Your current Fish tank Setups!

Pike, looks normal just keep an eye on it.

Surface scum is normal, if you haven’t already increasing agitation can clear it but not always. It can hinder oxygen exchange but I wouldn’t worry at this stage too much.

If your into fish on you tube just stick to reputable channels, they all have their own version of a cycling video on there in their back catalogue:
King of diy (DIY projects but lately more general fish keeping videos, mostly aimed at keeping costs down)
George farmer (aqua scapes/planted tanks)
Rachel O’Leary (awesome species profile videos)
Aquarium Co-op (runs a fish store in the US but puts out loads of good general fish keeping content)

There are a few others but those are probably the biggest.
 
Hi guys,

Just got back from work to find some fungus or algae growing mainly on one leaf so far.
http://imgur.com/a/6Fb4dk7
Tank is cycling and might be a bit further along than I suspected. Have some fish food as an ammonia source in a net at the top of the tank. Think I should remove it or reduce the quantities? Will be lowering light intensity and hours for sure. Clean and a water change in a couple days maybe.

Just looking for opinions. Hair algae or a kind of fungus starting to grow?
 
Looks like a type of hair algae.

Algae is really normal for new tanks, particularly those that are cycling. You can drop the lights down for that plant but it depends on what other plants you have in there. How long are the lights on now?

Normally I would say the best way to tackle an outbreak is to do lots of water changes alongside manual removal but that isn't really going to work while you are cycling. As well as plants algae can also take up ammonia very easily.

The leaf that is pictured is damaged anyway so just trim it out. Trim out any others that are also damaged or melting back. Algae almost always goes after a damaged leaves first.
 
Lights were set to 14 accidently when I first planted. Have been set to 8 hours for last day or 2 but are set fairly high. Will dim them when I get home again later. My other plants (java ferns, java miss, Anubias) want the extra shade so probably should have been dimmer to begin with.

I'll do my best to clean and prune the tank and plants and do some frequent small water changes to see how it goes. Thanks for the advice. Not had much experience with live plants.
 
I find with lights people forget about actual day light, then they add another four hours on or so after dark! Particularly winter time.
 
So iv lessened my cyno issues by abit but wondered if i stopped the liquid working as it should by permanantly using a 225 micron polishing sock. My no3pox doesnt seem to be working as well since i moved to said socks over my mesh ones either. Is this stripping it?
 
Unicorn said:
So iv lessened my cyno issues by abit but wondered if i stopped the liquid working as it should by permanantly using a 225 micron polishing sock. My no3pox doesnt seem to be working as well since i moved to said socks over my mesh ones either. Is this stripping it?
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Gonna say no

Cant see it. Whyd you change from the mesh ones anyway? I find these the best of both worlds, last longer easier to clean and get 99% of the stuff a normal fabric type sock would without having to change it daily
 
NoobCannon said:
Gonna say no

Cant see it. Whyd you change from the mesh ones anyway? I find these the best of both worlds, last longer easier to clean and get 99% of the stuff a normal fabric type sock would without having to change it daily
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Fabric ones i change every 2 days before they overflow. Mesh ones last double that easily! Just water quality is probably a bit worse off? Iv got 3 of the felt ones and 1 mesh. I used to only use felt after stirring up sand or water changes but kept using them as iv been syphoning every other day to chase cyno off
 
Unicorn said:
Fabric ones i change every 2 days before they overflow. Mesh ones last double that easily! Just water quality is probably a bit worse off? Iv got 3 of the felt ones and 1 mesh. I used to only use felt after stirring up sand or water changes but kept using them as iv been syphoning every other day to chase cyno off
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Imo you would be best off sticking with one type. I find constancy the key in the reef world :)

Wouldnt worry about the socks stripping anything from your water tho.
 
Got a sample of Fluval Bug Bites with this months PFK, first impressions look good. Dropped some in the tank and the fish devoured it very quickly, not surprising given the ingredients.

Might have or order some the next time I need some try food.
 
If you don't want more, get it out now but its likely too late.

It's a common pest snail, certainly came in on a plant, likely as an egg. Too be clear they are perfectly safe for your tank and can actually be beneficial, they are just not very nice to look at. They can effectively self replicate given very little food and if there is a lot of food available expect plenty more where he came from and you can easily become over run.

If you become overrun most tactics to permanently getting rid without using other livestock are normally also fatal to other invertebrates like shrimp.

Tactics to get rid of them are:
Manual removal - (including snail traps etc.) this is really only population management and you will never get rid of them all.
Chemical treatments - There are specific snail treatments but they are also toxic to some plants, fish and all other invertebrates (like shrimp). Some medications are also toxic to snails (and shrimp) such as flubendazole but have the added benefit of treating your fish for internal parasites.
Assassin Snails - these will attack and eat other snails but they themselves can bread in the tank, just much slower than pest snails and are easier to remove from the tank later down the line.
Loaches and puffers - not recommended unless you are looking to keep them long term, many puffers are aggressive and will attack other fish and their own kind. If you don't have any fish yet and know someone with some you could potentially borrow one for a bit.
 
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K thanks for the heads up. Sadly I do also have shrimp that I rather like. I also plan on adding a Betta in a month or so. Might help to keep populations under control
 
Betta wont touch the snails.

If you spot any more drop in a couple of Assassin Snails and manually remove as many as you can see. That's your only options for sorting it if you have shrimp.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Betta wont touch the snails.

If you spot any more drop in a couple of Assassin Snails and manually remove as many as you can see. That's your only options for sorting it if you have shrimp.
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Well already removed this one and will keep an eye out. Not apposed to an assassin snail or 2 either.
 
Thought I'd give an update, been dosing Vibrant for about 6 weeks now, started off 4ml twice a week, went down to once a week after about 4 weeks when I started seeing some changes, also had rowaphos running in a reactor for those 6 weeks, algae problem is on its way out, still some left, but it's nowhere near as thick as it was, and it comes off the rocks really easily now, also keeps clogging up the reactor, having to clean out the sponge every couple of days (which I guess is a good thing since it's getting all the crap out of the tank!)

OCacQdt.jpg


Got a better nitrate test kit too (salifert) which is showing somewhere between 0-5ppm which I believe is the ideal level? My pocillopora which I thought was dead is gradually starting to show some more polyps too :)

Had good growth of my plating montipora frags, so I got a few more frags of interesting colours, had them for a week so far and barely any polyps showing - how long do they usually sulk for? I'm wondering the lemon peel is nipping them, although I've never seen it do so.

Starting to get the itch for a bigger tank now... I was warned, but must resist :p
 
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They are pretty tiny frags to be honest, don't know if I can get a better pic, I'll try next time I have the flow off for feeding. A couple of them had polyps when I first put them in, but havent extended since day 1 :/
 
Haggisman said:
They are pretty tiny frags to be honest, don't know if I can get a better pic, I'll try next time I have the flow off for feeding. A couple of them had polyps when I first put them in, but havent extended since day 1 :/
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If they grow and dont loose colour i wouldnt worry. Might just be that they are out at night.
 
sneakysnail said:
Noticed I have an intuder in my tank today. Think he was a stowaway on some of the plants I bought 5-6 weeks back. It's a very small snail with a golden shell. Like literal metallic golden looking shell. Very pretty but I have no idea what it is.

http://imgur.com/DZgdNtc
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looks like a bladder snail had the little critters in my tank last year, i just kept removing them when i spotted one eventually you'll get rid of them could take a good while though i had em for a few months.
 
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