to 8.3 by the end of the photoperiod. Between the plants' decline and the pH swings, I decided to get silk plants. I just didn't have time to come home from work and deal with the issues. I'm considering going back to live plants, but am considering how I want to do it (low-tech, CO2, etc.). I'll leave that for another thread.
 
I've had great success with Water Sprite in my planted tank. It does better than the anubias.

However, because of the way Water Sprite asexually reproduces, you'll have to occasionally remove dying parts of the plant as "children" sometimes take over.

(Child plant will develop by new roots developing at what is the tree equivalent to a branch. When that happens, the parent plant above the branch usually dies off as the new child plant grows).
 
My experience with anubias is that it's practically a living "fake" plant in terms of how durable it is. But the problem seems to be that it grows too slowly to outcompete algae. I guess if you're going to go the low-tech route with slow plants, a cleanup crew is a must.
 
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