Hello everyone - this is a bit long winded sorry in advance!
I have a betta tank that is having some issues. Of which I'm unsure of. Maybe someone here can help me figure it out?
My betta shows no signs of any sickness per-say. But he has been laying on the bottom of his tank for about 2 weeks now give or take a whole lot more then he usually does. His fins seem like they have taken a beating too.
Since Covid came about I had a hard time finding any of the bottled water I would normally buy at the store ( spring water) to put into the fish tank when I do my water changes. So I have had to switch over to my well water, from the tap. Now I did a bunch of tests and found a way to make the water decent for the fish tank. I had to set up a 'spare' Cycled tank to get this to work for me to be on the safe side.
I have ammonia, heavier minerals and a PH that ranges from 7.4 up to higher in my well water at times and to be safe I put it into the spare tank for 2-4 days to let it convert the ammonia out and I treat it with a API Tap water conditioner and API pH Down before transferring it over to the fish tank as needed when I do a water change/ gravel cleaning.
I have been doing this method of the well water for about 2 months now. It was fine the first month. But the past 2-3 weeks I have been getting the worse case of brown fuzzy algae. It is easy to clean up but it takes over my tank rather fast. I can do a tank cleaning and 2-3 days later it looks like I did nothing in a months time.
My fish for about a year now has been a shy eater. He will eat when I am not around to watch, So I have no idea if he has been eating really, or maybe he is eating a bit of the algae? I do not know. Now I have long string green or Hair algae too to deal with on-top of that.
I read that brown algae can develop from too much nutrience in the water..
I am wondering if my tank is too small for the well water with all the nutrience it brings?
Besides what I've been trying to do already which is clean the algea out as much as I can each time I do a water change and leaving the light on a bit longer from 6 hours to 8+ hours, I am stuck on what else to do.
I know my well water is not ideal for fish life but I got stuck doing this either way. I feel I am stuck in a rut, unable to fix this and my fish will slowly die perhaps?
Here is all my info about the tank and everything :
Fish afflicted: Male halfmoon betta (I have no idea how old he is - I have had him for about 2 years now) He has been resting at the bottom of the tank and I do not know if he is eating at all, his fins are also looking rough on the edges. Breathing seems fine.
Tank parameters: I test with API freshwater Master test kit (liquid)
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: looks to be 40 ppm or just under.
Temperature: 83F /29C
pH: 7.6 and 7.8 - 8 on the high range pH test. ( have a hard time with seeing the difference in colour for the orange -brown colour range)
All Tested on June 13.
Only thing I cant test is the GH (general hardness) of the water, but I do not have a water softener either, I just know my water is on the harder side which I`m sure does not help.
Tank Location: Against a wall beside a window with only 1 hour maybe of morning indirect light.
Tank size: 5 US GAL / 19L Fluval Spec. Currently he has been in this tank I believe around 11 months. I had to switch tanks before hand cause his old one had a leak and poor design.
Filtration: Just what came build into the tank with a heater added in. I put the water flow on as low as it would let me.
Amount of fish in tank: 1 - just my betta 2+ years old- I've had him for about 2 years.
Tank maintenance: Last 20% Water change was 4 days ago, I do a 20 % water change every 1 -2 weeks and I vacuum the gravel each time. I also clean up the algae as best I can most times. I also have to top up the water levels to the tank once every 2-3 days due to it evaporating.
New things to tank: Only thing new is my water source, and I switch out a dried leaf once every 3 weeks or so.
Food fed: 'NorthFin Premium Fish food Betta Bits' sinking pellet food. No recent diet changes. I could never get him to eat anything else like blood worms. (took me a while to find a pellet food he would actually want to eat when I first got him)
->Another thing to note regarding food is my feeding times have changed a lot due to my work hours being moved around all over, I do not know if that is contributing to him looking like he is not eating now or not.
Note: I only have live plants in this tank. I do not know what they are called I got them well over a year ago! I use a mix of 90% fluval plant stratum substrate and a 10% of small gravel substrate. My old tank had drift wood , the new one is to narrow of a tank for me to really fit one in properly.
If I forgot to mention anything please ask! Thank you for your time in reading this, I am hoping someone out there might know something to help me out . I appreciate it either way.
-Juwl.( I am new here sorry if i posted in the wrong place )
I have a betta tank that is having some issues. Of which I'm unsure of. Maybe someone here can help me figure it out?
My betta shows no signs of any sickness per-say. But he has been laying on the bottom of his tank for about 2 weeks now give or take a whole lot more then he usually does. His fins seem like they have taken a beating too.
Since Covid came about I had a hard time finding any of the bottled water I would normally buy at the store ( spring water) to put into the fish tank when I do my water changes. So I have had to switch over to my well water, from the tap. Now I did a bunch of tests and found a way to make the water decent for the fish tank. I had to set up a 'spare' Cycled tank to get this to work for me to be on the safe side.
I have ammonia, heavier minerals and a PH that ranges from 7.4 up to higher in my well water at times and to be safe I put it into the spare tank for 2-4 days to let it convert the ammonia out and I treat it with a API Tap water conditioner and API pH Down before transferring it over to the fish tank as needed when I do a water change/ gravel cleaning.
I have been doing this method of the well water for about 2 months now. It was fine the first month. But the past 2-3 weeks I have been getting the worse case of brown fuzzy algae. It is easy to clean up but it takes over my tank rather fast. I can do a tank cleaning and 2-3 days later it looks like I did nothing in a months time.
My fish for about a year now has been a shy eater. He will eat when I am not around to watch, So I have no idea if he has been eating really, or maybe he is eating a bit of the algae? I do not know. Now I have long string green or Hair algae too to deal with on-top of that.
I read that brown algae can develop from too much nutrience in the water..
I am wondering if my tank is too small for the well water with all the nutrience it brings?
Besides what I've been trying to do already which is clean the algea out as much as I can each time I do a water change and leaving the light on a bit longer from 6 hours to 8+ hours, I am stuck on what else to do.
I know my well water is not ideal for fish life but I got stuck doing this either way. I feel I am stuck in a rut, unable to fix this and my fish will slowly die perhaps?
Here is all my info about the tank and everything :
Fish afflicted: Male halfmoon betta (I have no idea how old he is - I have had him for about 2 years now) He has been resting at the bottom of the tank and I do not know if he is eating at all, his fins are also looking rough on the edges. Breathing seems fine.
Tank parameters: I test with API freshwater Master test kit (liquid)
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: looks to be 40 ppm or just under.
Temperature: 83F /29C
pH: 7.6 and 7.8 - 8 on the high range pH test. ( have a hard time with seeing the difference in colour for the orange -brown colour range)
All Tested on June 13.
Only thing I cant test is the GH (general hardness) of the water, but I do not have a water softener either, I just know my water is on the harder side which I`m sure does not help.
Tank Location: Against a wall beside a window with only 1 hour maybe of morning indirect light.
Tank size: 5 US GAL / 19L Fluval Spec. Currently he has been in this tank I believe around 11 months. I had to switch tanks before hand cause his old one had a leak and poor design.
Filtration: Just what came build into the tank with a heater added in. I put the water flow on as low as it would let me.
Amount of fish in tank: 1 - just my betta 2+ years old- I've had him for about 2 years.
Tank maintenance: Last 20% Water change was 4 days ago, I do a 20 % water change every 1 -2 weeks and I vacuum the gravel each time. I also clean up the algae as best I can most times. I also have to top up the water levels to the tank once every 2-3 days due to it evaporating.
New things to tank: Only thing new is my water source, and I switch out a dried leaf once every 3 weeks or so.
Food fed: 'NorthFin Premium Fish food Betta Bits' sinking pellet food. No recent diet changes. I could never get him to eat anything else like blood worms. (took me a while to find a pellet food he would actually want to eat when I first got him)
->Another thing to note regarding food is my feeding times have changed a lot due to my work hours being moved around all over, I do not know if that is contributing to him looking like he is not eating now or not.
Note: I only have live plants in this tank. I do not know what they are called I got them well over a year ago! I use a mix of 90% fluval plant stratum substrate and a 10% of small gravel substrate. My old tank had drift wood , the new one is to narrow of a tank for me to really fit one in properly.
If I forgot to mention anything please ask! Thank you for your time in reading this, I am hoping someone out there might know something to help me out . I appreciate it either way.
-Juwl.( I am new here sorry if i posted in the wrong place )