Tank Cleaness

[dan518]

Algae is one of the best plants for helping with water quality, with a bit of practice you can control where it grows and make the most of it.
Agree with the others that your lights are on to much, mine come on at 13 00 and off at 23 00.

 

[LBDave]

Gotta get under 7 hours lighting per day and keep nitrates lower like sub 15.

Add a ton of floating plants, that will help too.

Live plants will help control the algae.

 

[duanes]

The rule I use for my tanks, is add the length, the width, and the height of the largest fish in the tank, and give it 10 gallons per inch.
So a 3 inch L oscar, 1 inch wide and 2 inches high needs a minimum of 60 gallons. As it grows, the tank must also grow.
Your oscar and all other fish in the tank are constantly urinating, so it takes about day to turn your tiny tanks water to Pee Soup, if that was my tank I'd be changing 50 % of the water every day to keep up with the urine.
and the symptoms you can see that tell you the water is Pee Soup, are rampant algae growth, 40 ppm nitrate (toxic) and depressed fish.
If you don't start getting into a better routine, in a much larger tank, the oscar will start getting HLLE (head and lateral line erosion disease).

 

[Itsadeepbluesea]

normal parameters: ammonia 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate under 40.
I have a LED light that I turn on in the morning around 7:00, and turn off sometime 10-12 at night.

If 7:00 is 7am I would recommend shortening the photo period. I would go 10-12 hours, but others may disagree.

 

[Zak03]

ok, so
1.) shorten the light period. Im thinking 8 hours.
2.) more water changes until a bigger tank
3.)possibly add some live plants. Im hesitant in adding live plants cause i red that oscars have a tendency to destroy/eat any live plant in your tank

 

[jeaninel]

How often and how much do you feed? Overfeeding will cause an excess of nutrients and may be contributing to your algae problem. Agree with all the above suggestions....shorter light period, more frequent water changes and a larger tank soon. Yes, Oscars will destroy plants but yours is still small enough he may not do too much damage to them right now. But bottom line you need to get a much larger tank very soon. Oscars are super fast growers, about an inch per month.

 

[Zak03]

How often and how much do you feed? Overfeeding will cause an excess of nutrients and may be contributing to your algae problem. Agree with all the above suggestions....shorter light period, more frequent water changes and a larger tank soon. Yes, Oscars will destroy plants but yours is still small enough he may not do too much damage to them right now. But bottom line you need to get a much larger tank very soon. Oscars are super fast growers, about an inch per month.

I feed about 2-4 times a day. I know that's pretty often, but I feed only a few pellets every time.

 

[skjl47]

the symptoms you can see that tell you the water is Pee Soup, are rampant algae growth, 40 ppm nitrate (toxic) and depressed fish.

I feed about 2-4 times a day. I know that's pretty often, but I feed only a few pellets every time.

Hello; There are two ways multiple feedings a day can be a problem. One is the excess food laying around the tank left to rot. Oscars are messy fish. I have seen bits of food coming out of the gill covers of fish. The other is with feeding so often the fish have little incentive to seek out uneaten food
The other thing is what happened even if every bit of the food is eaten and swallowed. That food passes thru the fishes gut and takes part in the metabolism giving the fish both immediate energy and extra growth. Either way there will be metabolic by-products which will be excreted into the tank.
I get you may want to have fast growth and may want to have the biggest fish possible but consider cutting back on the feeding. While zero nitrates is a hard goal cutting back might help get to 20 ppm along with lots more WC.

 

[neutrino]

This is pretty simple, really. You have some of the most waste producing fish you could have-- in a way small tank-- with a lot of light. It's no wonder you have a lot of algae growth. In fact, along the lines of what dan518 said already, the algae is doing you a favor and absorbing and storing nutrients from waste (and uneaten food, if any). Physically removing algae basically removes some of this excess from the system, so that's not a bad thing, but the unbalance in the tank is a fact of life until you move the fish to a bigger tank, and ultimately you'd need a large tank if you're going to keep all these guys long term.

I understand it's temporary but that doesn't change the lopsided dynamics. If it was me I'd be feeding quite lightly until you get them in the bigger tank, more like just a few pellets a day total, rather than a few pellets a few times per day, fish can get by on less food for a longer period than some people realize. I also agree with doing plenty of water changes. You want to do what you can within the limits of the situation to balance things out better. Along those lines, if you're not attached to the common pleco, if it was me I'd trade it in-- they get big and produce a lot of waste, kind of counter-productive to the amount of algae they eat.

 

[Zak03]

This is pretty simple, really. You have some of the most waste producing fish you could have-- in a way small tank-- with a lot of light. It's no wonder you have a lot of algae growth. In fact, along the lines of what dan518 said already, the algae is doing you a favor and absorbing and storing nutrients from waste (and uneaten food, if any). Physically removing algae basically removes some of this excess from the system, so that's not a bad thing, but the unbalance in the tank is a fact of life until you move the fish to a bigger tank, and ultimately you'd need a large tank if you're going to keep all these guys long term.

I understand it's temporary but that doesn't change the lopsided dynamics. If it was me I'd be feeding quite lightly until you get them in the bigger tank, more like just a few pellets a day total, rather than a few pellets a few times per day, fish can get by on less food for a longer period than some people realize. I also agree with doing plenty of water changes. You want to do what you can within the limits of the situation to balance things out better. Along those lines, if you're not attached to the common pleco, if it was me I'd trade it in-- they get big and produce a lot of waste, kind of counter-productive to the amount of algae they eat.

Ok. So, I will start feeding them less.

And getting rid of the common pleco? I giving up on my commitments, but I understand that it has to be done. I don’t want to kill it wastefully, and I doubt my cat would want to eat a fish that small and that armored. How do i rehome it? Craigslist?

I also have a second smaller sun cat in my bros tank while I get my tank sorted out. But, seeing as every fish is even dirtier than I thought they would be, I’m gonna her to rehome him too. How do I do that then?