Tank Advice

Hi there,

This may cause a bit of uproar but a family member of mine has this aquarium. I’m not an expert in the field but I am concerned about the welfare of the fish. They have snails, the plants don’t look particularly healthy and the algae is everywhere. They advised they do water changes but surely it shouldn’t be in this state.

I’m hoping that reaching out to some experts may be able to urge them to make some changes…

I think this may be a couple of issues.

Firstly what filtration are they using?
What fish do they have in?
What size tank is it?

Regardless of the answers though they should be doing a 75% water change and gravel clean every day until it clears up. The algae needs cleaned off with a scraper or a credit card. The plants need to have the algae carefully removed.

And also it looks like they don’t do water changes enough and enough volume as they should be doing, otherwise it wouldn’t have got to this

There's algae on the glass - a chore to remove. With it there, it's hard to see what's up. There are house windows showing, so that lighting can lead to algae.

Other than that, it's a question of what water change routine is being followed. The tank looks neglected, but if the algae were off the glass, maybe it wouldn't. It isn't the look that causes concern, although it's unlikely you'd care for fish you can't see. It's what the look may reflect, which isn't in a photo.