Coyote251
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hi all, I have a smaller tank (5g I think) that I have been running for about 4 months now. It currently houses 6 rasboras. Recently I have been getting some algae in this tank. From what I can find out online this is hair algae and shows that the tank is operating well. I test the water on a weekly basis and do a 20-30% water change atleast once a week. I am currently in the process of cycling a 30g tank and my LFS had a sale on otocinclus catfish. So I thought I would buy 3 and put them in with the rasboras until the other tank was ready. Two problems seem to be occuring :
1) The catfish only cling to the wall or the heater or lay on the bottom, also they do not seem to eat algae off of the plastic plants. I have added algae discs (no interest) and romaine lettuce (also no interest).
2) One of the catfish has already died. As soon as I knew that he was dead I checked the water conditions with the following results:
PH = 7.0 - 7.5
NH3 = 0 ppm
NO2 = 0.1 mg/L
NO3 = 20 mg/L
GH = 60 mg/L
KH = 50 mg/L
Temp = 78 deg_C
I should mention that there was 1 fish that seemed not as lively and seemed to hide or lay on the bottom more than the other right from the store. I cannot determine if this was the one that died, but I can speculate that it was.
Can somebody verify that these water conditions would be acceptable for the catfish as I know that they do not handle bad water very well. Also any ideas or information on their eating habits would also be helpful. I would really like to avoid the death of another fish if I can avoid it.
Thanks.
1) The catfish only cling to the wall or the heater or lay on the bottom, also they do not seem to eat algae off of the plastic plants. I have added algae discs (no interest) and romaine lettuce (also no interest).
2) One of the catfish has already died. As soon as I knew that he was dead I checked the water conditions with the following results:
PH = 7.0 - 7.5
NH3 = 0 ppm
NO2 = 0.1 mg/L
NO3 = 20 mg/L
GH = 60 mg/L
KH = 50 mg/L
Temp = 78 deg_C
I should mention that there was 1 fish that seemed not as lively and seemed to hide or lay on the bottom more than the other right from the store. I cannot determine if this was the one that died, but I can speculate that it was.
Can somebody verify that these water conditions would be acceptable for the catfish as I know that they do not handle bad water very well. Also any ideas or information on their eating habits would also be helpful. I would really like to avoid the death of another fish if I can avoid it.
Thanks.