Need some advice/input regarding my tank.

I have a 190 gallon tank, planted and with bichirs and hujeta's, and some others. But these are my main fish.

I've recently had a algae outbreak, will change the purigen this week and I've recently started to feed them pellets instead of frozen food, but the bichirs don't seem interested so far in the pellets.

I'm getting a clean up crew this Friday consisting of 30 Amanos and 30 Siamese algae eaters + 30 snails in addition of the 25 snails I already have. I fully realize the fish and shrimp I add will be eaten, but I'm hoping they can remove a good deal, to give the snails an edge.

However, if this method fails after purigen cleaning (I do 1-2 water changes a week, with 30-50% each water change), I'm considering redoing my whole tank.

I love planted tanks, but Im thinking it would be possible to create a non planted tank that would look good, but hopefully better. And also be easier to clean and observe the fish.

But I'm afraid they would not have the same hiding spots and comfort and I just wouldn't enjoy looking at this tank.

My set up is 2 eheim 2217 with 2 11w uv lights and a fluval fx6. I have purigen in all filters.

Hers the tank when it was in pristine condition


Here's a close up of the recent algae breakout.


I just don't enjoy the tank when algae are this dominating.
So I'm curious what advice I can get, and if there's necessary to me to perhaps remove all the plants and driftwood and go with a different setup or even have a good clean up crew present that is suitable with these fish.

I think the cause of the algae is due to perhaps the amount of time it takes me to change purigen, and that I can't reach in between the driftwood and plants to remove uneaten food and droppings, which in turns produce nutrition for the algae to grow. So maybe a simpler layout would prevent this.

According to my water tests (drops, not sticks) my ammonia and no2 is 0, my no3 might reach 20-25 if I only do a water change once a week, but usually I'm below 15 ppm.

Please help me out, I love these fish, I'd prefer to keep them but have the possibility to rehome them and go with a different theme or fish combination (SA cichlids) But I'm hoping that wouldn't be necessary until they've reached 70-80% of potential size. I have two clown knife fish as well, but I'm only keeping them till they've grown to size large enough to be introduced to a another tank with larger fish for a customer.

Please ask me any follow up questions and provide me with some perspective and insights.
I'm just a novice compared to most of the users here, and I'd appreciate your inputs.




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reptilerescued said:

I vac. what is in the open space then lift the crud from the places I can't reach like this.....

To get un eaten food and other "stuff" out of the plant base I use a spatula and sweep about 8 to 10 inches above the plants.
this cause a swirl/vortex that lifts the crud off of the bottom and suspends in in the water. then I do the water change.
a few times and you will know how close and hard you need to sweep your plants without ripping them from the substrate but close enough to "lift" the crud.

I also remove the filter screens from the intakes on the tanks that have fish that won't get sucked up so they can suck bigger items out of the water as it floats by.
HTH
Rich

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I'll try this on Friday, I just did a water change this morning and I'll try again on Sunday.

But if I don't manage to implement a new routine or manage to defeat the algae by new year, I'll redo the tank and consider going with a SA cichlid community tank. But I'm not giving up just yet, there must be a way to keep a planted tank with meat eaters without algae growing out of control if you do it properly (or am I wrong?).


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pshtex said:

i've heard that flagtail prochilodus destroy algae. if you go this route you should prolly find a larger one.

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Would it eat anubias and java ferns?
Still, there's a source which the algae is feeding of...

I'd like to get to the root of the problem and my suspicion is my laziness in regards of changing purigen (every 3 months) and my lack of access to waste in between the plants.


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Gill Blue said:

there's a few things you could try, adding floating plants (I like frogbit) and pothos will use up nutrients from the water column, you can set up an algae filter, do 80%-90% water changes, reduce your lighting, reduce your bioload...

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I'll look into floating plants, I have 6 hours of lights at the moment, with the last hour of light reduced to 20% brightness.

I have eheim substrat pro in all canisters if that matters in terms of bio load...

I can't do large water changes without draining the warm water heater tank for the house, and then my tank becomes a negative for the other people I share warm water with and I'm forced to fill the tank with ice cold water.
I can do 50-60 % of the tank without issues.

I'll do my best for a couple of months to get on top of it, but if doesn't work, I'll rehome the fish and start from scratch.
Completely emptying the tank and go back to the drawing board so to speak... (Which honestly is my favorite part of this hobby, I love to plan and set up tanks, hopefully I learn something new every time, not exactly the best for the fish to be getting traded all over the place because their tanks don't look pleasing to me, while its perfectly fine for them.)

At the end of the day I want to enjoy the hobby and I'm willing to spend whatever free time I have to improve myself regarding this hobby. I'd just wish I could keep more tanks, that way I wouldn't be trading fish away, but adding fish to new tanks, because there's so much is want to keep, but if I can't get this one tank right, I'm not ready to keep more at this time.

Thanks for the advices so far. I'll try to keep you updated as I try different things.

I'm currently trying to make my fish eat pellets, but not much luck so far.
Which means food is staying in the tank a while before I remove it, I usually feed before I sleep and before I go to work, and remove what's left when I come home/wake up.




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