Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Health => Topic started by: curly on January 31, 2014, 04:32:11 PM

Title: Dirty tank
Post by: curly on January 31, 2014, 04:32:11 PM
Please help, my tank has been set up for a long time and I have never had any issues till now. every thing in the tank now has a black clumpy growth, which has taken over the tank. I have tried to remove ornament's and let it dry but that did not work. I have tried a C02 filter, that has not worked. I really do not want to start again. Please help.
Title: Re: Dirty tank
Post by: Sue on January 31, 2014, 04:45:28 PM
It sounds like black brush algae  (http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm). According to that link, dosing with something like Flourish Excel or Easy Carb can help. I have come across the suggestion to lift the affected decor out of the water, squirt the FE or EC directly onto the algae, wait 5 mins than put it back into the tank. I've never done that though so I can't say from personal experience if it works or not.
Title: Re: Dirty tank
Post by: curly on January 31, 2014, 05:00:58 PM
Thank you for that, that looks exactly what I have. Would a CO2 filter work better, the one I had was a home made one (sugar and yeast in a water mix), I try to use chemicals as a last resort.
Title: Re: Dirty tank
Post by: Sue on January 31, 2014, 07:43:23 PM
To be honest, I don't know.

The link seems to differentiate between high and low light tanks. If you have high light, it suggests increasing CO2 and water circulation. For low light it suggests not doing water changes - though daily, very small changes should have the same effect of not causing fluctuations in CO2