Lucas

Yeah, I have a HOB filter. The water does come out a little brown. I might try taking the wood out and keep doing the same water changes for a while. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks. Thanks

Yep, you're probably right :oops: . At the moment, it gets a vaccuum every other week and about 1/4 water change every week. The foam still seems to build up within a couple of days. I'm just surprised at how quickly the water spoils! Perhaps over feeding? The tetras get approx 3-4 tetra-color granules per day and the bristle nose gets half a pleco spirulina disk per day.

Sorry for the bad pun. My little 37L tank has had an ongoing problem with foam forming around the rim of the tank. Can anyone say what would be causing this? It is a planted tank with 2 serpae tetras and 1 small bristle nose. AquaClear 150 with standard foam block and filter floss at the top. 1 Large piece of wood (this could be bad?).

Damn doubled up message :oops: oh well edited away now

Cheers guys. I guess I was hoping it would be a bit easier to be honest. I hope I don't sound like a cop out or a slack ass either! My freshwater tank is growing very nicely with plants and many healthy happy fish. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the amount of time involved with keeping these beauties, but at least I do my homework before jumping in and setting up blind!! This forum is the only reason I started keeping fish in the first place. BTW- My sentra gets it's 6 monthly oil changes ;-)

Sounds like someone I know who never ever ever did oil changes on his little nissan sentra and it still managed 360,000 Kms before blasting gunk onto the hood lining and rattling to a halt on the Auckland motorway. Bless. I own a nissan sentra now :-)

Haaahaha... yeah, I bet they were suphew. 25% of 4 liters... hehe. Seriously, that sounds more like the effort I would be prepared to go to once established! I don't suppose it had a skimmer? conch suggests no less than daily water changes though??? -I confused- How much is the Rio nano skimmer alone halifaxnzdude?

What would the water changes and maintenance be like with a tank with skimmer like above? Could you get it down to once a week?

Just out of interest, how often were you changing water and feeding your 8 litre nano? That is so tiny!

Hmmm... Ok, thats still bigger than what I was thinking. :oops: Humor me, but would a one foot cube tank, a HOB filter, 50w heater, some sort of bright lighting and religious water changes be enough to support just pulsing xenia alone. Would parameters swing too much in such a small system for it to work?

Can anyone give me an idea of what would be needed and how expensive it would be to set up a reletively small cube nano with little more than xenia and perhaps a crab? Can it be done cheaply and how difficult would it be to maintain? I know how expensive setting up a freshwater tank is... now... hehe :-) , so this is a cost exercise at the moment.

Hi Afrikan, Thanks for the response. The problem now seems to have cleared. I ended up virtually blacking out the room the tank was in for a week and allowing nothing but the light from the fluros. I've picked up a UV clarifier to just aid in reducing algae in future if and when it is needed.

Would it be a good idea to use them as a buffer if you are using CO2?

Got quoted about $50 here in Hamilton a few weeks ago when I got curious.

I got a tank off that dude about a month ago and then got the regulator etc from pearlingnz too. It all seems to be a better deal than a wee 350gm bottle! I like hands off, as much as is practical, especially with something as finicky as CO2!. Tank refilling every other month doesn't spin my wheels.

I live on a farm and use bore water... I suspect there might be agrichemicals that have leached into the ground. If I use a UV filter and just address the symptom, will that matter? or are the extra chemicals in the water going to be a health issue to the fish?

I'm getting a bit tired of having green/cloudy water. I've tried removing possible causes for this, but I'm not keen to either salt sterilise the tank, black it out for days on end or use clearing agents. Would the Green killing machine or another relatively cheap UV steriliser do the trick? Is there any other way to filter the water more effectively? 100 liters, eheim 2213 filter, understocked.

Sorry to hijack a thread, although an old one, but, I'm still getting this cloudiness coming back. I can see you (alan) have an aversion to additives of any kind in the tank other than fish and I don't want to add any more clearing agent to the water. What do you suggest, or is one of two many things that could be causing it?

I had cloudy water and crook fish. I dosed with melafix for 7 days and tested every other day for ammonia and nitrite. Neither moved above zero (or close to), and the tank smelled real nice . One of the fish died , two others affected by fungus on the pectorial fins got better, but the water remained cloudy until I used a clearing agent. Just thought I'd share my experience with the stuff. :bounce:

Hi, here it goes again with an old complaint. Water is getting quite cloudy. Plants are not looking very healthy and I have lost one dwarf gourami and a pearl is getting some white fluffys on the pectorial(?) fins. I've done quite a few water changes and I'm using Melifix. The tank smells fabulous, but the fish are still stressed. Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 10 What else can I do?! Is it likely that phosphate is involved?

The bio balls fill at least two thirds of the container. The noodles are ceramic, but they aren't glazed, so must be porus. First to get water is the noodles, then Foam, then Bio balls, then wool.

I should just try new tubes then. The current ones are only about a month and a half old. My tank is 45cm high with about 5cm of gravel on the bottom. Could the depth be an issue?

How do I clean this thing?! It has noodles at the bottom, stiff blue foam then bio ball thingys (smaller than marbles) then floss at the top. Since it has no separate trays, what is the best way to clean this without upsetting the bacteria?

Hmmm... I get the feeling that is what I already have in the current setup. Is it likely that they are not very grunty tubes or do I simply need more of them? :-?

I love bunnings