Southern star
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2017
- Messages
- 6
I don't know much about keeping aquariums and recently inherited one. I'm renting a house and the previous renter just left his fish tank. The way I heard it was his old room mates who moved out 2 years ago and just left it. Then this guy just threw food in there and filled the water some. I guess for not being cared for in 2 years it could be worse.
I think it's a 55 gallon. I just moved in and the electric was off for at least 1-2 days. I had no idea it was even there. The fish did seen distressed. They weren't really moving. I'm guessing it was cold and low oxygen. But I haven't found any dead fish yet so that a plus.
The fish tank really stunk up the whole room so I decided to clean it best I could. The only experience I have is my friend had a 55 gallon tank when we were kids and I helped her several times cleaning it. To my surprise there was a lot of fish equipment left behind. I took some water and put but in a bucket and put the fish in it. I just researched it and found out the tank has brush algae. This stuff is everywhere on the right side of the tank. I'm guessing the left side has less because the light was not working on that side. The whole fish tank was hairy. I removed the hair covered plants and tried to scoop the top layer of gravel off the bottom. There was the thing you clean gravel with. Like a siphon with a tube. I went threw the gravel best I could and it was pure brown water. By the time
I was done about half the water was gone. I used the fish net and skimmed the algae clumps. The filter cartrages had 1/2 inch of sludge. It was barely running. It had 4 filters cartrages. They had charcoal in them and some kind of batting. There was extra charcoal and white batting stuff so I just threw out the old and filled the cartrages with new. One of the cartrages had white cylinder pieces in it and there was no more of those so I threw it out and just filled with charcoal. There was some liquid called prime which said it took chlorine out of water. So I used that and filled with tap water. There's some testing equipment but the paperwork was missing so I'm not sure how to use it.
I didn't put any of the plastic plants back in because they are embedded with algae. There didn't seem to be much of the regular green algae just the hairy kind. I put a few tunnels back to give the small fish a chance. Actually when I was all done there was a baby fish I didn't see beforehand. It was about the length of a pencil eracer. I guess they are healthy enough to breed. I'm not
Sure what kind of fish they are. They are Orange with black tails. The full grown ones look about 1 1/2 inches long.
Sorry to go on so long. I want to fix this fish tank. It's far from good. There's still clumps of algae everywhere. I probably got rid of 80-90%. It's just embedded in the gravel and hard to deal with. What is my best option on fixing this. Do I need to start over and throw the gravel out and clean everything? Or is there a way to get rid of it? I read on brush algae and it sounds like it can be challenging to get rid of. Especially that this whole tank is full of it. It even wrapped around the propeller in the filter and stopped it.
I don't have a lot of time over the next few weeks to really work on it again but I want to be prepared and fix it right when I get the chance. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Laura.
I think it's a 55 gallon. I just moved in and the electric was off for at least 1-2 days. I had no idea it was even there. The fish did seen distressed. They weren't really moving. I'm guessing it was cold and low oxygen. But I haven't found any dead fish yet so that a plus.
The fish tank really stunk up the whole room so I decided to clean it best I could. The only experience I have is my friend had a 55 gallon tank when we were kids and I helped her several times cleaning it. To my surprise there was a lot of fish equipment left behind. I took some water and put but in a bucket and put the fish in it. I just researched it and found out the tank has brush algae. This stuff is everywhere on the right side of the tank. I'm guessing the left side has less because the light was not working on that side. The whole fish tank was hairy. I removed the hair covered plants and tried to scoop the top layer of gravel off the bottom. There was the thing you clean gravel with. Like a siphon with a tube. I went threw the gravel best I could and it was pure brown water. By the time
I was done about half the water was gone. I used the fish net and skimmed the algae clumps. The filter cartrages had 1/2 inch of sludge. It was barely running. It had 4 filters cartrages. They had charcoal in them and some kind of batting. There was extra charcoal and white batting stuff so I just threw out the old and filled the cartrages with new. One of the cartrages had white cylinder pieces in it and there was no more of those so I threw it out and just filled with charcoal. There was some liquid called prime which said it took chlorine out of water. So I used that and filled with tap water. There's some testing equipment but the paperwork was missing so I'm not sure how to use it.
I didn't put any of the plastic plants back in because they are embedded with algae. There didn't seem to be much of the regular green algae just the hairy kind. I put a few tunnels back to give the small fish a chance. Actually when I was all done there was a baby fish I didn't see beforehand. It was about the length of a pencil eracer. I guess they are healthy enough to breed. I'm not
Sure what kind of fish they are. They are Orange with black tails. The full grown ones look about 1 1/2 inches long.
Sorry to go on so long. I want to fix this fish tank. It's far from good. There's still clumps of algae everywhere. I probably got rid of 80-90%. It's just embedded in the gravel and hard to deal with. What is my best option on fixing this. Do I need to start over and throw the gravel out and clean everything? Or is there a way to get rid of it? I read on brush algae and it sounds like it can be challenging to get rid of. Especially that this whole tank is full of it. It even wrapped around the propeller in the filter and stopped it.
I don't have a lot of time over the next few weeks to really work on it again but I want to be prepared and fix it right when I get the chance. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Laura.