Newbie 1st attempt..

[wongce]

brown stuff? brown algae?? get algae crew ...

[Cyberkinetic]

Tank cycling still.. Can't put anything.. I'm cutting the lights on hours for now...

brown stuff? brown algae?? get algae crew ...

[wongce]

During cycling quite headache... i suggest you limit light hours from 5 hours(1st week) and gradually add another hour every week up to 8 hours a day... new soil leaks nutrient...

Since you already stuck with algae problem...Weekly WC to reduce the nutrient... but these nutrient are good for plants though.

Add fast growing frogbits, hornwarts and etc more nutrient absorbing fast plants? the plants in your tank might not absorb fast enough... just my humble opinion though

[Cyberkinetic]

And i just found little white worms... planaria? It seems my tank is home to EVERY type of organisms except fish!

This is turning into a nightmare...

[Cyberkinetic]

I've let the lights on almost 12hours a day for the past 3 weeks.. sigh.. ok, cut it down to five from tomorrow...

Noted on plants recommendations... will try get something soon.

If still like that at the end of this week,i think i'll surrender leow...

Apologies for the whinings...i noticed it myself too.. no one forced me to do it.. anyway.. no eyes see... heading to bed...

During cycling quite headache... i suggest you limit light hours from 5 hours(1st week) and gradually add another hour every week up to 8 hours a day... new soil leaks nutrient...

Since you already stuck with algae problem...Weekly WC to reduce the nutrient... but these nutrient are good for plants though.

Add fast growing frogbits, hornwarts and etc more nutrient absorbing fast plants? the plants in your tank might not absorb fast enough... just my humble opinion though

[felix_fx2]

12 hours is alot, IMHO too much.
The normal is 5-10hours photo period, with 6-8hours being the most common.

Most 1st timers go through the same issues. Why not browse up the fourm and look at how many complained of algae problem when starting a planted tank with 10-12 hours.

[diazman]

12 hours is too long for a new tank.IMO. you could star with 7. For my case, i need algae to grow but isnt happening

[wongce]

12 hours!! No wonder you have so much problems. Take note on your water temperature too,weather is hot and your 12hrs lights might cook the plants...

Reduce lights & manual remove /siphon algae if possible.

[gachua]

12 hours is too long for a new tank.IMO. you could star with 7. For my case, i need algae to grow but isnt happening

haha, why do you need algae to grow??!!

[Cyberkinetic]

Give or take... I just turn it on in the morning and off it in the evening. Anyway gotten a timer and set it to five hours . Let's see how it goes.

I made a mistake, I think I have the nematodes and not planaria.. Well, not yet.

My plants really heart ache... Everything covered in brown algae.. I think even if I put in algae crew, they probably will eat until indigestion.

This fish tank thingy is getting the missus all pissed up.. Given ultimatum, fish in by end of the week or dump the whole setup... urghh...

[Cyberkinetic]

The water temperature shows 25-26 degrees most of the time as I observed it over the weekends..

probably helped by the aircon which is on most of the time during the day.

[felix_fx2]

12 hours is too long for a new tank.IMO. you could star with 7. For my case, i need algae to grow but isnt happening

I do agree with 7 hours. 5 hours to me is erm little.

[wongce]

Actually, i did slowly increase of lights as my tank's ada soil leaks high nh3.. Maybe TS can take a latest picture and basic water parameters?

[Cyberkinetic]

I gotta find time tonight to do the test kits.. will post pics later when possible... Thanks for the help everyone. Much appreciated.

[Cyberkinetic]

Photo from yesterday. Somehow the phone camera seemed to enhance the actual situation.

In reality, visible brown stains are seen on most of the leaves as well as the glass panels.

1st July 2012.jpg

[felix_fx2]

Have you added algae crew?
Try scrape some off with a old credit card (during WC) then add algae crew.

You can do incremental WC on a daily basis as a alternative, just 10% is more then enough.

Cheer up, not the worse case IMHO.
I've not just seen but felt 1st hand algae attacks on a greater scale.

[Cyberkinetic]

Hi felix_fx2, tank still cycling, so I did not add any live stock in.. Trying fishless to reduce my sin of fish killing...

Adjusted the lighting to 6 hours and did water test this morning. Ammonia between 0.5 - 1 ppm, nitrite around 2 ppm and nitrate at around 5 ppm. Ammonia and nitrate seems similar to last week's test, although nitrite definitely increased.

There's definitely snails in the tank..caught one which is several times the size of the last one I caught quite a while ago. Was hesitating whether to kill it or let it feast on the algae. can't decide so took it out and put in plastic cup with water first.

[Cyberkinetic]

This is the little bugger which I caught this morning... the size is several times bigger and I just caught this on camera phone, no need "super macro" mode on my digital camera to shoot.

The fuzzy surface it is on is the mesh "teabag" where I put the fish food to rot in the tank... I suppose those fuzzy stuff are fungus/algae stuff when the fish food rots inside the mesh packet.

If I am not wrong, as it moves along, I see little black specks which it left behind.. likely it's poo as it eats along the way?

2012-07-03 Snail.jpg

[felix_fx2]

Here is where you differ with me
I do normal cycling, but introduce fish not next day but 3-4 days later. But I always have mulm from another tank added initially.

The snail is one of my most disliked one. Pouch snail or common pond snail.

Btw your tank is 3 weeks into cycling?

[Cyberkinetic]

The mulm is the fuzzy dirty stuff right? I have that in a seperate mesh pouch as well which i gotten when I clean the gravel on the smaller stable 10L tank.

This 10gallon tank is 3weeks as of last friday. Already past 3 weeks of cycling... that's why super sian...

I'm also not sure if the readings I am getting about the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate sort of messed up by the Seachem stability which I have doused since day one till last friday(where i decided to stop as it doesn't seemed to help at all).

The snail I was thinking maybe if leave there, still can eat some algae... but then I thought of them multiplying makes me take it out.. Still not decided to release it back to the tank or not. Actually if I didn't discover it today, it's probably still happily eating away at the algae on the plants.