kidsgotmeintofish
New Member
Hi, new to the forum and fish tanks in general. Long story short, I ended up buying a 20 gallon tank because my daughter was gifted a betta fish and I wanted to do things right. The new tank came with:
sand substrate,
three or four different types of plants, pretty thickly planted
heater that keeps tank at somewhere between 72 and 75 degrees fahrenheit
sponge filter
a light
two bigger snail of an unknown species
lots of smaller snails
three guppies, 2 male 1 female
1 golden cloud minnow I think is what it was called
guy I bought it from said he rarely had to change the water, and would add as needed and it stayed pretty solid.
Took it home, placed betta in it and they all adjusted nicely. little bit of chasing here in there, but I haven't noticed any large issues. I have been doing 30% water changes probably every 3 weeks or so. we usually leave the light on about 10-12 hours a day, and have been feeding twice a day. Guppies and minnow have been eating some flake food, Betta fed with pellets and dried bloodworms, but he also started eating the flakes more so than the pellets. Ive also been checking water quality with test strips and everything has been pretty good. I know our water is pretty high on the basic side but nitrites and ammonia are all okay
so.... fast forward three months
currently the tank is looking really poor and I'm concerned my betta is developing Hole in the head disease.
-one of the plants would grow way too fast and overtake a lot of space. We have trimmed it down as we thought best, but it just made it longer and stringier it seemed like.
-some type of algae has slowly started overtaking a lot of the plants and growing on rocks in substrate and into my sponge filter
-I tried adding four corydoras from a local pet store chain and three of the four died pretty quickly. ( I didn't quarantine them so Im concerned they might have been sick already and thats where the Hole in the Head infection is from)
-Betta has been acting really odd, sitting on bottom or hiding in plants which has not been normal. This seemed to have started shortly after the corydoras were introduced. I noticed this morning some brown lesions on his head that I hadn't seen before.
-small snails are exploding in growth. eating all my plants, making them look horrible
Things I've tried
-I think the algae and the snails are a result of overfeeding, and I was concerned the betta was constipated or bloated from the same issue and that's why he was acting weird. We stopped feeding for a few days and then cut back to once a day and he made a bit of progress as far as not sitting on the bottom, but he still is hiding in plants and hanging below the surface at an angle pointing up. I'm hoping the cutback will reduce algae growth, and I will work on removing snails ( they seem to flock to the cordoryas pellet food making it easier to pick them out)
-cut back the light to 8-9 hours
- I did add 10 ghost shrimp hoping to help cleanup some algae and other nutrients. They seem to be doing great.
-guppies and minnows seems to be fine, heck the female guppie has had a few babies, so they have to be feeling good in my mind
Do I need to do more frequent water changes? Do I need to cut back the amount of fish in the tank? Add CO2 for plants to outcompete algae? antibiotics for the betta? Feed even less? There's just so much info out there that I'm really not sure what the best route is. I want to have a healthy looking tank and keep my fish happy, but it seems I'm slowly losing my tank to a lot of different problems. Any suggestions or advice different from my current changes? Any help is appreciated.
-
sand substrate,
three or four different types of plants, pretty thickly planted
heater that keeps tank at somewhere between 72 and 75 degrees fahrenheit
sponge filter
a light
two bigger snail of an unknown species
lots of smaller snails
three guppies, 2 male 1 female
1 golden cloud minnow I think is what it was called
guy I bought it from said he rarely had to change the water, and would add as needed and it stayed pretty solid.
Took it home, placed betta in it and they all adjusted nicely. little bit of chasing here in there, but I haven't noticed any large issues. I have been doing 30% water changes probably every 3 weeks or so. we usually leave the light on about 10-12 hours a day, and have been feeding twice a day. Guppies and minnow have been eating some flake food, Betta fed with pellets and dried bloodworms, but he also started eating the flakes more so than the pellets. Ive also been checking water quality with test strips and everything has been pretty good. I know our water is pretty high on the basic side but nitrites and ammonia are all okay
so.... fast forward three months
currently the tank is looking really poor and I'm concerned my betta is developing Hole in the head disease.
-one of the plants would grow way too fast and overtake a lot of space. We have trimmed it down as we thought best, but it just made it longer and stringier it seemed like.
-some type of algae has slowly started overtaking a lot of the plants and growing on rocks in substrate and into my sponge filter
-I tried adding four corydoras from a local pet store chain and three of the four died pretty quickly. ( I didn't quarantine them so Im concerned they might have been sick already and thats where the Hole in the Head infection is from)
-Betta has been acting really odd, sitting on bottom or hiding in plants which has not been normal. This seemed to have started shortly after the corydoras were introduced. I noticed this morning some brown lesions on his head that I hadn't seen before.
-small snails are exploding in growth. eating all my plants, making them look horrible
Things I've tried
-I think the algae and the snails are a result of overfeeding, and I was concerned the betta was constipated or bloated from the same issue and that's why he was acting weird. We stopped feeding for a few days and then cut back to once a day and he made a bit of progress as far as not sitting on the bottom, but he still is hiding in plants and hanging below the surface at an angle pointing up. I'm hoping the cutback will reduce algae growth, and I will work on removing snails ( they seem to flock to the cordoryas pellet food making it easier to pick them out)
-cut back the light to 8-9 hours
- I did add 10 ghost shrimp hoping to help cleanup some algae and other nutrients. They seem to be doing great.
-guppies and minnows seems to be fine, heck the female guppie has had a few babies, so they have to be feeling good in my mind
Do I need to do more frequent water changes? Do I need to cut back the amount of fish in the tank? Add CO2 for plants to outcompete algae? antibiotics for the betta? Feed even less? There's just so much info out there that I'm really not sure what the best route is. I want to have a healthy looking tank and keep my fish happy, but it seems I'm slowly losing my tank to a lot of different problems. Any suggestions or advice different from my current changes? Any help is appreciated.
-
