Complete disaster - help needed

[joanna3292]

Hi, we bought our son a fish tank for Christmas and spent 5 weeks getting it ready for the fish. Everything was great for about a month and then algae started to appear, we are changing 20 per cent of the water each week and treating it with the bottles that the fish shop sold us. We got rid of most of the algae and then made the mistake of introducing a bubbler. The whole thing then went different shades of green, the white sand on the bottom is a mess and long green strands have appeared everywhere. We dont know what to do next. I cant imagine that this tank is ever going to look clear again. I really want to get all of the white sand out to replace it but is this possible? I would dearly love to get all the fish out, clean the whole thing and start from scratch but where would we put the fish in the meantime... We have one Japanese fighter fish, some neon tetras and two coreys catfish. Obviously priority is keeping them healthy but we dont know where to start - any advice welcome.

[fr499y]

Welcome! What size is the tank? How long are the lights on? What filter are you using? This will give us a starting point to know what is wrong

[joanna3292]

thank you! The tank is a fluval 60 litre that came with a built in filter that sits at the side of the tank, its a foam filter block, the lights are left on the whole time although we have started turning them off at night in the last few days.

[mikeyw64]

that's probably a large part of your problem, too much light.

I would suggest cleaning out as much as you can manually (I used a toothbrush to tease it out) , do a 50% water change afterwards then black out the tank for 3-5 days plus stop feeding the residents for the blackout period.

Once yo ulift the blackout do another 25% or so water chnage.

[joanna3292]

Thank you, I will do a good clean out tomorrow and change half the water. Can I ask why we need to not feed the fish for the black out period? Is it because they will feed on the algae or is too much food perhaps part of the problem? I just googled the algae and it looks like 'thread hair'. I like the tip of using an old toothbrush, thank you!

[joanna3292]

At the moment we have taken out all of the fake plants, barrel for the fish to swim in and out of and the bubbler out of the tank, would you recommend leaving it all out until the tank is clear? Also, is white sand a stupid thing to have used in the first place? Perhaps gravel is better?

[mikeyw64]

As you have Corys sand is better, they don't care about the colour

Overfeeding can increase the nutrients in the water column which help feed the algae.

Dont worry about the fish starving, they won't

[mikeyw64]

oh and I would leave the bubbler ( I presume you mean airstone) in

[mikeyw64]

and we need pictures, we like pictures

[joanna3292]