Phytoplankton-like build-up on aquarium walls hours after cleaning

[al398247]

My Dad and I bought a second-hand aquarium last weekend. Dad had aquariums all his life and I had them all my life too, but for the past five years we haven't had an aquarium. Dad was always the one looking after our aquariums so I happen to know very little about them. Last Friday Dad cleaned our "new" aquarium and the accessories that came with it. At the end the only problem we faced was having no gravel. So to save money Dad decided to go to a nearby yacht club and get some gravel there. When he brought it back home he put it in the aquarium along with some of the old owner's corals and poured tap water on top. He set it up like he set up all his other aquariums before.

A couple of days later the water started to "bloom": it gained colour and odour. The walls seemed to acquire some sort of build-up. I'm not sure what that's called but I think it might be ammonia. We were trying to figure out if the reason for that was the gravel, or the previous owner's corals (which had a lot of green stuff on them), or something we did wrong, or something else. At the end we decided to clean it out today (which is the 8th day after we set the aquarium up last Friday.)

A couple of hours ago Dad went through the same routine except instead of the old gravel we put in a pack of gravel Dad bought at WalMart. We also threw away one coral and left one "artificial cave" and a Bermuda coral (which my Dad scraped off a reef in St. George's Tobacco Bay in 2003). Everything seemed fine until a couple of minutes ago when I noticed a faint build-up on the aquarium walls. I don't know what it's called but I think the term might be ammonia. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'd really just like to know what it's called. To be more precise the build-up looks like phytoplankton.

We just want to know if that's normal or not, if we're doing anything wrong here, and would really just appreciate any advice, suggestions, insight or feedback. I should probably also note that we're planning to buy two catfish and three mollies tomorrow.

 

[bluerose]

Stop the tape!

DO NOT BUY FISH!!!

What you need to do now is learn. Fishkeeping is not as easy as it seems.

Ammonia is organic waste, not wall build up. What color is the 'bloom' in your water? White or green? (tip-- put some in a white ceramic mug) If white, you're dealing with a bacteria bloom, which isn't usually a bad thing. Green is another story.

Read up on fishless cycling. Really. Fish-in cycling is not exactly a stunning example of humane treatment and MUCH more work.

You may be thinking of algae, not ammonia-- the 'green stuff' on the corals.

Please-- I am very confused about your gravel/coral debacle. You may run in to trouble using real coral (scavenged from reefs as I'm reading it) in a tank, especially freshwater.

What are you using for filtration? Lighting? What size tank? Do you have a heater, thermometer, and liquid reagent test kit?

You need a lot more preparation here before you get fish.

Welcome to AA!

 

[jsoong]

....When he brought it back home he put it in the aquarium along with some of the old owner's corals and poured tap water on top..... Bermuda coral ....

Is this a SW or FW tank?? Are those live corals? The gravel from the yacht club, that from the seashore? How did you prepare things to go into the tank?

I would also urge you to STOP the plan to add fish. You need to get your tank sorted out & cycled before the fish.

 

[al398247]

Stop the tape!

DO NOT BUY FISH!!!

What you need to do now is learn. Fishkeeping is not as easy as it seems.

Ammonia is organic waste, not wall build up. What color is the 'bloom' in your water? White or green? (tip-- put some in a white ceramic mug) If white, you're dealing with a bacteria bloom, which isn't usually a bad thing. Green is another story.

Read up on fishless cycling. Really. Fish-in cycling is not exactly a stunning example of humane treatment and MUCH more work.

You may be thinking of algae, not ammonia-- the 'green stuff' on the corals.

Please-- I am very confused about your gravel/coral debacle. You may run in to trouble using real coral (scavenged from reefs as I'm reading it) in a tank, especially freshwater.

What are you using for filtration? Lighting? What size tank? Do you have a heater, thermometer, and liquid reagent test kit?

You need a lot more preparation here before you get fish.

Welcome to AA!

bluerose, first of all thank you for welcoming me to AA. To answer your questions, the "bloom" in the water seemed green but I didn't do the cup test, I just guessed. I think you're right about algae being on the corals. The coral that we left in there is a dead SW Bermuda coral Dad scraped off a reef back in 2003. He treated it with boiling water for disinfection and I also scraped most of the algae off the cave-looking thing and treated it with boiling water after cleaning the tank for the second time.

Yesterday Dad bought a decorative sunken ship, some live FW plants, three black mollies and three corydoras. Last night a female molly gave birth to fry and so far they're all alive and well. The water temperature is currently 31*C. We turned the heater off to prevent it heating up more than that. When the water was 27*C the fish were hovering around the heater so we cranked it up. Even though 27*C is the recommended temperature we think the fish like warmer water better since they're not hovering around the heater anymore, instead they're swimming all around. Right now what we're wondering about is what to feed the fry with. We have flakes and dried-up shrimp but we're not sure if we can feed the fry with that.

 

[al398247]

Is this a SW or FW tank?? Are those live corals? The gravel from the yacht club, that from the seashore? How did you prepare things to go into the tank?

I would also urge you to STOP the plan to add fish. You need to get your tank sorted out & cycled before the fish.

jsoong, to answer your questions the tank is FW. The coral is dead. We replaced the yacht club gravel with aquarium-suited gravel we bought at WalMart. When preparing things to go into the tank after cleaning it for the second time, we washed the gravel with tap water, scraped algae off the cave-looking accessory and treated it and the coral with boiling water for disinfection. We let the water sit for 24 hours so all the bubbles disappeared and let it reach room temperature.

I know both you and bluerose strongly advised fishless cycling which is the absolute right thing to do, and which Dad and I would do if we had more time, but in this case we decided to go right ahead. Which is what we did with all our other tanks, really. If the water gets to a really bad state we just clean the tank again. But both of you are right, fishless cycling is a must.

 

[bluerose]

al3,

Your next purchase NEEDS to be a liquid reagent test kit-- such as the API Master Freshwater Test Kit. Do not get strips. Daily, you will NEED to test your Ammonia and Nitrite levels. If either of those gets above .5, you NEED to do a 50% PWC (Partial Water Change), and if the levels are above .25 you may want to consider a 25-50% PWC. During this time of cycling DO NOT change your filter media (after the cycling period you don't actually need to change it either, just rinse it in dechlorinated water or tank water).

Did you treat your water with a dechlorinator such as Prime or NovAqua+? Most water supplies now have chloramines in them for disinfectant, which do NOT gas off like chlorine does. A dechlorinator will generally also remove any free ammonia and other 'toxic stuff' in the tap water, so no matter what they are very beneficial.

Keep your heater on; a quality heater will turn itself off. Also, make sure your thermometer is across the tank from the heater (gives the most accurate reading). However you may need to fiddle with the setting on the heater based on your thermometer reading (my heater is set to 76 or so and my tank sits at 78-80).

You have live seaweed in your tank? I believe you mean live plants... not seaweed. If you have live plants, you'll need different lighting requirements, and possibly fertilizers. What kind of plants do you have?

If you leave the fry in the tank, they will probably be eaten (many livebearers will eat their fry). I believe you can very finely crush flakes and feed them for the fry but the bigger fish will probably get to them first.

 

[al398247]

I'll see if Dad'll want to get a LRTK. See, it all depends on him. He bought everything with his money and he takes care of everything so I have very little say in this. It was hard enough to get him to turn the heater off when the water temperature was rising above 31*C this morning.

We didn't treat the water with a dechlorinator. We let it sit for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate, make the bubbles disappear and let it rise to room temperature.

Unfortunately we don't have a quality heater so it doesn't turn itself off. Right now I have to open up the windows to -6*C weather outside to cool the water down from 31*C to 26*C or so.

Sorry, plants is what I meant. I don't know what kind of plants they are. They look like a fern of some sort, I'm guessing Java fern.

So far I didn't see any fry being eaten by the fish. They all seem to be fine and quite large for 1st day fry. I crushed some flakes for them earlier and they seemed to like them.