Many Thanks for all your help. I ve stopped feeding and massacred the
snails and guppies have just had 8 more babies but I am suffering an algae
bloom now.

Steve
"NetMax" wrote in message
...
I don't have the current size of all your fish, but I think with the
reduced food supply and less snails, you have room to add more fish.
Just remember, they are opportunistic feeders (they _are_ always hungry,
as they need to be ready to eat when they encounter food in nature).
They can also go several days without food. As Jim was always telling
us, their stomach is the size of their eyes. More problems are caused by
overfeeding than anything else.
--
www.NetMax.tk

"steve" wrote in message
...
Thanks I never used a newsgroup really before and hit reply instead of
reply
to group. I will try and cut back it does seem to look like a
snowstorm
when I feed. The trouble is the fish always seem hungry. I didn't
realise
how big there stomachs were either.

As for the snails I spent 3 hours yesterday removing them into an old
water
butt.

Its a shame about the clown loach though. Can I fit any more different
fish
or am I overstocked (Exclude snails in this equation)

Steve

"NetMax" wrote in message
...
"NetMax" wrote in message
. ..
"steve" wrote in message
...
Hi I have an aquarium running for 2 months now 36x14x14 inches
nitrites
0.
3 adult guppies 7 baby guppies 1 Queen Pleco 5 neon tetra 3 black
tetras and
1000 snails. I change 10 litres water a week. I vacuumed the
gravel
a
month ago and a day later the water went greeny brown so bad I
couldn't
see
the fish. I had to clear it by using greenaway. The same thing
has
just
happened again after gravel vacuuming. Is it really necessary to
clean
the
gravel my tank is well planted. It is fine until I clean the
tank.
Also
could I keep a clown loach with the fish and size tank .

Hope you guys can help I am still learning.

Steve (UK)

Tank size is 30g us. When your water gets easily polluted by just
gravel
vacuuming, then it is not balanced, and the next clue is that to
have
1000 snails, you have to be feeding them. They survive off of
uneaten
food, so they are becoming your main bio-load. A fish's stomach is
about
the size of their eye. Feed so that no food reaches the bottom of
the
tank. Give your pleco one sinking wafer and let him fight the
snails
for
it.

Well-planted tanks need little or no gravel vacuuming if there is a
low
fish load. Note that fish-load (or bio-load) includes rotting
uneaten
food and other living organisms, so your load is much higher than
the
fish you see.

I'd also be curious how much of the biological filtration is being
done
by your filters.

Regarding the Clown loach, nope. You would really want to have
several
of them, and in a 30g, you don't have the room for even one for
that
long.
--
www.NetMax.tk


From: "steve"
Reply-To: "steve"
To: "NetMax"
Subject: Cloudy Water
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 21:24:41 +0100

So when I clean all the gravel im spoiling the water. My tank is
heavily
planted and I have been overfeeding due to the baby Guppies The
Tank
does
smell very earthy also. Would I be correct in assuming if I remove
and
dispose of nearly all the snails this could also cause an imbalance.
I
dont
like killing anything even the snails and would prefer them to be a
part
of
the food chain is there an "environmentally friendly" way to get
rid of
them. I also thought you have to feed guppies several times a day
which
is
probably why I have a snail explosion.

Steve

The problem is not how often you feed, as snails don't eat fish poop
(afaik). The problem is uneaten food is getting to the bottom,
polluting
the tank. The snails are multiplying to take advantage of the
imbalance
you have created. Rotting feces will release a lot of ammonia into
the
water, but rotting food is worse. Feed sparingly 2 or 3 times a day
(baby Guppies eat lots of things besides fish-food), and then google
for
a snail removal strategy which works for you.

ps: I flipped you back to the newsgroup from email so others can add
their learned comments as well, and catch my mistakes too ;~)
NetMax