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Ok, the 10 gal tank I started in january has been nothing but headaches: all 6 of my original zebra danios died last month; the two cherry barbs I recently bought have been battling ich terribly (one died, the other is hanging on). BGA has taken over, at least I think it's BGA:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/moja1101/detail?.dir=7142&.dnm=6140.jpg&.src=ph

I have 3 otos and 2 corys left(they've all been perfectly healthy); I just moved the 3 otos to my other tank.

I'm also thinking that I've co-opted what was originally supposed to be my son's fish tank - since it sits in the living room, I vetoed the blue gravel that he wanted. "No," I said, "natural would look better" well now he is bored with it b/c its not how he wanted it. Yes it would be tacky, but he would like it much better if I changed to the blue gravel (sigh).

So it's looking to me like a tear-down is in my near future. I have another 10 gal tank which currently houses:
7 lemon tetras
1 ADF (could be taken out)
3 otos
Could I temporarily move the 2 cories (~1.25 inches) in there also? Would that overwhelm such a small tank?

Or maybe I should just change the gravel without totally tearing it down? I can't figure out why my supposedly "hardy" fish keep getting sick. My water parameters are fine (double checked at LFS), and I do weekly 30-50% water changes with a good gravel vac. And the BGA is really driving me nuts; I'm afraid that if I do another blackout my plants will weaken, giving the algae a firmer grip. Maybe I should just give up on having plants in this tank for now.

If you have the blue green alge problum, alge eaters wont eat it. I think yo need to remove the fish and thourally clean your tank. Another thing to be considered is your corys they are schooling, and the only cories that can really fit into a 10g are Pygmis. I think you need to find a new home for your cories. Other then that your 10g should be okay to hold some of your fish temperarily.

Also why dont you just combine the tan and the blue gravel?

Inky

Yeah, yeah I know about the cories...bought em before I really knew better...

So, if I did take the fish out and change the gravel, should I clean up all the crap that will come up from the bottom, or should I let it settle back and then add the new gravel?

Also I am concerned with keeping the biofilter going. I would like to put it on my other tank when I move the fish in there, but won't that just infest the other tank with BGA?

I am not sure about BGA, but with some algaes, if you add more plants it helps. Maybe try cleaning out the tank and adding more plants. The fish would be happier, and maybe it would not leave any nutrients for algae. I see you have a few live plants...why not plant the whole thing?

Here is a website for identifying types of algae...so you can be sure yours is BGA: click

*Kristin*

The trick with cyanobacteria (BGA) is to starve it into submission. Once you have a nice healthy crop of live plants growing in an aquarium, it tends to be out-competed.

First off, if there are no live plants in there at the moment, one way of killing it off would be to put the tank in total darkness for 72 hours once you've removed the fishes and found a temporary home for them. Plus, since the organisms are in fact bacterial (you can find some taxonomic information here]http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bluegralgae.htm[/link] and [link=here which should tell you quite a bit about them) they are susceptible to antibiotics. The trouble being of course that so are your filter bacteria ... yes, it never is simple is it?

While tetracycline has been used with some success to kill these organisms, it might also be worth trying furan-based antibiotics such as those used for dusting wounds, and also sme of the penicillins. However, make sure that you do NOT use the same antibiotic repeatedly to deal with problems in your aquarium, as this is a very good way of encouraging your cyanobacteria to develop a resistance!

Incidentally, if you check out the links I posted, you'll discover that Spirulina, the organism used to make so-called "algae tablet foods" for Otocinclus and Plecs, is in fact a cyanobacterium! So not all of them are a nuisance ... unless of course they take over your nice aquarium

For everyone's greater edification, I shall also add this link so that everyone can find out everything they never wanted to know about cyanobacteria but were forced to find out (Douglas Adams reference scoring me brownie points there ).


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002