Aquarium question

brettmirl

Hi All,

Quick question for you. I seem to have brown patches appearing on the inside of my aquarium.

They rub off easily enough, but reappear after a few days.

The water seems clean enough.

I have some mollies and guppies in the tank with a small bottom feeder. There is a live plant and a silk one. The brown spots seem worst near the real plant and the heater.

Any suggestions on what to do? Or will i just keep rubbing it off?

delly

Is your filter full?

/EDIT, this really shouldn't be in the computer forum btw

christophicus

Why is this in the computer section?

delly

Maybe he uses the aquarium to water cool his pc at the same time...lol

brettmirl

Sorry - meant to put it in Animals/Pet Issues - can a mod move please?

fred funk }{

Sounds like algae, algae isnt harmfull to your fish but its not nice to look at. Do weekly cleans to keep it in check. Algae comes in lots of different colours, black hair algae is the plague of my tanks and its very hard to remove.

christophicus

Wouldnt be very effective seeing as he heats the water,lol

boroughmal

the reason you get this algae is that the filtration is either not working adequately or you havent got one, You could also have the balance of your fish wrong.

filtration comes in three forms in the adverage tank, Internal, External, and undergravell. In order for any of these to work they must be fed constantly,
with excrement, When the filter is working properly it will have three stages of work, Large filtration of particles, small filtration of particles and water polishing(or fine filtration) If all these work you will get clean clear water.
If they are working partly then it will put anerobic bacteria back into the water in the tank, and this is what the algae feed on. So remove the anerobic bacteria Which removes the algaes food Which kills the algae by starving them to death.
First try filter start in your tank/filter keep checking the water quality untill it clears the algae will then die.
A filter can be working half heartedly for a long period of time and is not noticable exept for the fact that it produces this algae.Also it produces a hue in the water, sometimes called cloudy water.There is also something called doing the job too thoroughly( over filtration)

On the other hand in the aquarium you could try to add some algae eaters, such as mollies & plecostomus.

Now you know the answer you can go back to the computer forum in peace
Regards

FranknFurter

boroughmal wrote:

the reason you get this algae is that the filtration is either not working adequately or you havent got one, You could also have the balance of your fish wrong.

filtration comes in three forms in the adverage tank, Internal, External, and undergravell. In order for any of these to work they must be fed constantly,
with excrement, When the filter is working properly it will have three stages of work, Large filtration of particles, small filtration of particles and water polishing(or fine filtration) If all these work you will get clean clear water.
If they are working partly then it will put anerobic bacteria back into the water in the tank, and this is what the algae feed on. So remove the anerobic bacteria Which removes the algaes food Which kills the algae by starving them to death.
First try filter start in your tank/filter keep checking the water quality untill it clears the algae will then die.
A filter can be working half heartedly for a long period of time and is not noticable exept for the fact that it produces this algae.Also it produces a hue in the water, sometimes called cloudy water.There is also something called doing the job too thoroughly( over filtration)

On the other hand in the aquarium you could try to add some algae eaters, such as mollies & plecostomus.

Now you know the answer you can go back to the computer forum in peace
Regards

Exactly, properly cultivated filters will sort it eventually, in the meantime tho, I suggest you use a scraper or one of the algae killer liquids (BE VERY CAREFULL, one (literally) drop too much and you may lose everything, its worth doing the math).

b

brettmirl

Thanks as always!

Am a bit wary about putting in a chemical to remove the algae, so will just stick to scraping it for now.

There is a filter in the tank alright. It's a sponge one. I had a look at it and it didn't seem overly clogged. Gave it a rinse with water from the tank.

The tank itself is quite small - about 10litres - I have 6 mollies, 2 gupies and a small bottom feeder in the tank. When I put in the bottom feeder, any cloudiness that was in the water seem to clear up but then the algae started.

If it's not doing any harm to the fish, I'll just scrape it off.

CJhaughey

How often are you doing partial water changes? A small tank like yours is a lot harder to keep than a bigger tank primarily due to reduced buffering.
maybe you should look at changing the water more often?