matt2039

Right then. I have just done a large water change - approx 60%. Taken the wood out and scrubbed all the algae off i could before returning to tank. Removed any plant leaves showing signs of algae growth and scrubbed all the sides of the tank. Now the lights are off and a blanket is over the top of the tank i will leave it like this for a few days and see what happens. I appreciate very much all the feedback i have received. I have found this forum to be very helpful and informative. I will make sure to post the results of how this goes in a few days. Fingers crossed. Cheers :-)

got the wood from local fish shop.

The yellow at the back is only on the suction cup thingee holding the uv filter. The yellow on the wood is not really yellow it just looks like that from the photo. I havent attempted to scrape the driftwood as of yet but i believe that to be bare wood. There is a fine layer of brown algae over most of the driftwood but the big brown/black spots on the right top photo are what im starting to suspect could be toxic if it is indeed Cyano. Is that correct?

Hi all These are some images of the algae in my tank. Hope someone can help identify what it is. you can see the dark spots which appear very smooth. They look darker in the flesh - the phone camera makes it look brighter than the naked eye.

Thanks again for the feedback. I will try upload some photos tomorrow. Was going to do so now but just read how you have to do it. Alas it is more effort than i thought and bed is calling me!

Hi all cheers for the replies. I'll try to answer most questions in one go. Temperature of tank is set to 26c and i do not have a separate thermometer. I have a Fluval E200 heater which has the thermometer built in. I understood them to be very accurate but maybe i should check this? I am not using any algae control but have been adding 5ml of API CO2 booster each day to aid the plants. I don't think oxygen is a problem as i have plenty of surface agitation and was actually thinking of heading in the opposite direction and reducing this and removing the air stone and instead adding CO2 to the water to aid my plant growth. I understood the plants should produce enough oxygen on their own? Anyhow this has not been actioned yet as i wanted to get to the bottom of this problem first before starting on something else. I was also adding some flourish to the tank (normal flourish not the excel) again to aid plant growth but have not for a few weeks. I thought it a bit pointless adding chemicals with the uv running? If oxygen was a problem would i not have problems with everything else? The mention of the algae being the problem, ie toxic, is something that i had considered. Is there anything toxic that is relatively common i should be looking for? I seem to have several types of algae in the tank growing on the driftwood and plastic suction cups etc. Im not sure how to tell good algae from bad but understand some algae growth is normal and in fact healthy. Some of it looks very dark - almost black - and quite smooth blotches about 1-2cms across. I also have large white/yellowish spots on some of the suction cups. Plant food that i feed is mainly flake and micro granules. Had some Pleco logs but only ever dropped the one in as fish only lasted a little over 24 hours.

I need some help as i have no idea why my fish keep dying. I have a 180 litre tank with an Aquis 1200 Filter. The tank i purchased 2nd hand and the filter was new and fired up at the start of Jsnuary. I cycled the filter and have been through the usual drill with water changes etc. Happily living in the tank for the past 5-6 weeks has been 2 electric blue rams and 10 x neon tetras. I had 2 black line flying foxes in the tank from about end of january but about 5 weeks ago they unexplainedly perished 2 days apart. I replaced them with 2 ottos which lasted a few days. I thought at first maybe the Rams had a go as they were relatively new and being a bit bigger maybe they were picking them off. I changed tack and got a bristlenose - he lasted a little over 24 hours. 2 algae eaters - same result. I gave up at this point and checked my water repeatedly but everything comes up seemingly perfect. I left it a few days and checked for fluctuations but everything came back fine. Lots of reading on the net and I decided that perhaps I was not acclimatising them properley. I plucked up the courage to try 2 more bristlenoses taking the time to leave them floating for an hour then introducing a bit of my tank water every 10-15mins over the course of another hour - they lasted 2 days. All this time my water parameters show no sign of ammonia or nitrite and a small amount of nitrate. PH sits at 7.3-7.5. Water changes have always been weekly and always about a 25% change. I had introduced in amongst this a Hoplo which seems to be just fine. Im at my wits end as I cant figure this out and dont want to kill anything else. Tank also has an airstone and UV filter. It is planted with 2 Amazon swords, some java fern on a large piece of driftwood and a couple of other plants I dont know the names of. It seems anything that is an algae eater of sorts just doesn't cut it. Any ideas would be much appreciated.