Green water

Ohhhh I see. I'll go do that quickly now then

 

That would be much appreciated thank you!

 

Your fish may not like that. Fish need a regular day night type cycle. Best to dim the effect of the light somewhat.
Try also Scape Liquid Carbon, you can get it from that link I sent you.

 

Ok thank you!

 

Hi everyone. Been quiet for a bit, but exams are done now so I'm back.
Unfortunately water changes haven't helped. I even did a full week of water changes everyday, but I don't want to keep that up in case I change too much. Anyways the water is a nice solid green again after 5 days since the last water change.
Next step will be the plants, just waiting for the end of the month for pay day.
What plants do you guys recommend I get? I know very little about aquarium plants and I don't have very green fingers (unless it's algae it would seem..)
Also no reduced feeding to once every second day. I'm also thinking maybe till I can buy plants I'll leave the lights off again,and just let the tank get the natural light from the room, and then do water changes every second or third day. Thoughts on that?

 

How much and how long is it getting natural light? Is the tank in the sun?

 

Nope not directly. It's blocked from the window by a cupboard, but the room does get Sun from around 10 am to about 3pm. Also with both fish tanks I only put the light on from 10 am to 4pm

 

Ok so I have recently had some experience with these smaller tanks in the last 6 months whilst setting up my fish room. I have only had big 400L tanks for the last 20 odd years, so setting up and fiddling with these smaller tanks has been a real learning curve.

Firstly as @Hawk mentioned your heater, I found that the best position for them is along the back horizontally as low down as you can get it. Also the substrate, I agree with @f-fish, found for me pool filter sand works very well in the smaller tanks mixed with a bit of the normal aquarium gravel.

Also snails make a huge difference as well. I put some MTS snails in one of the small tanks and they did well and alao did a good job of keeping the algea controlled. I had pond snails in one of the tanks that was actually the same size as yours and although they kept the tank relatively clean and clear they multiply very quickly and soon start to over run the tank so I put in some assassin snaila to fix that problem.

And finnaly that small internal sponge filler that you have their, in my opinion they are a waste of time and do little more than moving water around in that size tank. You would either need a bigger one, I would say double the size or replace it with a large sponge filter, they work great. There are 2 types you can get and they are cheap, basically you get the one that just sits in the tank and then you get the one that sticks to the side of the tank. I have postwd pictures below so you can see.

Chemicals and water additives are ok, but you can usually her aways without them with the correct filtration, no matter how big or small the tank is.

My 120L community licorice all sorts tank went from perfect to perfect green water and I got it back to crystal clear again with right ftration in place to handle the bio load on the tank with chemical intervention, except for a pinch of Seachem prime for the water changes and some aquariam salt.


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So today I changed the gravel. Used gravel from the fish shop that looks like pool filter sand, and I used it with the gravel from my current fish tank but i first boiled that before mixing them.
I emptied out the whole tank, cleaned it with boiling water and put in fresh water that I prepared over the weekend.
Next week I will buy some more plants to add in and then I will also then look at a bigger filter or a sponge filter.

@David Kusner the filter i currently have blows water out at quite a strength, and I'm worried if I get a bigger filter the current will be too strong for my Betta.. So I'm thinking before i do that maybe i can change the filter sponge with a finer sponge i use for my other canister filter in my second tank. Its though flat sheets of spongy material that you just cut up to the size you need.
Also I had a look at my heater's box, and it says not to fully submerse it. On the side it has pictures of do's and don'ts, and the only do was upright with the top out of the water, and the water being above the minimum line but below the black part. I did have it too high up though so I've fixed that.

I will se how it goes from now with the fresh gravel

 

Here's a picture of how it looks now

 

The filter you have in your tank is a Cascade 170, which is rated to have a flow rate of up to 170 litres per hour.
The packaging also states it is for tanks up to 38 litres.

The 170 litre flow rate should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt.
Without the sponge, and at the very surface of the tank that might be possible.
The moment you add a sponge, and the sponge gets a bit dirty, you can divide the flow rate by a third to half.

I don't like internal filters in my tanks, as they are too much work.
You need to remove the entire filter to be able to clean it.
I much rather use Hang On Back filters.
On a tank your size the Cascade 100 or even Cascade 150 HOB filters will work very well.
The only part of the filter actually in the water is the intake pipe.
The rest of the filter hangs on the back of the tank, hence the name.

The filters come with cartridges that you can replace.
I would suggest you don't replace them, but discard them.
Get a small bottle of Seachem Matrix, and fill the filter media compartment about 2/3 of the way.
Add a fine plastic mesh between the media compartment and the impeller sectio to prevent any stones entering the impeller.

You can add a sponge pre-filter over the intake sieve easily to prevent shrimplets or fry being sucked in.
See the tank with Seachem Stability for 8 days at the required dosages, and your filter will be good to go.

You can clean the sponge filter once a week, or as often as you see flow diminish.
The filter itself you can clean once every 6 months or so, by removing the filter and dumping the filter media in a bucket of old tank water and rinsing it out.

 

Oh ok, good to know. I'll also then look to see for those in terms of pricing. Are the HOB filters noisy though? This tank is in my bedroom lol

 

They make about the same noise as a head filter and then of course the trickle of water into the tank.

 

Oh ok, then I'll have a look for that.
What plants do you recommend for this tank? I'm going to buy some plants next week once I've been paid, but I don't want to buy any plants and then I struggle to look after them. And I'll use that site you gave me.

 

The Penn Plax Cascade range of HOB filters are virtually silent.
I have 4 tanks running with them in my office, and my PC fan makes more noise than they do.
They have a water diffuser type attahement that breaks the flow of the water as it leaves the filter, which makes for almost silent operation.

 

Try java fern, crypts, vallis, anubias...

 

I have an anubias (and just found out today not to try plant it in the substrate.. oops..) and the other plant I think is a hyacinth.. Could be wrong since I know hyacinth are what cause the issues in the hartebeestpoort dam and a lot of others so might be wrong..

 

Oh nevermind it's a water wisteria

 

Try the crazy pets in Edenvale by the Hyperama, I saw they had some hob I think they were Cascade 700 and the price seemed reasonable, I think they were around R800, but it looks like a decent size hob.

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Awesome I'll do that. Otherwise I'll also look at pet masters..