New Tank Syndrome

[Mattwhitney]

Hello Everyone!

I'm new to this forum and to the joys of keeping an aquarium. I just bought a new Marina brand tank kit with this equipment:

-10 gallon glass tank
- slim filter s15 with filter cartridges
- 1 coralife 20 watt cfl
- 1 of the incandescent bulbs that came with kit
- 1 tetra ht10 50W heater auto at 78 degrees F
- Nutrafin Cycle
-Nutrafin aqua plus
- seachem flourish excel and flourish iron
- an API freshwater test kit
- Nutrafin Max tropical fish food
- zoomed mopani wood drift wood
- amazon dwarf red sword plant
- Brasilian water ivy
- 6 White Cloud Mountain minnows
- amazon sand substrate

Day 1 I filled tank with sand and 78 F tap water, placed equipment, added recommended chemicals for tank and placed wood and plants. Day 2 I added fish. I've been doing 10% water changes daily and following daily instruction for adding chemicals to a new tank. I've been testing water and ammonia hasn't spiked yet so I know bacteria isn't growing yet. Ph has been around 7.6. Fish seem happy but plants have been progressively looking unhealthier, gathering a black substance on the leaves and roots that is easily rubbed off by hand. It's been about a week now and I'm concerned that the first ammonia spike hasn't begun, that my plants seem unhappy, and the ph is a little high. Also excess food seems to accumulate and ive been dragging it out with the net. Any advice? Should I get a chemical to bring down ph? Should I get root tabs? Should I get a tank cleaning fish like a Pleco? I'm trying to keep an amazon theme and would like to get some neon tetras or other small native South American fish eventually. Also, the plants had an algae growing on them when I bought them so I think the black stuff is dead algae. Should that algae had survived and proliferated? Will it return? Do I want it gone? Any new tank advice will help. I've been picking their brains at the store but they seem a little annoyed at my constant need for assistance haha anyway...

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[ztigris]

How long are your lights on for? Type of substrate and plants? Cut back on feeding a lot if you have excess on the bottom. Until your tank is cycled you will have excess ammonia and nutrients which will cause algae.

 

[ztigris]

Sorry missed the plants and substrate in op. The black substance is probably algae. Cut back food and lights on only six hours. Don't chemically treat ph as it will spike and cause more stress due to fluctuations.

 

[Mattwhitney]

Sorry missed the plants and substrate in op. The black substance is probably algae. Cut back food and lights on only six hours. Don't chemically treat ph as it will spike and cause more stress due to fluctuations.

Lights are off when I sleep so 6-8 hours a day. Lights are on the rest of the time. So I should put lights on less? What about ammonia levels not spiking yet? I know that's supposed to happen to indicate healthy bacteria forming. Is the algae preventing that, the alkalinity, or am I just being impatient? Thanks for the lighting tip.

 

[tiger terror]

Lights are off when I sleep so 6-8 hours a day. Lights are on the rest of the time. So I should put lights on less? What about ammonia levels not spiking yet? I know that's supposed to happen to indicate healthy bacteria forming. Is the algae preventing that, the alkalinity, or am I just being impatient? Thanks for the lighting tip.

You should cut the photoperiod down to 6-8hrs max,by reducing the lighting period that should help with the algae along with smaller feedings..feed small amounts like feed a day skip a day,your fish will not starve&actually a hungry fish is a lot better off than an overfed fish....the excess food can also be part of your algae problem as well...patience & keeping up the water changes will go a long way...good luck...

 

[tiger terror]

Also plants will go through an adjustment period,you may look into some root tabs for the heavy root feeders as well...pic up a cheap analog timer & put your lighting on it(6-8hrs)...

 

[ztigris]

Tiger terror is correct. I set my timer to have the lights come on in the around 2pm and they tturn off at 10 pm. I still have some algae but it keeps the shrimp and oto's busy. Hold off on cory cats and oto's (clean up crew) till your tank is more stable. How long has your tank been running?

 

[Mattwhitney]

My tank has been running for a week and a half now. I get home from work around 4 and turn the lights on and leave them on til I go to bed around 10. I'm alternating days of feeding now too. We'll see how that goes.

 

[ztigris]

Dose with carbon to. My algae went away after two weeks of 6 hours light and liquid carbon. You can treat bba with hydrogen peroxide but the lights and carbon did a better job