My fishtank of Death...

I have a 10-gal. tank that has been up for about 10 year now. This last
month, I have been having
major problems. Maybe someone can offer suggestions? The tank has an
udergravel filter and one of those
"auqua-mini" filters w/the foam and charcoal filter inserts. I started
getting real bad algae problems - not much on the
tank itself or on any items in the tank. Mostly it was in the filter. After
a week or two, the foam insert and charcoal bag
are totally green and full of green particulates of algae (not long stringy
kind). Also, my tank water was continuously cloudy.

Also, I have had live plants in the tank for a long time. They got too big,
so I removed most of then. I tried using one
of the "algae fix" solutions. Has not helped much. Also tried solution to
"clear" the water. Sometimes it worked after a few days and the take was
very clear.

During this time, I had a Cory and Pleco die, and I have an dwarf fog that
got some sort of disease- it's body became covered
in white bumps all over and it died.

I have been doing a water change/cleaning every week using a Python cleaner
hose.

Also, I have checked all my chemical values - Ph, Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite,
and they are all within tolerance.

So, how can I get my tank back to a healthy state?

Thanks

"Leor Amikam" wrote in message
...
I have a 10-gal. tank that has been up for about 10 year now. This last
month, I have been having
major problems. Maybe someone can offer suggestions? The tank has an
udergravel filter and one of those
"auqua-mini" filters w/the foam and charcoal filter inserts. I started
getting real bad algae problems - not much on the
tank itself or on any items in the tank. Mostly it was in the filter.
After
a week or two, the foam insert and charcoal bag
are totally green and full of green particulates of algae (not long
stringy
kind). Also, my tank water was continuously cloudy.

$$ 10 years??? I hope you cleaned under that UGF regularly. Have you
tried partial water changes of say 15% daily for a week or more? Have you
checked your nitrate levels? Have you vacuumed your gravel at least
monthly?

Also, I have had live plants in the tank for a long time. They got too
big,
so I removed most of then. I tried using one
of the "algae fix" solutions. Has not helped much. Also tried solution
to
"clear" the water. Sometimes it worked after a few days and the take was
very clear.

During this time, I had a Cory and Pleco die, and I have an dwarf fog that
got some sort of disease- it's body became covered
in white bumps all over and it died.

I have been doing a water change/cleaning every week using a Python
cleaner
hose.

## How much water and have you cleaned out under the UGF? I quit using them
10 years ago because they're so hard to keep clean.

Also, I have checked all my chemical values - Ph, Ammonia, nitrate,
nitrite,
and they are all within tolerance.

So, how can I get my tank back to a healthy state?

## Can you give us the figures?
--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastadaisy
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

If your filter inserts are green it indicates a water born algae. Could
your filter be filtering out GW?

Give us your filter cleaning routine also..... A high level of nitrates
could indicate decayed matter under the UG plates. Exact parameter
values may be very helpful. You may not get much satisfaction from
products to clear water or algae....... If the water is milky-white
cloudy it may indicate a bio colony problem. If it's green cloudy, it
affirms the GW. As far as the ammonia..... it's apparently the most
toxic of parameters and a sharp spike in ammonia levels may have gone
unnoticed by your tests but cause a big problem in the fish.

I don't know just how many plants you removed, but reintroducing them
might soften the problems with your tank. Plants injest many substances
harmful to fish..... Something else to consider is: when removing the
plants you disturb the substrate possibly releasing tons of trapped
stuff into the water...... I know that from experience. If your lucky
it only results in increased algae.

http://www.geocities.com/spiral_72/Spirals_page.html

Leor Amikam wrote:
I have a 10-gal. tank that has been up for about 10 year now.

You must have been doing a good job, to keep the aquarium running that long.

This last
month, I have been having
major problems. Maybe someone can offer suggestions? The tank has an
udergravel filter and one of those
"auqua-mini" filters w/the foam and charcoal filter inserts. I started
getting real bad algae problems - not much on the
tank itself or on any items in the tank. Mostly it was in the filter. After
a week or two, the foam insert and charcoal bag
are totally green and full of green particulates of algae (not long stringy
kind). Also, my tank water was continuously cloudy.

Algae need light and nutrients. Have you been getting sunlight on the
filter, to cause the algae there? Have you changed/ removed the curtains
in the room, thus getting more sunlight in the aquarium?


Also, I have had live plants in the tank for a long time. They got too big,
so I removed most of then. I tried using one
of the "algae fix" solutions. Has not helped much. Also tried solution to
"clear" the water. Sometimes it worked after a few days and the take was
very clear.

Removing the plants could cause algae to grow, because the plants use up
nutrients that the algae otherwise thrive on. I think plants are great,
and I merely trim them or remove only a few, when they prevent fish from
swimming .

I would avoid "magic" chemicals as much as possible!


During this time, I had a Cory and Pleco die, and I have an dwarf fog that
got some sort of disease- it's body became covered
in white bumps all over and it died.

I have been doing a water change/cleaning every week using a Python cleaner
hose.

Also, I have checked all my chemical values - Ph, Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite,
and they are all within tolerance.

So, how can I get my tank back to a healthy state?

Thanks



I agree with another poster that daily partial water changes for a week
may be good, along with gravel vacuuming. In your hang-on filter, please
try to keep the media when cleaning. That is, rinse the media in water
from the aquarium (not chlorinated tap water) but do not replace. This
is to preserve the helpful bacteria in the filter, that keep your
aquarium healthy. Please do make sure that the filter stays fairly clean
and has good water flow through the media.

You're probably aware that the undergravel filter is also a biological
filter. Is the airstone or bare air hose delivering enough air to the
u/g filter lift column, providing good water flow?

If all else fails, you may try a breakdown of the aquarium. This is sort
of a last resort. Use buckets that have never had soap/ detergent in
them. Place fish with some aquarium water in a bucket. Place your
hang-on filter media in there too, to keep the bacteria alive. Remove
your gravel and wash with aquarium water or dechlorinated water, to
preserve your bacteria. Then remove the filter plate, rinse the grunge
out of the aquarium and clean the filter plate. Then put everything back
together with mostly new, dechlorinated water. Make sure temperatures
are similar, add "new" aquarium water 50/50 into the bucket with fish
and give them 20 min to adjust, then add the fish to the aquarium. Oh,
and please unplug the heater before you begin tank draining - I've had a
dry, hot heater melt a fishnet, and I also had a heater crack upon
filling the aquarium with water while the heater was plugged in partly
dry and super hot.

Another thought: perhaps your fish have finally grown too big for your
system? An inch of smaller fish per gallon is the usual rule, although
with the two filters you might safely exceed that a bit. Maybe it's time
for a bigger aquarium? If so, please re-use your gravel and filters to
preserve those bacteria : ) .

Good luck and don't panic! I'd favour trying to improve things slowly
before attempting a tank breakdown; however 10 gal aquariums are easy to
empty/ clean/ fill.
Steve

Thanks for all the help. What is "GW"? Also, I use the Python cleaner that
you attach to the sink, and then I suck up the gravel into the
tube and let it settle. I do this each time I do a water change. No
lighting changes has occurred - I have two compact fluorescent
10w lamps. My air stones are clean and I get a good stream of bubbles. I
will try the partial water change daily and see how that works.



"Steve" wrote in message
...
Leor Amikam wrote:
I have a 10-gal. tank that has been up for about 10 year now.

You must have been doing a good job, to keep the aquarium running that
long.

This last
month, I have been having
major problems. Maybe someone can offer suggestions? The tank has an
udergravel filter and one of those
"auqua-mini" filters w/the foam and charcoal filter inserts. I
started
getting real bad algae problems - not much on the
tank itself or on any items in the tank. Mostly it was in the filter.
After
a week or two, the foam insert and charcoal bag
are totally green and full of green particulates of algae (not long
stringy
kind). Also, my tank water was continuously cloudy.

Algae need light and nutrients. Have you been getting sunlight on the
filter, to cause the algae there? Have you changed/ removed the curtains
in the room, thus getting more sunlight in the aquarium?


Also, I have had live plants in the tank for a long time. They got too
big,
so I removed most of then. I tried using one
of the "algae fix" solutions. Has not helped much. Also tried solution
to
"clear" the water. Sometimes it worked after a few days and the take
was
very clear.

Removing the plants could cause algae to grow, because the plants use up
nutrients that the algae otherwise thrive on. I think plants are great,
and I merely trim them or remove only a few, when they prevent fish from
swimming .

I would avoid "magic" chemicals as much as possible!


During this time, I had a Cory and Pleco die, and I have an dwarf fog
that
got some sort of disease- it's body became covered
in white bumps all over and it died.

I have been doing a water change/cleaning every week using a Python
cleaner
hose.

Also, I have checked all my chemical values - Ph, Ammonia, nitrate,
nitrite,
and they are all within tolerance.

So, how can I get my tank back to a healthy state?

Thanks



I agree with another poster that daily partial water changes for a week
may be good, along with gravel vacuuming. In your hang-on filter, please
try to keep the media when cleaning. That is, rinse the media in water
from the aquarium (not chlorinated tap water) but do not replace. This
is to preserve the helpful bacteria in the filter, that keep your
aquarium healthy. Please do make sure that the filter stays fairly clean
and has good water flow through the media.

You're probably aware that the undergravel filter is also a biological
filter. Is the airstone or bare air hose delivering enough air to the
u/g filter lift column, providing good water flow?

If all else fails, you may try a breakdown of the aquarium. This is sort
of a last resort. Use buckets that have never had soap/ detergent in
them. Place fish with some aquarium water in a bucket. Place your
hang-on filter media in there too, to keep the bacteria alive. Remove
your gravel and wash with aquarium water or dechlorinated water, to
preserve your bacteria. Then remove the filter plate, rinse the grunge
out of the aquarium and clean the filter plate. Then put everything back
together with mostly new, dechlorinated water. Make sure temperatures
are similar, add "new" aquarium water 50/50 into the bucket with fish
and give them 20 min to adjust, then add the fish to the aquarium. Oh,
and please unplug the heater before you begin tank draining - I've had a
dry, hot heater melt a fishnet, and I also had a heater crack upon
filling the aquarium with water while the heater was plugged in partly
dry and super hot.

Another thought: perhaps your fish have finally grown too big for your
system? An inch of smaller fish per gallon is the usual rule, although
with the two filters you might safely exceed that a bit. Maybe it's time
for a bigger aquarium? If so, please re-use your gravel and filters to
preserve those bacteria : ) .

Good luck and don't panic! I'd favour trying to improve things slowly
before attempting a tank breakdown; however 10 gal aquariums are easy to
empty/ clean/ fill.
Steve

Leor Amikam wrote:
Thanks for all the help. What is "GW"? Also, I use the Python cleaner that
you attach to the sink, and then I suck up the gravel into the
tube and let it settle. I do this each time I do a water change. No
lighting changes has occurred - I have two compact fluorescent
10w lamps. My air stones are clean and I get a good stream of bubbles. I
will try the partial water change daily and see how that works.




"GW" as referred to by spiral_72 means green water. It's tiny,
free-floating suspended algae that makes the water a greenish cloudy
colour.

20 watts of fluorescent lighting in a 10 gallon aquarium is ideal for
plants! However, I'd expect some algae problems with this much light and
no plants.

You could buy some hornwort, water sprite or other inexpensive and fast
growing plants, and see if that helps reduce your algae. Certainly the
plants should grow well! If you do this, buy enough plants to
immediately spread out throughout the aquarium. Both plants I mentioned
are free-floating, but other good plants for you might be smaller
Vallisneria, inexpensive Rotala, Hygrophelia, Java Moss and the list
goes on. Just make sure you're getting true aquatic plants and not
water-tolerant houseplants (not so common in stores now).

Instead of adding plants you could reduce the light. You could even turn
off the light and just use room lighting. If the algae all die off from
lack of light then they'll decompose, requiring temporary, frequent
water changing to compensate.

Good luck!
Steve

The frequent call for cleaning under the UGF is almost a mixed blessing. In
my experience, I retained a clean underplate by using powerheads on the
uplift tubes. I used enough flow rate to turn the tank over once every 10
minutes. For your 10 gal tank, this would mean a powerhead of 60 gph. With
this flow rate, there remained sufficient flow under the plate to pull out
most of the deterus. Unfortunately this meant that it just ended up on the
top layer of the gravel; therefore regular vacuuming was necessary however
NEVER completely vacuum all of the gravel in one session. This will destroy
your biological filtration.

I did not use any additional filtration of any kind other than powerheads on
a UGF and even grew live plants quite well. I ran a 100gal, 40gal and 20
gal this way with crystal clear water and too many plant trimmings ending up
in the trash on a regular basis.

Fishman


"Leor Amikam" wrote in message
...
Thanks for all the help. What is "GW"? Also, I use the Python cleaner
that
you attach to the sink, and then I suck up the gravel into the
tube and let it settle. I do this each time I do a water change. No
lighting changes has occurred - I have two compact fluorescent
10w lamps. My air stones are clean and I get a good stream of bubbles. I
will try the partial water change daily and see how that works.



"Steve" wrote in message
...
Leor Amikam wrote:
I have a 10-gal. tank that has been up for about 10 year now.

You must have been doing a good job, to keep the aquarium running that
long.

This last
month, I have been having
major problems. Maybe someone can offer suggestions? The tank has an
udergravel filter and one of those
"auqua-mini" filters w/the foam and charcoal filter inserts. I
started
getting real bad algae problems - not much on the
tank itself or on any items in the tank. Mostly it was in the filter.
After
a week or two, the foam insert and charcoal bag
are totally green and full of green particulates of algae (not long
stringy
kind). Also, my tank water was continuously cloudy.

Algae need light and nutrients. Have you been getting sunlight on the
filter, to cause the algae there? Have you changed/ removed the curtains
in the room, thus getting more sunlight in the aquarium?


Also, I have had live plants in the tank for a long time. They got
too
big,
so I removed most of then. I tried using one
of the "algae fix" solutions. Has not helped much. Also tried
solution
to
"clear" the water. Sometimes it worked after a few days and the take
was
very clear.

Removing the plants could cause algae to grow, because the plants use up
nutrients that the algae otherwise thrive on. I think plants are great,
and I merely trim them or remove only a few, when they prevent fish from
swimming .

I would avoid "magic" chemicals as much as possible!


During this time, I had a Cory and Pleco die, and I have an dwarf fog
that
got some sort of disease- it's body became covered
in white bumps all over and it died.

I have been doing a water change/cleaning every week using a Python
cleaner
hose.

Also, I have checked all my chemical values - Ph, Ammonia, nitrate,
nitrite,
and they are all within tolerance.

So, how can I get my tank back to a healthy state?

Thanks



I agree with another poster that daily partial water changes for a week
may be good, along with gravel vacuuming. In your hang-on filter, please
try to keep the media when cleaning. That is, rinse the media in water
from the aquarium (not chlorinated tap water) but do not replace. This
is to preserve the helpful bacteria in the filter, that keep your
aquarium healthy. Please do make sure that the filter stays fairly clean
and has good water flow through the media.

You're probably aware that the undergravel filter is also a biological
filter. Is the airstone or bare air hose delivering enough air to the
u/g filter lift column, providing good water flow?

If all else fails, you may try a breakdown of the aquarium. This is sort
of a last resort. Use buckets that have never had soap/ detergent in
them. Place fish with some aquarium water in a bucket. Place your
hang-on filter media in there too, to keep the bacteria alive. Remove
your gravel and wash with aquarium water or dechlorinated water, to
preserve your bacteria. Then remove the filter plate, rinse the grunge
out of the aquarium and clean the filter plate. Then put everything back
together with mostly new, dechlorinated water. Make sure temperatures
are similar, add "new" aquarium water 50/50 into the bucket with fish
and give them 20 min to adjust, then add the fish to the aquarium. Oh,
and please unplug the heater before you begin tank draining - I've had a
dry, hot heater melt a fishnet, and I also had a heater crack upon
filling the aquarium with water while the heater was plugged in partly
dry and super hot.

Another thought: perhaps your fish have finally grown too big for your
system? An inch of smaller fish per gallon is the usual rule, although
with the two filters you might safely exceed that a bit. Maybe it's time
for a bigger aquarium? If so, please re-use your gravel and filters to
preserve those bacteria : ) .

Good luck and don't panic! I'd favour trying to improve things slowly
before attempting a tank breakdown; however 10 gal aquariums are easy to
empty/ clean/ fill.
Steve

Hmm. Lots of algae and dead ADF. Did you test your nitrate levels? What
were the results? HOw much and how often have you been doing your water
changes? African Dwarf Frogs can be very sensitive to nitrates and it's
neccessary to keep them lower then you might in a tank with other types
of fish. It may have been one of the chemicals that killed the
fish/frog but, nitrates were the first thing that came to mind.