dirty tank

[TheNamelessPoet]

ok... you can see in my sig what kind of fish I have...
the glass is UBER dirty and I just want to know hoe to clean it without hurting my babies... my fav part of the day is when they eat and unfortunatly I was GROSSLY overfeeding them and now the tank in the span of less than a month... is a mess. The snails love it but It is just too much for them.

 

[joy13]

If the tank is acrylic you have to be very careful not to scratch it. If you are overfeeding it may be algae build up. When you change water drain your tank down then take a good quality paper towel and wipe it down, I use viva it doesn't fall apart. They make magnetic glass cleaning tools too, I think they even have one for acrylic tanks.

 

[newfound77951]

I would suggest a Mag Float, which may be the best aquarium invention after the Python. They do come in glass and acrylic versions so be sure to get the appropriate kind. The appropriately sized mag float for your 20g would be less than $10, and you should be able to find one at a good LFS, if not then online for sure.

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

It's definatly Alge
its all over the plants as well... should I do say like 50% when I change it so I can take the fake plants out as well? I just want to hand wash them right. no detergents...

 

[joy13]

If you clean a tank to well you can cause a mini cycle. You might want to do part of the plants this weeks cleaning and the rest next weeks cleaning.

 

[neilanh]

If you want to really scrub down your tank, just shut off the filter and keep the media wet. If it's a canister filter, just shut it off and it'll keep the canister filled. This houses most of your beneficial bacteria anyway. Then scrub away and do a large water change (make sure to use your dechlorinator) and you'll be fine.

 

[thething84]

may i ask how long you have ur lights on for aswell. As to help reduce the algae buildup put and ours off time in the middle. sure someone will claryfy on this because algae needs a set length of time of light to produe, but i can't myself remember how long it is.

 

[beglely]

get some shrimp. my ghost shrimp do a pretty good job of cleaning up the tank, although only leftover food. Your going to need something else for algae.

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

Well to start with I had them on 24-7 because i LOVE looking at them. Now its on about 14 hours a day, tho I am going to get a timer and put it on from say noon until midnight. (I like to fall asleep to them

As for the shrimp... thats SW right? I have a FW and im not pulling a PETA

 

[joy13]

There are freshwater shrimp ghost shrimp, cherry red shrimp and crystal red shrimp to name a few, there are many more. Depending on how much light you have you might be only able to get away with 6 hours. LED lights is an option I know I have been looking into that for my tank in the bedroom. I don't if I will have to worry about algae or not I haven't researched or experimented enough to see if they will make algae grow.

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

So... I have officaly decided it is algee... how do I co agour cleaning everythin in teh tank. the plastic plants and rock are pretty covered... I dont want to use tap water because that will kill any bacteria right? Do i just do my 40% water change as I planned and scrub the rocks with that water? IT would seem to me I will just be rinsing in water that has the algee spores on it. I dont wnat to kill all my bacteria tho and then have my fish start dying... i am thinking of getting 2 of those shrimp to help with teh cleanup tho... once its been cleaned... the gla sis no problem... i can handle that

Anything I should know aobu the shrimp... I want to up my neon school to 10 and get 1-2 more rosy barbs and another gold barb. That about hits my limit as I dont want to overcrowd. will 2 shrimp be ok in the 20 gallon?

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

also I forgot to ask... do I feed the shrimp anything extra... i am going to do a little looking now but id rather her from people her ewho i know have them

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

Oh... and a snail dissapeared... he must have gotten out somehow... Dr. Pepper my original snail is still there tho... very strange... checked levels nothing is tooo out of wack tho nitrates are a little high im doing a water change this weekend tho so that should fix that up .
my snail was gone for an entire week... not it reapeared... i had removed nearly EVERYTHING in my tank including the big rock

 

[joy13]

Just use the water you get out of your aquarium to scrub off the algae, if you feel more comfortable just rinse them in a bucket of treated water before putting them back in the tank. The other snail might have crawled out of the tank, some times they do that I had one that kept getting out and one day I couldn't find it to put it back in, it was dead when I found it a few days later. When you start checking out shrimp make sure they are big enough so your fish won't bother them.

 

[beglely]

i believe amano shrimp eat algae so you could look into those

 

[robott]

there are also smaller algae eating fish, such as the oto and certain plecos, i think bushynoses only get to be about 6 inches. but you wouldn't want to add more fish after that. personally for me, between a couple mystery snails and a pleco, i haven't had to do any algae maintenance in about 6 months!! i even supplement with algae wafers.
i think an oto would be perfect, small eating machines!

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

if I got 2 or 3 of the cherry red shrimp which lok AWESOME and would add some more red to my tank to go with the neons and gold barbs... could I ad 4 or 5 neons? I thought about the bristlenose pleco but if it ment no more neons I would go with the shrimp

and would 2-3 oto's also combat the adding of the other fish ?

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

Snail returned... no idea where he went but I had torn the tank apart and no hwe is back... ah well