Left my light on

[sannichan]

I have a 55 gallon freshwater planted aquarium in my high school classroom. We added a heater last week because the tank was getting too cold with the hvac being set to turn off when school is not in session. I guess one of us bumped the timer on the lights b/c the lights were on all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My tank has been established for several months with some beautiful plants and fish and a lot of water sprite floating on top to hide fry and for the betta to hang out in.

The entire tank is now covered in algae (can't find my baby platy I saw on Friday either ). What are my options?

 

[FishGuest5123]

Do a big water change and cut the lights down to half your normal time for a few days. Clean as much of the algae as you can. I would cut feeding down too to reduce nutrients in water. See how it does in a few days.

 

[Back in the fold]

That doesn't hardly seem possible. Shouldn't have happened. Maybe your fish stocking levels are a bit high and the waste levels were going to lead to this anyway. Puzzling.

 

[sannichan]

I already had a small amount of GHA and was in the process of dealing with it a few plants at a time, now its crazy.

My stocking levels are probably a little high. I have 5 pristella tetra, 8 candy cane tetra, 3 diamond tetra, 4 platys (3, one just died ), a cory and an ottocat, and the betta. Everyone seems happy. Lots of plants and room to hide. I added some amano shrimp the other day and haven't seen them since....figure that was really expensive food for someone. I might have a handful of nerites in there too, not sure how many are left as they hide pretty well. I saw a baby platy in the watersprite Friday (not sure how long he/she'd been there but I was super excited) but haven't seen it today.

I figure its a combination of the added heater AND the lights but who knows.

The lights are off, water change has to wait till tomorrow. Can't use the terrible school water.

 

[Back in the fold]

Your stocking levels seem fine to me in a 55 gallon. What you say about the double whammy of the heat and lights makes sense to me. I think you're on the right track there. The water change will help a lot. I would do two 30 percent changes a week for a couple weeks until things settle down.

 

[sannichan]

Baby platy is still alive! Turned the light on for their twice a week feeding today and saw it!!
Slowly generating enough RO water at the house to do a 30% change. Water at school is WAY too hard to work with and good ol WW was sold out of distilled. Twice a week may not be feasible, but I will beat this. Thank you for the advice!

 

[Back in the fold]

Right on ! Stay after it.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Baby platy is still alive! Turned the light on for their twice a week feeding today and saw it!!
Slowly generating enough RO water at the house to do a 30% change. Water at school is WAY too hard to work with and good ol WW was sold out of distilled. Twice a week may not be feasible, but I will beat this. Thank you for the advice!

Distilled water is not good for fish because the minerals have been removed.

 

[seangee]

Distilled water is not good for fish because the minerals have been removed.

Especially not platies (or any livebearers), they need plenty of minerals in the water.

 

[sannichan]

While I quite agree with you all about distilled water, the mineral content of my current tap water situation is upwards of 400+ ppm....so I cut my tap with distilled to lower that content. Then cart some RO from the house that I have remineralized as well. Its a crazy situation but what can you do? It would help if I taught in the same town I lived instead of 45 miles away.

I did lose a second platy, but all my levels look good so I'm at a loss. The mineral content of my tank is by no means low right now. I think he jumped b/c he was stuck in the filter media. The baby is gone over the weekend.....probably got eaten by something. He was tiny, but as soon as I say he's gone he reappears. Algae does look a bit better after leaving the lights off all last week and over the weekend. Just did a 10% water change...so I'll check my levels again in an hour or so. I want to clear out all the floating water sprite b/c it has soo much algae, but the baby was hiding in it so I'm holding out hope and leaving it alone.

 

[sannichan]

little baby platy friday