Hi,
I have a love fish 64L tank currently running with the internal filter that came with it. I have 9 penguin tetras. Its not a planted tank, but I have 2 java ferns, 2 anubias and hornwort floating. Its a relatively new tank, I moved the fish in at the beginning of Feb once the tank was fully cycled after doing a fishless cycle (from Dec-Feb). Its been running fine with ammonia and nitrites always zero.
I've been doing at least weekly water changes for the last month, initially I was doing them more frequently, as I'm finding I'm getting a lot of debris on the sand at the bottom of the tank and the water starts to turn brownish/green within the week. I suspect I'm over feeding, I definitely was initially, but I've tried to reign it in a bit. I'm feeding flaked food. I tried frozen bloodworms, the fish mostly ignored them and they just sank to the bottom! (I tried different ways of feeding them to the fish, but it just seems they werent keen on them). They love the flaked food, when I put a pinch it theres a feeding frenzy - but once it falls more than 3 inches from the water surface they ignore it and it falls to the bottom. I am just giving a small pinch once a day to them, but I'm still finding a lot falls to the bottom through the feeding frenzy.
I am wondering is this just a feeding issue? (advice please, if so!!)
Or maybe if I had a better flow rate and/or filter would less fall to the bottom and maybe more would get sucked up and dealt with in the filter
Do I need to look at my circulation/dead zones, again to possibly move more of the debris into the filter?
I'm wanting to upgrade my filter anyway I think, as apparently the internal ones arent very good, but at the moment mine does seem to be OK in terms of water chemistry - its really just the debris/look of the tank that seems to be affected.
It would be great if I could get the tank needing a less intensive maintenance schedule, the hoovering and water changes have got to be stressful on the fish to a certain degree (they certainly dart about when it happens anyway).
Thanks in advance for any advice!!!