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Why so much dirt in the tank?

Jaap

Member
Joined
30 Sep 2011
Messages
1,068
Location
Nicosia
Hi,

I was wondering why would I have so much dirt in the tank? I do water changes twice a week but still no difference. Also I do regular filter cleanings.

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Any ideas?


Thanks
 
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Looks like lack of wafting with the hoover? I was shocked when I broke my last tank down on how clean I hadn't kept it. Even though I used to hover the substrate.



In the places you can't get to use a stick in one hand the siphon in the other and gently disturb the substrate and hover the cloud oh and turn of all circulation when doing this helps to stop it messing things up.

If you using cat litter ada or a similar light easily moved substrate, you will need to ristrict the flow of your siphon( pinch the tube) a bit or up and away it will go.

Is your filter up to the job too?
 
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Too much circle of life my friend...I have 2 guppies and 2 ottos in a 40L tank and I never feed them...seems a bit too much especially when I do 70% water changes twice a week and I siphon alot of the dirt.....
 
I think the dirt is mostly decaying plant matter, so if you have dying leaves that contributes to the silt you are describing. The best thing to do is to just waft the affected areas with your hand and syphon out as much gunk as possible. Also removing dying leaves before they are dropped and decay may help.
 
It looks like brown diatoms to me. Its probably not just dirt youve got there but mosstly algae which makes it look dirty.
 
There are a few things that trigger diatoms. An inmature filter, mainly if tank is new. CO2 fluctuations in all its variants. Even changing the water in a low tech with unaged water can cause this. Maybe suffering plants or organic matter in the tank.
Do you use co2?
Do you fertilize?
 
Too much circle of life my friend...I have 2 guppies and 2 ottos in a 40L tank and I never feed them...seems a bit too much especially when I do 70% water changes twice a week and I siphon alot of the dirt.....
Hi Jaap

Dirt comes obviously from fish, plants melting, substrate and everything you have or you put into your tank... I have seen you struggling with all sort of algae problems and now that I can see these pictures I bet this is your problem. It was yesterday when I explained in another thread that I am dismantling my 60 cm tank after 2 years and 2 re-scapes... and man, you won't believe how much dirt there was at the substrate level! I also do 2x50% weekly WCs, violent plant shaking, siphoning, etc. but the truth is that you cannot reach all the parts in your tank, the rhythm of debris production is higher than your cleaning, we are not efficient enough doing that job... or any combination of them. And this increases the chance of having bring all sort of algae... especially BBA if you are on the high tech approach. One year ago I could leave home for 10 days and come back with the tank looking good. Now I definitely need the 2xWC weekly, thinning, H2O2 spot treatments to keep it in good shape (=no visible traces of algae, BBA)

Another interesting thing. In my nano tank (barely 20 liters) I only have cherry shrimps, around 20 of them... Plants are in perfect shape, no melting, not a single death. In 40 days I have clean my filter twice and it was plenty of shrimp heces and even a kind of gunk (shrimp heces paste?). If 20 cherries can do this, your guppies are like a cow in your bath. Your plant problems do contribute for sure to this situation.

I think I suggested this many posts ago... but my feeling is that rebooting a tank is sometimes much easier. Even if you reach the sweet point with your plants now, dealing with all this stuff and algae bits and spores will make things more difficult.

Jordi
 
I don't even bother vaccing the substrate unless the mulm is really bad, don't really see what the issue is.

Maybe in your case you have better oxygen levels and mulm isnt a problem for you. Or maybe you have lower light.
 
Maybe in your case you have better oxygen levels and mulm isnt a problem for you. Or maybe you have lower light.

Both I'm guessing, which means I can be neglectant and lazy and not worry about how dirty the substrate is which is good for my plants :D
 
If I aerate the tank at night will this help with the mulm? Is there a direct connection?
 
If I aerate the tank at night will this help with the mulm? Is there a direct connection?
Sure, oxygen is very important in a tank but I would definitely reboot the tank. It can take you a few hours and beginning from scratch will make things easier.

IMO the layer of debris and organics you have in your tank will keep on feeding algae and probably lots of spores and algae vegetative bits (that will probably be very abundant after months of algae problems) will be there waiting for the good conditions to spread. And as you know there are plenty of algae (like BBA or brown diatoms) that feel very comfortable under the same conditions we give to our plants (or are even more flexible). High flow in this tank may be even counterproductive as you will be spreading all this dirt all over your tank.

If you already have sorted out how to grow plants (that is, if light, co2 and flow are really aligned) don't hesitate. Clean your tank, change your substrate and grow plants. You will be surprised how fast you can achieve a beautiful planted tank when everything is under control.

Jordi
 
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