Equipment - What Is It And Where Does It Go?

[weezawoo]

Yay excellent news!

 

[MrLiam]

Yay good to hear that.

 

[bae1994]

That's good then

 

[Spishkey]

so a few more questions today

the glass is grubby at the back of the tank, i didnt clean it yesterday as i wasnt sure if its normal or not...the gloop is also all over the poer heads....how is best to clean these please?...also after reading through some journals i see many people paint the back and sides of the aquarium black..why is this and how is best to do it?

then the skimmer....its frothing away in there...but what is it actually doing? whats it for? the fish are constantly hanging round the bottom of the tube so im worried somethings wrong there?


also the starfish..not the long legged bristly ones but the harded short stubby legged ones...theres seems to be a bit of a plague of them in the tank...some hhave only three arms some have six but most have 5....and they're all making a break for it today, thyeve all come out and climbed up the glass above the water level or have let go and floating on the surface...are they dead???

ive also spotted some sort of slime on one of the rocks...its almost see thorugh but looks as though theres air trapped under it (will try get a pick) is that a plant or algae or???

 

[weezawoo]

The stars are asterina starfish. They split to multiply, not harmful for the tank. I have one with 8 legs at the moment!

What colour is the stuff on the wall and powerheads?
Also on the rocks if it is purple it is coraline! Good

Painting the back is to give the fish security and also to hide wires down the back f the tank, plus it looks pretty You can use a background though you dont have to paint!

To get stuff off the glass you can use a blade, you can get scrapers with blades on. Some people use a sponge, I don't know how hard it is to get off though as not got it on my tank walls yet

 

[Spishkey]

the stuff is reddish brown in colour, have just took some photos will upload them now.

the stuff is reddish brown in colour, have just took some photos will upload them now.

 

[MrLiam]

Its most probably coraline which is good but if theres to much on the rock it can not let its full filtering potential and you can get a urchin which will have a munch on it.

The green thing is bubble algae which isn't too good but you can get a emerald crabs which should clear it up.

 

[seffieuk]

As Liam said, the green bubbles are yep, bubble algae, dont be tempted to pull them off or indeed muck about with them as they will release spores and you will get loads emerald crabs will eat it, but takes a while!

You have 'crud' and coraline on your powerheads - the purple is the coraline and can easily be removed by an overnight soak in vinagar, do one at a time, so you always have a powerhead going the crud will just wipe off (by the way, crude is a technical term )

Buy yourself a nice long handled Kent scraper for the back and a good floating algae magnet for the front.

It looks to me like you put back the old sand, or maybe it never came out - if htis is the case, research nitrate and phosphate removers, as I suspect you are going to need them

Seffie x

ps glad everything made it through the night