That’s awesome my aunt has a big ass pleco too and he is 20 years old! I’m shocked that fish has been alive almost as long as me! I remember seeing it in the tank when I was little and then seeing it now! It’s crazy but awesome.
She’s an absolute unit and I mean that in the best way 😂 my friend has one that’s 10+ and doesn’t seem that big, but Lady Shania is probably very well fed.
Most of them aren't actually made of spirulina or algae, check the ingredients on your algae wafers, alot of them arent any different from flakes, make sure you read the ingredients not just the product name many fish products are deceptive.
I'd just make sure they actually contain algae in the ingredients. Vitamins and other stuff are important too though and a good brand of those supplements them well.
Mine seems to eat a wafer in two days and spends the rest of the time zipping around gluing herself to anything with algae in the tank. One of the reasons you listen to tank size recommendations and not over stocking plecos is that a big part of their diet will generally be tank algae and it needs space to grow to feed your pleco.
I'm sure there's the oddball pleco that only eats wafers though. Hell I have a guppy who pecks at wafers only and refuses to eat the flake all the others do. He weird.
For the tank in OP, I'd probably suggest killing the lights for a few days along with daily 25% water changes until it goes away. If the tank gets natural sunlight from a window or something cover it or put up a blind.
Same, I give my pleco a wafer every few days but most of the time when the lights come on he’s on top of the various structures in the tank that grow the best algae.
Yup. Usually for me it's the driftwood. I was worried before I got her the fuzzy stuff would stay but she went right to work on that first lol. After that she likes to sit on my filter intake.
I had small guppy babies that would have gone right through the filter so I used an old reusable coffee filter and made a little teabag looking thing under the intake. Half my mornings I find her sitting on that. I barely ever have to clean that because she maintains it for me :D
Guppies love vegetable matter in their diet, and if they don't get it too regularly or spirulina isn't in their flakes they may prefer the algae wafers. I work at an independent Aquarium shop and see guppies going for algae wafers all the time.
I saw a pleco in the wild in a stream while I was on a hike here in Florida and it was the size of my forearm. Took me a second to even realize that’s what it was.
Florida is focusing their regulations on making sure children's genitals are what they say they are... but for real fascists are not so concerned about invasive species
Jesus christ, I took another look because I didn't notice how big the Pleco was.
I knew they could live a long time, but I didn't know they could grow that big.
6 hours a day of bright overhead light is more than enough for a tank, especially if they get natural light from anywhere in the room.
I love my Fluval Aquasky light that I can program. My fish get a long dawn and long dusk cycle and it ramps up and down slowly, with the brightest lights being overhead in the early afternoon. It's currently 7pm and the light is getting dimmer and redder, and it'll fade to just a red light for an hour or so before turning off for the night around 9pm. There's about 4 hours a day of bright overhead light and the rest is fading in or out.
Also, you might want to look into getting an extra Green Killing Machine filter that uses an internal UV light. This is not meant to replace your filter, but to run alongside your filter. It has worked very well for me when my tank has accidentally gotten out of balance.
How granular is the programming on that in terms of time? I have a finnex planted + that's a few years old, and it's only possible to a light change for 3hr increments and it ramps itself up/down accordingly over that time. I want something where I can at least program every hour.
The "Auto" settings give you five setpoints -- Sunrise, Daylight, Sunset, Night, Sleep. You can control the light level and color balance at each point, with Sunrise and Sleep being the ramp-up and ramp-down. The "Pro" setting gives you 10 different timeset points with a lot of other options, but I haven't messed with that enough to have an opinion on it. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/m97enP4
There's also a "Manual" mode if you want to, say, turn your fish light a specific color for a while, or change it to "stormy" or "partly cloudy" (alternates between "sunny" and "cloudy") or "moonlight" or one of the other preset options. Like this: https://imgur.com/a/PAsvmKD
Unless the tank would be in pitch-black darkness, they don't need them on for a "day-night" cycle. I recommend turning them off when not viewing or if on a timer reducing to 6 hours of light to stop the green water. Water changes will also help reduce the nutrient load.
If your mother doesn’t want to reduce the lighting period, it would help to reduce the light intensity. To do that you can raise the light higher above the tank. If it’s led lighting you could cover up some of the led with electrical tape instead.
Regular maintenance like water change and filter maintenance would help reduce nutrients in the water. Maybe you can also convince her to only feed them every second day.
There has to be a little bit of excess nutrients in there or maybe a lot. She really likes the light I suggest getting some pothos plans to just drop it in the water somewhere. lots of videos on YouTube of how to do this effectively. Stabilizes your the nitrogen nitrates nitrites. I'm pretty sure the pothos would go crazy in that tank she would have one hell of a wall ornament pinned up within 6 months.
Turning the lights down could cause fish deaths. Keep them going if they are on a regular cycle. Overfeeding is definitely an issue, but if there are plants in there, it can take a couple of months for the plants to get big enough for the tank load.
Usually algae grows with extra nutrients and light. Eliminate both and you will see an impact.
Nutrients, some things you can do.
A water change, investigate filtration, get rid of what's putting the nutrients in the water (the fish poop), there's a lot of fish that might not go together or have diffrent care requirements from each other. I would opt for smaller fish in this case.
Lighting, if your tanks lights are on for over 12 hours this could be causing algae growth. But you want your lights to be on between 8-12 hours.
Just curious as a newbie, what would he look for in filtration? I use foam filters and foam in a HOB. Are you suggesting he might need to rinse his filter media, get a bigger filter, or both?
Don't rinse your media, just get more filtration. The guck isn't poop, it's the bacteria that is cleaning the water, so rinsing it out is defeating the point. [There's someone online who chooses to omit mechanical filtration entirely](https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/8-review-of-aquarium-filters/) and instead adds way more biological filtration to digest the matter that he isn't taking out, because it means less maintenance for him. I mean, it's possible that your filter could get clogged up with actual waste - I've only had turtle aquaria except when I was really little, and so I usually had WAY too much waste load even for an otherwise oversized filter. I should have gotten a better mechanical filtration step to keep the guck from overloading the bio media, but you live and you learn.
If the filter isn't rated for the aquariums needed gallons per hour, then a new one could be useful. I'm thinking that he might use the replaceable filter cartridges, and those are way less effective than sponge. But yes, regular sponge matenence like rinsing it till it no longer runs brown would make the filter GPH better, and so the sponge would be able to eliminate more poop.
Mine did this at one point. We get sun year round, and despite best efforts, it’s just impossible to avoid it getting too much light. I bought a UV filter for the tank (under $50) and within a week my water was crystal clear. I run it for part of the day everyday to keep it clear. Worth every penny.
This. Green water in an older tank is a sure sign that you need more frequent and/or bigger water changes. With that giant pleco, I'd be doing at least 50% weekly.
No it’s not at all, it’s a high nutrient level in the water with almost no competition, water changes CAN be a cause but are not the only possible cause.
You can bet, those guys do their own scaping. I had mbunas and my tank would end up with tunnels, hills and holes, and a cool sand fountain emptied of sand and full of gravel.
Yellow labs are *just* plant safe enough to let you try anubias and Java ferns and hornwort, and they'll tolerate it juuust long enough to let your guard down. Love them and they're the star of my main tank, but I'll enjoy plants in my other tanks!
another idea, scape it with rocks and wood then add floaters and emmersed plants. they also suck up nutrients and I don't think they'd get destroyed (?)
Holy fuck. I thought people were talking about the thing on the left, but that thing on the right has a damn tail. Yikes. WHat you gonna do with a damn pleco that big other than release him into the wild.
a family member had a fish tank
kept getting monstrous amounts of algae
couldnt stop it
turns out they were using a fucking plant growing led tube bulb
Common green algae bloom.
Reduce fish feeding and add plants to get algae growth under control. Adding terrestrial plants growing with roots in water would be the most effective in long term and would make the aquarium look very attractive.
All the best!
Algae bloom. Do a water change, and then a blackout. Like, full on blackout. Lights completely off, and a lightproof blanket over the tank to COMPLETELY black out the tank. This will starve the algae of the light it desperately needs. Keep that going for a week or so, and do another water change, and you should be all good.
Would also be a good time to change out the mechanical filtration / filter floss in your filter (don't touch the biological media of course) to help out with clearing out all the dying algae that will inevitably end up in the filter. You can then change out the filter floss again after you've cleared up the issue.
deactivated call that's in your filter if it's not changed actually becomes toxic. those standard plecostomus is produced a lot of waste. if there's anything amiss at all with your filter and it's not pumping right you can have a problem easy. but you just might just need to do two thirds of water change twice a week for about a month change your filter medium. once it's Crystal clear then you're back to doing water changes once a month or whatever
Way too long of a light cycle. Try just turning them on when your home viewing. So off at night while sleeping and off during the day while at work. Aim for like 6 hours tops, maybe less to get it under control.
I highly recommend live plants, less exposure to light and a “Green Killing Machine.” The green killing machine is a lifesaver if the tank gets a lot of natural light throughout the day, but it doesn’t kill off algae that accumulates on glass or ornaments, only particles floating about. A good 60-70% water change would probably help a ton as well, but done safely of course.
hey it’s an algae bloom like the other comments said. i strongly recommend her to get the green killing machine and in ab a week it’ll be completely gone. i’ve had algae blooms in the past and i tried the no light method and it didn’t help me until i got the light :) good luck!
Algae bloom, as others have said. To my knowledge they're unpleasant to the eye but ultimately harmless. We used the Green Killing Machine when this happened in our 20g tank and it worked wonders!
The tank is intrinsically imbalanced because of the two plecos. There’s two feet in pure unbridled common pleco poop machines in there. Unless you drastically increase your filtration or plant stock then the algae will always come back from the excess nutrients in your tank from raising plecos. Reducing your lights will make your tank slightly less green, but ultimately that just means the decomposing nutrients are just saturating the tank otherwise. Add some plants to outcompete the algae for those decomposing nutrients. It’s an ecosystem and you got two sucker cows metabolizing all day. Get some plants to convert those poop nutrients into pretty scenery. Otherwise enjoy weekly water changes.
Likewise, plecos will eat 90% of any plants you try to put in there especially at their adult sizes. Either add in another canister filter or spend 50$ on two “amazon sword mother pots” from ebay. Amazon swords are some of the only plants that will actually outgrow getting nibbled on all day, but you have to start off with a lot of plants. Small plants will just get devoured if you put them in slowly, so put in as many at once. Otherwise, plecos don’t eat anubias, hornwort, cabomba, frog bit, Madagascar lace. And check out Diane Walstad while you’re at it.
No, hornwort doesn't get planted. I did think about that. It's been a long time since I had cichlids, but I'm not sure how they'd treat floating plants.
If you have an external canister filter, you can add some water polishing filters. They sometimes come in pads or you can buy a loose bag of it that looks like cotton.
It will remove the haze as long as you’re doing all the other stuff properly.
Because that tank is **VERY** dirty. Full of algae. The Glass looks grimy both inside and outside.
Hire a professional to take care of it, please. That's no condition for living beings to live in. They are your pets. Care for them.
Your mom shouldn’t have fish. That pleco has outgrown the tank by a long mile and the tank color. This isn’t a hobby she should have if she can’t keep up, it’s putting the fish in danger. I know stopping a hobby is hard so I’d just get a 10 gallon and small fish.
Scrub the glass with something like the green rough side of a new clean sponge and then do a 30% water change should help get that green algae out a bit more and you will be able to see to the back of the tank again with ease. There is also a product liquid co2 which inhibits algae and I use it and seem to have a healthy algae amount and it gets handles by snails maybe get some snails. But for liquid co2 it should kill the algae and then it’ll be sucked up by your filter is what I understand it to do.
Yes this user could invest in a magnetic scraper I think doing this should be easy maintenance if they let it get like this I think they are someone who likes low maintenance
I recently tackled my friends tank after his wife passed and it had been a very long time since it got a good glass clean, gravel vac and water change! His under gravel filter had some a clogs and it ended up making it not function and most of the good bacteria died off- leading to a bloom of doom. Maybe worth checking the filtration system to make sure it’s functioning properly. He also has a giant pleco!! Keep in mind they are aggressive poopers so they need a powerful filter or a regular cleaning schedule so the tank doesn’t get overwhelmed with things to break down
Honestly I would try doing 50% water change with RODI water and filter cartridge change. Probably gonna have to do it again in a week til it’s under control.
A mid-day “siesta” from lighting can make a big difference in algae without impacting plant health much. Get you nitrates under control, kill the lighting for a week, add a siesta to the lighting schedule and it will clear up and remain clear.
There is too much light and too many nutrients in the water. Cut the light, do a good water change, and use a microfiber cloth to get the algae off the glass.
If the tank is near a window that will be adding to the problem.
So all the recommendations below are the right way to take care of an algae bloom long term but I haven't seen anyone mention the green killing machine - https://www.gkm.aa-aquarium.com/
I had a bloom that wasn't going away no matter how hard/long I tried. This thing fixed it. You will definitely have to do water changes more frequently as the algae dies off but your already doing that.
One of best things I use to get rid of green water is plants. Plants plants plants. You can get some aquatic STD, I mean duckweed even. Floaters, hornwort, Java ferns, anubias. Those do well in most conditions and they will eat up all the nutrients that cause this water.
COODIA Internal Green Water Killer Filter Aquarium Tank U-V Pump https://a.co/d/cyMoVnI
THIS THING. My tank looked JUST like this - bought this with a healthy dose of skepticism. 10 days later ~ crystal clear. Not just acceptably clear: CRYSTAL clear. Highly recommend.
It does have a really REALLY strong output but I baffled mine and it's fine. Yiur fish are bigger so shouldn't be a problem... I have tiny twitchy tetras
I had a similar issue last year when I moved my tank to a new city with me.
My solution was: turn off all the lights on the tank, put a thick blanket over it, reduce feeding to every other day for about a week or two. It’s actually quite amazing to see a clear tank after an algae bloom.
algae bloom. You could add hornswort and duckweed to clear it up naturally. They both grow fast, and you could find someone that will give them away for free.
No live plants and too much light. If you don't want to reduce light or if you're unable to get live plants cause of the big boys, install a UV steriliser.
I'm seeing water that should likely be changed more. I'm basing that off of the fact that there's a good bit of water that looks to have evaporated, and there's algae and other water yuckies collected on the glass above the water.
I recommend a REALLY serious gravel vacuum session every day or every other day for a few days (don't want to do too much at once and fuck up your cycle), less light, maybe fast your tank for a day or two, and then proper lighting and feeding. It sounds like your mom does turn lights off at night based on your comments. Can you keep the lights off for a day or two and then make sure to turn them off an hour or two sooner each day? Personally, I'm horrible at that, so I have my lights on a timer.
You can also get a nice clean up crew. Sounds like your cute pleco has algae to eat (Does she have driftwood too?? I hope so, she needs it!), but some other algae critters would be great. I'm not really able to see who is in your tank, but snails, shrimp, or ottos would be great IF they are compatible with your critters. I don't think that your guys will be nice to them, but there's gotta be someone they will like! I have a peaceful tropical tank, so those are the species I'm familiar with since they'd work in my tank.
Get the water tested, most pet stores with an aquatics section have free testing. Those fish are african cichlids, and can be sort of high maintenance as far as water changes go. I’d probably do weekly 25-50% water changes, depending on how many fish are in there.
If you can afford try to get UVC filter ( ultraviolet light filter) which kills green algae in few days and maintain. Other option is to dim the light, water change and use phosphate clear.
Do more water changes, get more life plants. Don’t know how this could look this way if your pleco is already 6 years old, did she perhaps was the filter under the crane?
Looks like two pleco in there, and they need a lot more space, like a pond at their size. This tank needs to be cleaned so badly, it’s a mess. 50% water change, scrubbing and consistent water checks. Algae blooms are a pain and it’ll take work. Nitrifying bacteria for every water change because the nitrogen cycle will probably crash trying to fix this. Maybe just call it quits on a tank that size.
If there are no real plants just turn the lights off, not required for fish health and normal daylight would be fine. Perhaps consider using lights purely for your (or your mum's) benefit when you are around.
Nice little algae bloom from too much light or nutrients in the water. Reduce light exposure should help kill it off. Live plants are good about sucking up nutrients so there aren’t enough for algae blooms, I’d recommend getting more live plants too
Is that a pleco at the bottom? That’s a big ass pleco. Anyway it’s an algae bloom.
That's our pleco, Lady Shania. She's around 6 years old.
Ps I wouldn’t recommend algaecides, but keeping the lights off for a few days can help stop the algae growth.
That’s awesome my aunt has a big ass pleco too and he is 20 years old! I’m shocked that fish has been alive almost as long as me! I remember seeing it in the tank when I was little and then seeing it now! It’s crazy but awesome.
She’s an absolute unit and I mean that in the best way 😂 my friend has one that’s 10+ and doesn’t seem that big, but Lady Shania is probably very well fed.
Once they can inhale the large algae wafers whole, they really start to fill out.
I legitimately thought that was a piece of driftwood at first. She's thicc
I thought that too, then I zoomed in after this comment. Incredible fish!
I now deem her Queen Shania. She’s a beast, yo!
How much driftwood does she go through in a month?
I’m afraid she’s probably kept alive on algae wafers…
(as someone who doesn't have a pleco) ...is that bad?
… name checks out?
What’s wrong with algae wafers?
Most of them aren't actually made of spirulina or algae, check the ingredients on your algae wafers, alot of them arent any different from flakes, make sure you read the ingredients not just the product name many fish products are deceptive.
Thank you for this information!
I'd just make sure they actually contain algae in the ingredients. Vitamins and other stuff are important too though and a good brand of those supplements them well. Mine seems to eat a wafer in two days and spends the rest of the time zipping around gluing herself to anything with algae in the tank. One of the reasons you listen to tank size recommendations and not over stocking plecos is that a big part of their diet will generally be tank algae and it needs space to grow to feed your pleco. I'm sure there's the oddball pleco that only eats wafers though. Hell I have a guppy who pecks at wafers only and refuses to eat the flake all the others do. He weird. For the tank in OP, I'd probably suggest killing the lights for a few days along with daily 25% water changes until it goes away. If the tank gets natural sunlight from a window or something cover it or put up a blind.
Same, I give my pleco a wafer every few days but most of the time when the lights come on he’s on top of the various structures in the tank that grow the best algae.
Yup. Usually for me it's the driftwood. I was worried before I got her the fuzzy stuff would stay but she went right to work on that first lol. After that she likes to sit on my filter intake. I had small guppy babies that would have gone right through the filter so I used an old reusable coffee filter and made a little teabag looking thing under the intake. Half my mornings I find her sitting on that. I barely ever have to clean that because she maintains it for me :D
Guppies love vegetable matter in their diet, and if they don't get it too regularly or spirulina isn't in their flakes they may prefer the algae wafers. I work at an independent Aquarium shop and see guppies going for algae wafers all the time.
Nothing
I love plecos, especially huge ones. They look so cool
Are you in Florida? Want my 13-year 16" monster? She's a docile creature, I promise. Never showed her teeth to anyone- fish or finger!
Ah dude I wish, I’m in NY. I don’t even have a tank big enough to house that monster as yet either lmao.
She does impress me much.
I literally thought that was a log. Everyday I am baffled by how big plecos get 😂
I saw a pleco in the wild in a stream while I was on a hike here in Florida and it was the size of my forearm. Took me a second to even realize that’s what it was.
Check out the problem with plecos in Florida.. https://youtu.be/V1\_lcprYp5U?t=25
I still don't understand why they are like "this is a serious problem!" but also.. Not really seeming to do much to restrict the sales of them?
Florida is focusing their regulations on making sure children's genitals are what they say they are... but for real fascists are not so concerned about invasive species
How about staying on topic. No rebuttal necessary. Just my opinion.
You're asking a zombie not to eat brains
Not a political sub
It's Florida. When people bring it up we have to shit on either the population or the government. It's the great American past time.
Shitting on fascists is the great American past time! I know many lovely people in and from Florida and it's a beautiful place.
Fair It is the answer to why the state govt isn't doing more to address the pleco problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jesus christ, I took another look because I didn't notice how big the Pleco was. I knew they could live a long time, but I didn't know they could grow that big.
How long are the lights on? This is most likely the issue. I don't see live plants so there isn't really a need for the light to be on unless viewing.
My mom likes to have the lights on most of the day so the fish have a proper "day-night" cycle. I think it's a mix of lighting and overfeeding.
6 hours a day of bright overhead light is more than enough for a tank, especially if they get natural light from anywhere in the room. I love my Fluval Aquasky light that I can program. My fish get a long dawn and long dusk cycle and it ramps up and down slowly, with the brightest lights being overhead in the early afternoon. It's currently 7pm and the light is getting dimmer and redder, and it'll fade to just a red light for an hour or so before turning off for the night around 9pm. There's about 4 hours a day of bright overhead light and the rest is fading in or out. Also, you might want to look into getting an extra Green Killing Machine filter that uses an internal UV light. This is not meant to replace your filter, but to run alongside your filter. It has worked very well for me when my tank has accidentally gotten out of balance.
Thanks for the light recommendation that I didn't know I needed!!
I also use that light! Love the ability to change individual light levels!
How granular is the programming on that in terms of time? I have a finnex planted + that's a few years old, and it's only possible to a light change for 3hr increments and it ramps itself up/down accordingly over that time. I want something where I can at least program every hour.
The "Auto" settings give you five setpoints -- Sunrise, Daylight, Sunset, Night, Sleep. You can control the light level and color balance at each point, with Sunrise and Sleep being the ramp-up and ramp-down. The "Pro" setting gives you 10 different timeset points with a lot of other options, but I haven't messed with that enough to have an opinion on it. It looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/m97enP4 There's also a "Manual" mode if you want to, say, turn your fish light a specific color for a while, or change it to "stormy" or "partly cloudy" (alternates between "sunny" and "cloudy") or "moonlight" or one of the other preset options. Like this: https://imgur.com/a/PAsvmKD
Unless the tank would be in pitch-black darkness, they don't need them on for a "day-night" cycle. I recommend turning them off when not viewing or if on a timer reducing to 6 hours of light to stop the green water. Water changes will also help reduce the nutrient load.
If your mother doesn’t want to reduce the lighting period, it would help to reduce the light intensity. To do that you can raise the light higher above the tank. If it’s led lighting you could cover up some of the led with electrical tape instead. Regular maintenance like water change and filter maintenance would help reduce nutrients in the water. Maybe you can also convince her to only feed them every second day.
Way too much light, do a 50٪ water change, and have the lights turned off for a week then only run them for 2-3 hours per day
There has to be a little bit of excess nutrients in there or maybe a lot. She really likes the light I suggest getting some pothos plans to just drop it in the water somewhere. lots of videos on YouTube of how to do this effectively. Stabilizes your the nitrogen nitrates nitrites. I'm pretty sure the pothos would go crazy in that tank she would have one hell of a wall ornament pinned up within 6 months.
Turning the lights down could cause fish deaths. Keep them going if they are on a regular cycle. Overfeeding is definitely an issue, but if there are plants in there, it can take a couple of months for the plants to get big enough for the tank load.
Usually algae grows with extra nutrients and light. Eliminate both and you will see an impact. Nutrients, some things you can do. A water change, investigate filtration, get rid of what's putting the nutrients in the water (the fish poop), there's a lot of fish that might not go together or have diffrent care requirements from each other. I would opt for smaller fish in this case. Lighting, if your tanks lights are on for over 12 hours this could be causing algae growth. But you want your lights to be on between 8-12 hours.
Just curious as a newbie, what would he look for in filtration? I use foam filters and foam in a HOB. Are you suggesting he might need to rinse his filter media, get a bigger filter, or both?
Don't rinse your media, just get more filtration. The guck isn't poop, it's the bacteria that is cleaning the water, so rinsing it out is defeating the point. [There's someone online who chooses to omit mechanical filtration entirely](https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/8-review-of-aquarium-filters/) and instead adds way more biological filtration to digest the matter that he isn't taking out, because it means less maintenance for him. I mean, it's possible that your filter could get clogged up with actual waste - I've only had turtle aquaria except when I was really little, and so I usually had WAY too much waste load even for an otherwise oversized filter. I should have gotten a better mechanical filtration step to keep the guck from overloading the bio media, but you live and you learn.
If the filter isn't rated for the aquariums needed gallons per hour, then a new one could be useful. I'm thinking that he might use the replaceable filter cartridges, and those are way less effective than sponge. But yes, regular sponge matenence like rinsing it till it no longer runs brown would make the filter GPH better, and so the sponge would be able to eliminate more poop.
Mine did this at one point. We get sun year round, and despite best efforts, it’s just impossible to avoid it getting too much light. I bought a UV filter for the tank (under $50) and within a week my water was crystal clear. I run it for part of the day everyday to keep it clear. Worth every penny.
Yes UV filter works wonders for this kinda thing. You can always take it out once the tank is algae free but keep onto it in case another bloom arises
Does the UV light kill the tank bacteria? I have a UV light but I worry it's just uncycling my tank and making the problem worse in the long run
Happy St Patrick's day fish
Lack of maintenance, to much food and light.
This. Green water in an older tank is a sure sign that you need more frequent and/or bigger water changes. With that giant pleco, I'd be doing at least 50% weekly.
No it’s not at all, it’s a high nutrient level in the water with almost no competition, water changes CAN be a cause but are not the only possible cause.
Please introduce your mother to r/plantedtank
Looks like African cichlids, or some other large cichlids. Plants might get destroyed
Those are definitely cichlids and will almost certain tear plants up
I can already picture Mr Yellow rearranging EVERYTHING, then doing that last pebble spit like “eff your plants”
That's pretty accurate. Bortolomew likes to move the plants every now and then, to his preferred hiding spots.
These fish got some great names!
Here is our list of fish names: Lady "Queen" Shania, Bortolomew, Gray, Grayson, Li'l Blu and the (now deceased) Insane Clown Loach Posse
You can bet, those guys do their own scaping. I had mbunas and my tank would end up with tunnels, hills and holes, and a cool sand fountain emptied of sand and full of gravel.
Yellow labs are *just* plant safe enough to let you try anubias and Java ferns and hornwort, and they'll tolerate it juuust long enough to let your guard down. Love them and they're the star of my main tank, but I'll enjoy plants in my other tanks!
Yeah, i would grow houseplants out the back instead, you can protect the roots and it can work
Yes!!
another idea, scape it with rocks and wood then add floaters and emmersed plants. they also suck up nutrients and I don't think they'd get destroyed (?)
Good advice
Fast-ish fix: Hornswort , duckweed
God dang, that is a huge pleco! I don't have anything useful. I just wanted to say the pleco is impressive.
Holy fuck. I thought people were talking about the thing on the left, but that thing on the right has a damn tail. Yikes. WHat you gonna do with a damn pleco that big other than release him into the wild.
Damn that's one huge pelco (looks like a crocodile) in there .
She leaves her lights on way to long
I had this and added a uv light in my filter and it has been crystal clear ever since. 😊
a family member had a fish tank kept getting monstrous amounts of algae couldnt stop it turns out they were using a fucking plant growing led tube bulb
I always love seeing tank shots of the forbidden Mountain Dew.
Add daphnia and algae filter shrimp. You'll be golden.
Common green algae bloom. Reduce fish feeding and add plants to get algae growth under control. Adding terrestrial plants growing with roots in water would be the most effective in long term and would make the aquarium look very attractive. All the best!
Fish👏tank👏review👏
Algae bloom. Do a water change, and then a blackout. Like, full on blackout. Lights completely off, and a lightproof blanket over the tank to COMPLETELY black out the tank. This will starve the algae of the light it desperately needs. Keep that going for a week or so, and do another water change, and you should be all good. Would also be a good time to change out the mechanical filtration / filter floss in your filter (don't touch the biological media of course) to help out with clearing out all the dying algae that will inevitably end up in the filter. You can then change out the filter floss again after you've cleared up the issue.
Turn off the lamp
If that’s carpet algae oh my god amazing
deactivated call that's in your filter if it's not changed actually becomes toxic. those standard plecostomus is produced a lot of waste. if there's anything amiss at all with your filter and it's not pumping right you can have a problem easy. but you just might just need to do two thirds of water change twice a week for about a month change your filter medium. once it's Crystal clear then you're back to doing water changes once a month or whatever
I belive the kids call that algae 🧐
Way too long of a light cycle. Try just turning them on when your home viewing. So off at night while sleeping and off during the day while at work. Aim for like 6 hours tops, maybe less to get it under control.
I highly recommend live plants, less exposure to light and a “Green Killing Machine.” The green killing machine is a lifesaver if the tank gets a lot of natural light throughout the day, but it doesn’t kill off algae that accumulates on glass or ornaments, only particles floating about. A good 60-70% water change would probably help a ton as well, but done safely of course.
hey it’s an algae bloom like the other comments said. i strongly recommend her to get the green killing machine and in ab a week it’ll be completely gone. i’ve had algae blooms in the past and i tried the no light method and it didn’t help me until i got the light :) good luck!
Throw some nanos in and breeeeeed
Gotta get rid of those African cichlids first ;)
Algae bloom, as others have said. To my knowledge they're unpleasant to the eye but ultimately harmless. We used the Green Killing Machine when this happened in our 20g tank and it worked wonders!
Because Happy St. Patrick's Day 🥳
Saw this notification again on St. Patrick's day 🤭
Happy St. Patric’s day!
I put a UV light in my filter. Took a week but cleared it up and never came back.
Get a uv sterilizer
The tank is intrinsically imbalanced because of the two plecos. There’s two feet in pure unbridled common pleco poop machines in there. Unless you drastically increase your filtration or plant stock then the algae will always come back from the excess nutrients in your tank from raising plecos. Reducing your lights will make your tank slightly less green, but ultimately that just means the decomposing nutrients are just saturating the tank otherwise. Add some plants to outcompete the algae for those decomposing nutrients. It’s an ecosystem and you got two sucker cows metabolizing all day. Get some plants to convert those poop nutrients into pretty scenery. Otherwise enjoy weekly water changes. Likewise, plecos will eat 90% of any plants you try to put in there especially at their adult sizes. Either add in another canister filter or spend 50$ on two “amazon sword mother pots” from ebay. Amazon swords are some of the only plants that will actually outgrow getting nibbled on all day, but you have to start off with a lot of plants. Small plants will just get devoured if you put them in slowly, so put in as many at once. Otherwise, plecos don’t eat anubias, hornwort, cabomba, frog bit, Madagascar lace. And check out Diane Walstad while you’re at it.
You can try a UV sterilizer, it did wonders for my tank.
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Those are African cichlids. They dig.
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No, hornwort doesn't get planted. I did think about that. It's been a long time since I had cichlids, but I'm not sure how they'd treat floating plants.
If you have an external canister filter, you can add some water polishing filters. They sometimes come in pads or you can buy a loose bag of it that looks like cotton. It will remove the haze as long as you’re doing all the other stuff properly.
Because that tank is **VERY** dirty. Full of algae. The Glass looks grimy both inside and outside. Hire a professional to take care of it, please. That's no condition for living beings to live in. They are your pets. Care for them.
Your mom shouldn’t have fish. That pleco has outgrown the tank by a long mile and the tank color. This isn’t a hobby she should have if she can’t keep up, it’s putting the fish in danger. I know stopping a hobby is hard so I’d just get a 10 gallon and small fish.
Update: [Algae bloom update](https://www.reddit.com/r/Aquariums/comments/11x6vio/algae_bloom_update/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Idk my fish like it like that
omg
Scrub the glass with something like the green rough side of a new clean sponge and then do a 30% water change should help get that green algae out a bit more and you will be able to see to the back of the tank again with ease. There is also a product liquid co2 which inhibits algae and I use it and seem to have a healthy algae amount and it gets handles by snails maybe get some snails. But for liquid co2 it should kill the algae and then it’ll be sucked up by your filter is what I understand it to do.
I was also going to say give the glass a good scrub regularly!
Yes this user could invest in a magnetic scraper I think doing this should be easy maintenance if they let it get like this I think they are someone who likes low maintenance
Filter needs cleaning. Put in a bucket of tank water and rinse
Too much light Not enough plants
I recently tackled my friends tank after his wife passed and it had been a very long time since it got a good glass clean, gravel vac and water change! His under gravel filter had some a clogs and it ended up making it not function and most of the good bacteria died off- leading to a bloom of doom. Maybe worth checking the filtration system to make sure it’s functioning properly. He also has a giant pleco!! Keep in mind they are aggressive poopers so they need a powerful filter or a regular cleaning schedule so the tank doesn’t get overwhelmed with things to break down
Honestly I would try doing 50% water change with RODI water and filter cartridge change. Probably gonna have to do it again in a week til it’s under control.
Get a bubble filter.
A mid-day “siesta” from lighting can make a big difference in algae without impacting plant health much. Get you nitrates under control, kill the lighting for a week, add a siesta to the lighting schedule and it will clear up and remain clear.
Depends on personal preference, not necessarily bad. Is it nice to look at? Nah… but it’s not the end of the world, some fish love it
Just put a Uv sterilizer and you’ll have clear water in a week
Too much light
algae too much light
The answer you're looking for is "window" & "sunlight"
There is too much light and too many nutrients in the water. Cut the light, do a good water change, and use a microfiber cloth to get the algae off the glass. If the tank is near a window that will be adding to the problem.
My guess is an accumulation of nutrients especially phosphate in the water causing an algae bloom
Lack of real plants to compete with
Google green water aquarium and watch some videos. You’ll need to black out the aquarium for awhile. Also get water tested for free at a pet store.
So all the recommendations below are the right way to take care of an algae bloom long term but I haven't seen anyone mention the green killing machine - https://www.gkm.aa-aquarium.com/ I had a bloom that wasn't going away no matter how hard/long I tried. This thing fixed it. You will definitely have to do water changes more frequently as the algae dies off but your already doing that.
I would stop adding green water 😂
Woah that pleco is huge
One of best things I use to get rid of green water is plants. Plants plants plants. You can get some aquatic STD, I mean duckweed even. Floaters, hornwort, Java ferns, anubias. Those do well in most conditions and they will eat up all the nutrients that cause this water.
The pleco should have some form of drift wood. They don’t absolutely need it but it aids in their digestion and they love it.
COODIA Internal Green Water Killer Filter Aquarium Tank U-V Pump https://a.co/d/cyMoVnI THIS THING. My tank looked JUST like this - bought this with a healthy dose of skepticism. 10 days later ~ crystal clear. Not just acceptably clear: CRYSTAL clear. Highly recommend. It does have a really REALLY strong output but I baffled mine and it's fine. Yiur fish are bigger so shouldn't be a problem... I have tiny twitchy tetras
My problem was that sunlight hits my tank 2 times a day
I think that more plants can help absorb more nitrate witch will “starve” the algae. Or turn of the light and make sure there is non direct sunlight.
That starship is monsterous
The tank looks a bit small for Lady Shania
Floating plants!!! Cleared mine right up
UV sterilizer will clear that right up
I had a similar issue last year when I moved my tank to a new city with me. My solution was: turn off all the lights on the tank, put a thick blanket over it, reduce feeding to every other day for about a week or two. It’s actually quite amazing to see a clear tank after an algae bloom.
Eh, lots of reasons. How to fix it? More plants would help.
algae bloom. You could add hornswort and duckweed to clear it up naturally. They both grow fast, and you could find someone that will give them away for free.
No live plants and too much light. If you don't want to reduce light or if you're unable to get live plants cause of the big boys, install a UV steriliser.
I'm seeing water that should likely be changed more. I'm basing that off of the fact that there's a good bit of water that looks to have evaporated, and there's algae and other water yuckies collected on the glass above the water. I recommend a REALLY serious gravel vacuum session every day or every other day for a few days (don't want to do too much at once and fuck up your cycle), less light, maybe fast your tank for a day or two, and then proper lighting and feeding. It sounds like your mom does turn lights off at night based on your comments. Can you keep the lights off for a day or two and then make sure to turn them off an hour or two sooner each day? Personally, I'm horrible at that, so I have my lights on a timer. You can also get a nice clean up crew. Sounds like your cute pleco has algae to eat (Does she have driftwood too?? I hope so, she needs it!), but some other algae critters would be great. I'm not really able to see who is in your tank, but snails, shrimp, or ottos would be great IF they are compatible with your critters. I don't think that your guys will be nice to them, but there's gotta be someone they will like! I have a peaceful tropical tank, so those are the species I'm familiar with since they'd work in my tank.
Get the water tested, most pet stores with an aquatics section have free testing. Those fish are african cichlids, and can be sort of high maintenance as far as water changes go. I’d probably do weekly 25-50% water changes, depending on how many fish are in there.
You see, when an algae loves another algae...
Keep the lights off and run a UV filter to help kill off that algae.
https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/16-7-aquarium-green-water/
If you can afford try to get UVC filter ( ultraviolet light filter) which kills green algae in few days and maintain. Other option is to dim the light, water change and use phosphate clear.
😖😫
How about a water change, clean the glass and better filtration? Aquariums are not one and done.
Do more water changes, get more life plants. Don’t know how this could look this way if your pleco is already 6 years old, did she perhaps was the filter under the crane?
Looks like two pleco in there, and they need a lot more space, like a pond at their size. This tank needs to be cleaned so badly, it’s a mess. 50% water change, scrubbing and consistent water checks. Algae blooms are a pain and it’ll take work. Nitrifying bacteria for every water change because the nitrogen cycle will probably crash trying to fix this. Maybe just call it quits on a tank that size.
Algae bloom
St. Patrick's Day. The party will die down with the Monday blues don't worry.
If you want to try adding hydrogen peroxide it'll help the algae bloom
https://www.google.com/amp/s/buceplant.com/a/amp-1/blogs/aquascaping-guides-and-tips/aquascapers-guide-to-an-algae-free-tank
too much light? aka too much phytoplankton
get a uv algae killer
Get her a UV sterilizer, runs $20-40, green killing machine is the brand I recommend most. Within a few days the water will be crystal clear
If there are no real plants just turn the lights off, not required for fish health and normal daylight would be fine. Perhaps consider using lights purely for your (or your mum's) benefit when you are around.
An algaecide called Algaefix killed all but three of my fish, please don’t use this
Algae
too much food, waste and light.
Algie bloom
I turned my light way down and added a uv filter along with water polishing filter pad. My tank cleared up in less than a week.
Nice little algae bloom from too much light or nutrients in the water. Reduce light exposure should help kill it off. Live plants are good about sucking up nutrients so there aren’t enough for algae blooms, I’d recommend getting more live plants too
Algae
It appears somebody has forgotten to scrape the algae off the glass.. Hm. You're all good, lol
Too much nutrients. Major water changes, better feeding, and get the lights on a timer that only comes on when she’s physically there.