[AquaticLife] cloudy water
thanks you have been a great help thats just what i thought it might be currently in the process of reducing the number of catfish in my tank for the benefit of my other fish thanks again rob
“Lenny V. aka GoldLenny” wrote: The biggest part of your problem is that you are severely overstocked. For that stocking level, you should be doing at least daily 25% PWC’s and even that will only be a temporary measure until you can rehome a lot of your fish… mainly all of the extra BN plecos.
What might have worked two years ago will not continue to work as the fish get larger and you get more fish from them breeding. For example, if you have ten 1″ fish and you are doing bi-weekly PWC’s, then your fish grow to 2″, you would need to do twice weekly PWC’s to keep the water quality the same. Depending on the fish, many grow in body mass up to eight times for each time they double their length so a 2″ fish would be equal to eight 1″ fish when they were smaller.
Your tank is probably only large enough for a single BN Pleco. 20-30 is 19-29 too many. Even a single BN Pleco can handle the algae growth of a 35G properly stocked tank. With all your extra fish, they are putting out so much ammonia that your filter and nitrifying bacteria colonies cannot handle the bioload which is why nature is causing the algae bloom. Without the algae bloom, your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels would likely be off the charts. The algae is helping consume the excess nutrients from all the fish but it’s not helping with the excess hormones and stress being cause to your fish.
If you do not immediately reduce the number of fish you have… sell some or give some away… Darwinism will reduce the number of fish for you. Darwinism is just my nice way of saying they will start to get sick and die early deaths.. survival of the fittest.
Also and especially in a heavily stocked or overstocked tank, you must be cautious when doing filter maintenance and NEVER throw away your filter since you are throwing away the majority of your nitrifying bacteria when you do that which will put your tank into a mini-cycle causing ammonia/nitrite spikes which will permanently harm and/or kill your fish.
Go to my blog and read over my “A to Z of Fish Keeping” page and take the online tutorials on the basics of fish keeping and read my article on proper “Filter Maintenance and Cleaning” so you do not continue making this mistake.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
