Something is Growing On the Inside of My Tank

[vcorey04]

what is this?

how do i get rid of it?

i came home yesterday an found it.... the blinds were letting in 5 inches of daylight, on top of the normal aq. lghtng.

WATER SPECS: (ppm- mg/L)<-- at the time

ammonia- .25
nitrate - 5.0
nitrite - 0.0
pH- 8.2
HELP identify, and get rid of it!

PWC ( about 50%) has been done...

but nothing has changed.
?
v

 

[neilanh]

Looks like green dust algae to me. It should be easy to remove using a scraper. Scrape it away, then do a PWC to clear the water column.

Keep an eye on your ammonia and nitrites. It doesnt' appear your tank is fully cycled at the moment.

 

[vcorey04]

how do i get rid of gDA

<it's not green>

i'm going to reduce the light time, i wrote in another post BUT received no response.

my lighting has lunar lights now ,and i run them after the day lights go off at 5pm until i go to sleep around 11pm.

i think i can directly connect the high output lighting fixture to the GDA presence.

i also read on another help forum that (1) Ottos can help regulate this growth.

(2) wait for the GDA to complete a life cycle THEN clean it without it getting into the water

(3) keeping your nitrates down.

my tank has been set up for about 3 months now, and has completely cycled at least once... i am very good about water quality:water testing

i never let my levels go beyond the first level, cause then i freak out and do a PWC.


(2) what do you think about letting it cycle? how long does that take?

 

[Zagz]

It is algae, the natural lighting is probably one major cause. As mentioned your tank doesn't seem to be fully cycled or is going through a mini cycle. How often do you do water changes and how much each time?

 

[vcorey04]

how can you tell that it is in a mini cycle/not cycled fully?

(when my nitrates/ammonia spiked and came back down to 0 i added fish that i would not have been able to keep alive while cycling)

out of the 20 gallons, i usually change out 5-7gal every time my levels go above 0 ppm...

this rise occurs abut every 3 days-4 days.

is that too often?

it seems like a lot, but i am just monitoring my levels often..

i also lost a fish (sunburst platy) :
in the beginning, my balloon molly stressed it out, but the sunburst (Won-Ton) could hang and was still eating. then i added more fish, and he started to hide under the filter with one of my clown loaches. Won-Ton died, but everyone else is fine and doesn't really seem to miss him... except for me

for the time being, i'm keeping up on PWC, and keeping my lights off... i really don't have any spectacular plants because i'm waiting to get the substrate right, so the lights being off is fine...

BUT i still haven't gotten any advice on how long my lights and lunar lights should be running...and this seems to be the source...<aside from the blinds being open that one day when the artificial lighting was off>

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

to me it looks more brown like diatoms

I have had this a lot recently, even months after the cycle was complete. Now I just started getting green spot(very slight 2 spots, I wiped it off and has not came back).


for whatever reason you have ammonia in your tank, and low nitrate if you dont have lots of live plants.

What fish and plants are in the tank?

For your lights go with 8hrs to start, how many hrs are you doing now?

 

[vcorey04]

yea! thats what i was thinking, not green.. more brown orange...

the significance?? still confused about that...
i'm unclear, but i think you suggested that the live plants will help regulate production of ammonia and nitrate in the tank, right???

i'm waiting to get more plants because i don't have the right substrate, and i'm looking to purchase black sand that will buffer the pH to be lower than the 8.2 it's at now....

i have in my tank fish-wise:
3 clown loaches
5 Galaxy Rasboras
1 Balloon Molly
1 Noname

+ 2 African dwarf Frogs

Plants:
5 shoots of jungle valves <dying cause the clown loach eat it>
1 group of anubias growing out of wood
1 group of aubias growing from (incorrect) substrate

really, the plants in there are arbitrary, because i would ultimately like to grow Swords, some fissidens sp. , red lotus, Microsorum pteropus...

i want to recreate this look:

2007 AGA Aquascaping Contest

 

[vcorey04]

do diatoms only exist in salt water??? making this GDA?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

No, diatoms occur in FW tanks.

 

[spilzer]

Just as a point of interest, I don't think that there is such a thing as a "right" substrate for plants. Many different substrates will work, you'll get more or less growth but there isn't really anything that you absolutely can't grow plants in. Even plain old gravel will work with a little supplementing. You can use root tabs or fertilizers to make up for any lack of nutrients in the substrate.

If you're keen to switch the substrate anyway I say go ahead, but if you're only doing it to have the "right" substrate that you might be able to get away with whatever you have already.

 

[LandGhoti]

If your ammonia and nitrate levels are rising every couple of days and you have to do a water change to keep them down, it sounds like you are going through a mini-cycle. Spiking like that (and that often) is not normal in established tanks unless something disrupts the parameters (dead fish you can't find, lots of stuff in substrate stirred up, etc.). A complete cycle shows no ammonia, no nitrItes, and about 40 or less ppm nitrAtes, never ammonia every few days that you have to deal with.

I would suggest changing out more than 5-7g per PWC; that isn't even 50% and wouldn't do much good keeping any levels down for long. Adding more plants would help. Get some hornwort temporarily. It grows like crazy.

Your brown stuff sounds like diatoms. I had those within about the same amount of time (4 months or so) when I first started my tank. I got some golden algae eaters to take care of mine (otos, small plecos, etc., would work too); otherwise, you can scrape it off. I'm not sure how much it has to do with the light. Eventually they will go away.

 

[vcorey04]

thank you very much for taking the time to write your response landghoti..

it's a valid concern of most of the advice fanatics on this forum to take concern with my loach's. ive had them about a month and opted for them over yoyo's and polkadots because of their gentle temperament. the only reason i got three was because my first was very lonely. i had to take into consideration that i have two frogs in the tank...

i plan on getting a larger tank, but i don't have a place to put it just yet. if that doesn't happen, i plan on giving them to someone with a larger tank. it sux, but it's a solution...

i am reluctant to grow hornwort because my pH is already abnormally high, (8.0-8.2)
and i read that it has a tendency to increase pH levels.

i plan on getting ottos in there soon to contribute to my ecosystem.

i turned off my lights for a couple of days because i could care less about the jungle valves that are suprisingly still alive, and it didn't seem to help at all...

still, no one has advised me about how long i can run my lunar lights after dark?

 

[pirateshake]

I had brown diatoms about 3 months after i set up my 29gal. I scraped and scraped but they just kept coming. I went to the LFS and bought a flying fox aka false Siamese's algae eater and he ate the crap out of them. Then after about 5 months it went away and i have not had the problem again. One thing i did do was leave the light off for about a week. The only lights on where the ones in my room. the plants stayed alive and the diatoms and other algae didn't grow as fast, it gave the algae eater time to clean everything up once he got settled in. As for the moon lights. I would assume that you'd want to turn them on right after the normal lights go out. but i also have not heard of people using them on FW tanks.

 

[Atl300zx]

As for the moon lights. I would assume that you'd want to turn them on right after the normal lights go out. but i also have not heard of people using them on FW tanks.

Plenty of us FW guys use moonlights. THey dont have any affect on algae growth.

 

[Purrbox]

The moon lights are just to allow you night time viewing and simulate moon light. You can have them on for a few hours or all night. Shouldn't make a difference either way.

 

[LandGhoti]

thank you very much for taking the time to write your response landghoti..

Sorry, I realized I'd already responded to your other thread about the loaches, so I edited my post here and deleted that part. Sorry to harp!!

I don't have lunar lights, so I can't answer the light question. I would think a couple-three hours would be OK. I'm not sure if it's the same for SW, but I have a friend with a SW tank and when the normal lights went off softer ones went on before completely turning off about an hour or so later. Maybe that's not the same, though. I called them the "night-night" lights.

 

[vcorey04]

If your ammonia and nitrate levels are rising every couple of days and you have to do a water change to keep them down, it sounds like you are going through a mini-cycle. Spiking like that (and that often) is not normal in established tanks unless something disrupts the parameters (dead fish you can't find, lots of stuff in substrate stirred up, etc.). A complete cycle shows no ammonia, no nitrItes, and about 40 or less ppm nitrAtes, never ammonia every few days that you have to deal with.

I would suggest changing out more than 5-7g per PWC; that isn't even 50% and wouldn't do much good keeping any levels down for long. Adding more plants would help. Get some hornwort temporarily. It grows like crazy.

i just did a 50% WC yesterday, everything has settled, and i my tests indicate:

.25 Ammonia
5.0 Nitrates



this mini cycling... when will it stop??? will it stop???

 

[Atl300zx]

do you have a friend with an established tank? can you get some of his gravel or some of his filter media? that would help kickstart a healthy bacteria colony to get your ammonia down to zero.

You need to test ammonia and nitrites more for the cycle. Nitrates in low quantities dont harm fish.

 

[Purrbox]

Have you tested your tap water? If you're water treatment plant is using Chloramines your tap water will test positive for Ammonia. In this case you'll want to make sure to use a good dechlorinator like Prime that removes both Chlorine and Chloramines. In addition Prime neutralizes the Ammonia. This converts it to a non toxic form that will still show up on the Test Kit until the biofilter converts it. In an established aquarium this shouldn't take long.

 

[vcorey04]

Have you tested your tap water? If you're water treatment plant is using Chloramines your tap water will test positive for Ammonia. In this case you'll want to make sure to use a good dechlorinator like Prime that removes both Chlorine and Chloramines. In addition Prime neutralizes the Ammonia. This converts it to a non toxic form that will still show up on the Test Kit until the biofilter converts it. In an established aquarium this shouldn't take long.

i don't have a test kit to test for Chloramines.

my nitrites have always been at zero since the first cycle... i put biospira in with 3 fish, and 3 frogs when first est. and it's never gone up since.

the dechlorinator i use now is new : Aquarium Solutions: ULTIMATE

it says that it removes chlorine & ammonia, destroys chloramines, detoxifies nitrite and heavy metals including copper... etc.

even at .25 Ammonia levels are MUCH lower than they were when i was first cycling