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Borderline rehoming fish and selling tank


Dana

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It's back.

BBA spotted this morning. New plants are rotting, slime building.

I'm collecting what ever rain water is available, I've added clearmax to the filter and have stopped using water from the hot water cylinder. Water changes twice per week, light and food limited.

P04 still raised, PH near 8, all other levels within normal.

I give up. I really just give up :(

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just speed reread this thread again -

what sort of substrate are you using and where did you get it from

what sort of rocks and where did you get them from

what types of plants are they

do you have to turn all your lights on at once or are they able to be turned on separately

how long did it take for the algae to build up

how often have you water changed this time around and how much

how much excel are you using

what is your stock this time around

what are you feeding

how often and how much

what are your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings

what is your kh

do you use chlorine remover for water changes

did you use a liquid bacteria at start up

I know you will have already answered these questions but bear with me if you can

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Hey try adding more fast growing plants as this will make the algae have to compete for light nutrients etc. Also adding siamese algae eaters will help get rid of the black beard algae.

Discard all the plants that are heavily affected by algae, and maybe add some CO2 and increase the current flow.

If some bits of algae fall off then manually remove it from the tank because it will start to decay.

:)

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+1 for the siamese algae eater. I always keep at least one. found they are the key to having no bba.

just got to make sure you get a true sae.

is there any way you can fill a large bin/barrel/buckets from somewhere with town supply water to use for water changes for a month or 2? or as suggested try rainwater?

sorry if this has been posted before just skimmed this thread

good luck and keep trying.

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Your lighting is fine it's only 85w over 215litres.. that's actually low (<0.5w/litre), I prefer 1w/litre or more. I'd recommend some hardy slow-growing plants like java fern, you can even tie it to a rock, and it can survive algae attacks. you should at least that way get something growing to help to absorb excess nutrients

I have an idea, those sponge cartridges you replaced, do they have carbon inside them? i came across some that did, possibly they are leaching phosphate (as you mentioned earlier re carbon). try the PO4 tests again on a bucket of tap water and bucket of tap water with the cartridge submerged, test every second day for a week or two

I'd also recommend doing lmsmith's tests:

I would try doing a huge water change to get your phosphate down as low as possible. Take a phoshate reading. Do your regular routine with lighting, but don't feed the tank. Do another phosphate reading in 5 days without feeding and see how much the fish are adding to the system.

I wonder if it's also worth setting up another container of a similar size and ghost feeding it then doing a phosphate reading - that way you can see if the fish or food are adding more phosphate?

If it's the food, you can change to a lower phosphate food. If it's the fish, you can reduce the bioload by taking out some fish and seeing if that helps.

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Not sure what point you're making but the fact of the matter is that watts per volume is not a valid formula for the amount of light in an aquarium. Person A with a 60cm long x 30cm high & wide (54L) tank may do well with two 20W CFL bulbs, however person A has no right to tell person B that the same two bulbs on their 30 long x 30 wide x 60 high (54L) tank will have the same results. There will be less than half the light at the bottom of tank B among other factors, CO2, nutrients, etc. Instead of using watts per gallon or litre, one must look at lighting on a case by case basis. Hope this clears things up :)

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a roughly workable formula

But it doesn't work these days. Back in the days of standard aquarium sizes and T12 tubes, yes it worked. But there are just too many different lighting choices and unusual tank sizes to even consider the above formula. I can guarantee you'll get more LSI out of a 200w halide than you will from 2x 100w incandescent bulbs.

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Thank you Sophia lol.

Latest update...

I called the council and had my mains flushed.

Added Clearmax to the hood filter as advised by the rep, happily take further advice on this re removing phosphate. Appears to have had no impact. Tap water still reading 0 for cold, and .5 for hot water cylinder.

30% water changes every 4-5 days, incl gravel siphon and moving rocks.

PH 7.8 (usual for this tank)

Ammonia 0

No2 0

No3 40ppm (water change yesterday, about to do another after this reading)

P04 2.5 (WTF!!!)

Feeding once per day.

I found a grey hair today....

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Yeah, read that but thanks.

It must be food, and the decaying plants are a given. A bit of a vicious circle really. The tank kills the plants, the plants poison the tank.

So, the shops haven't been of any help. Best non or low phosphate foods?

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