Tag Archives: gravel

Can someone explain to me what is going on with my tank?

Ok, I’m doing fish less cycling. I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank with all the gravel and 8 live plants. No fish.

I did what was recommended by getting some water from the cartridge of an established tank. I only put about a table spoon of the sample into my tank. Also, since I cannot find pure ammonia here in germany (air force base), someone suggested I use shrimp as my source of ammonia. So the shrimp has been sitting in there for about 3 hours now and my tank is cloudy! My tank has only been up for two days now.

Is this normal? Doesn’t mean theres signs of bacteria? I tested the water and 20ppm of nitrate, and about .5 nitrite but no ammonia. I’m confused! lol.

Thanks in advance who read this whole thing! =]
Tetra-yes, I have dechlorinated my water.

Feeding live Brine Shrimp?

I’m currently cycling an Eclipse 5 gallon corner fish tank (freshwater) housing a single juvenile Zebra Danio and an African Dwarf Frog. My equipment includes a bio-wheel filter, hood lamp, air stone, large gravel substrate and a 25-watt Top Fin heater that is currently set at low and produces a consistent water temp. of 77.5 degrees. (sorry if this was all useless info!)

Basically, I’m looking to diversify/enhance said Danio’s & ADF’s current diet of flake food and frozen blood worms. Preferably, I’d like to find a local pet store (Seattle area) that sells ready-to-feed live brine shrimp. Setting up a mini-hatchery in my tiny ass apartment seems like a hassle (let me know of any possible mis-conceptions I may have about this!), although if no better options present themselves, I’ll make it work.

Can anyone share their experience feeding live Brine Shrimp? How often/how much should I feed? How do I make sure the ADF gets his fair share of live Brine Shrimp?

Regards!
I’m sticking with a single Zebra Danio just until the tank has finished cycling.

Freshwater Tank, nasty beard algae high hardness!?

I have only a few fish, guppys, neons, cory cats. 150 Gal tank with slate rock, gravel and sand. Live plants (one type, momo?) Fern like straight growing, 74″ max. I had an issue with algae, first thin black then green then thick spongy green, now thin and thick green with the bearded brown on EVERYTHING.
Water test says, Nitrate is 0, Nitrite is 0, Hardness is 120ppm, Alka/Buff is 120ppm, pH is looking like 8.4, Ammonia is 0.
Ugh……Am I going Brackish?! What do I do. Add pHMinus? then what? I can buy fish,shrimp and plants for the algae issue as well as scrubbing, but dude, whats up with my water! Could extra conditioner help this? My main issue was and acted like Nitrate issues, but does not seem to be it.
The Green algae began as the famous Blue Green then evolved into the Hairy Brown. Bubbles lover to stick to it, they get to the size of BB pellets! Rocks are not fizzling, and the plants only get the air bubbles stuck to them, mild algae if any. The glass only gets the paper thin green algae. I do use Phos-X, granted only enough for a 30 Gal tank. However it does cut down on the odor. Yucky pond! The hard water/pH and such would make sense to why newly added fish pop up dead within a couple days…I just don’t want to be limited by the hardy Goldfish being the only thing able to survive this! lol Oh, my lights are on for 4 hours, and I feed only once a day, 1/2 tsp of granules and 1/2 flake. Everything is gone in less than 3min.
Looks like short feather hair at a few feet, but has a very “can’t hold the rock kind of slimy” feel and has a soft/gel look to it. Colors range from bright emerald to tourquise, then theres black, a brown, and baige sand brown. I have darn good photos, I’ll get them online if someones interested.

Can I use small aquarium snails in my bamboo vase to eat algae?

I have a medium-sized vase with about 10 pieces of lucky bamboo in water, with gravel about halfway up. The roots extend all the way through the gravel to the bottom of the vase. The sides of the vase are now covered in algae, even though I change the water regularly. I don’t think it’s a huge problem, but I’m wondering if I buy a handful of small freshwater snails at the local pet-store, if they’ll be able to survive in that kind of space, and whether they will eat the algae. Should I buy snails or small shrimp? Can I change the water and put in fresh cold water without killing them?

Best Freshwater Invert to clean sand?

I have a 10 gallon freshwater tank. It has 3 old zebra danios that are going to die soon from age, 2 pygmy cories,2 panda corys, and 2 african dwarf frogs. I used to have gravel and now sand. I do monthly water changes and i will hover over the sand with my gravel vac to keep it clean. I was just wondering what can i put in here that are cheaper and can live in a 10g ill be adding black khuli loaches. I asked my LFS and they said ghost shrimp will bully and might even kill my frogs. But i herd ppl have them togethrr peacefully. So i dont know what is best. I was also thinking about a apple or mystery snail. So what invert is best for my planet sand 10g freshwater aquarium?