grimlock3000
Aquarium Advice Addict
My tank was all fine and dandy for a while and I decided to upgrade the cansiter filter media to some better media. My canister had been up and running for over three months with no issue and I always had some very clear water. Sometimes it looked a wee bit cloudy, but my tap water is nasty anyway so it was no big deal.
I swapped out 1/3 of the bio filter media and waited two weeks. Nothing different happened and the tank was OK. I had another filter, so I just assumed that one took over plus I should have plenty of established bacteria in the gravel. Then I changed the rest of the bio media... Right after that, my tank started clouding up and brown algae began taking over. I have slowly been getting the brown algae to be replaced with green algae, but the water is nasty. All of the water parameters test OK, so the bacteria in the water and on everything is eating up all of the ammonia and nitrites in the water I think. I fully expect all this to clear up once the filter media gets re-established, but it stinks to look at now.
The plants are getting most of the nastiness. Every so often I catch my Pleco eating algae off the small purple plants with leaves, but nothing can get at the stuff on the bristly plants. It is hard to tell from the pics, but the small purple plants hardly have anything on them. I am going to let the brown stuff take over the blue plants and get different plants once the water clears up.
Before:
After:
The algae looks pretty green here, but is more brownish in person.
Luckily, my 10g tank is a gem, the water looks perfect and the only algae in the tank is there because I leave the light on a lot to make sure my Oto can eat:
I swapped out 1/3 of the bio filter media and waited two weeks. Nothing different happened and the tank was OK. I had another filter, so I just assumed that one took over plus I should have plenty of established bacteria in the gravel. Then I changed the rest of the bio media... Right after that, my tank started clouding up and brown algae began taking over. I have slowly been getting the brown algae to be replaced with green algae, but the water is nasty. All of the water parameters test OK, so the bacteria in the water and on everything is eating up all of the ammonia and nitrites in the water I think. I fully expect all this to clear up once the filter media gets re-established, but it stinks to look at now.
The plants are getting most of the nastiness. Every so often I catch my Pleco eating algae off the small purple plants with leaves, but nothing can get at the stuff on the bristly plants. It is hard to tell from the pics, but the small purple plants hardly have anything on them. I am going to let the brown stuff take over the blue plants and get different plants once the water clears up.
Before:
After:
The algae looks pretty green here, but is more brownish in person.
Luckily, my 10g tank is a gem, the water looks perfect and the only algae in the tank is there because I leave the light on a lot to make sure my Oto can eat: