Aquarium Update

by Alan Cole · Published Wednesday, March 20th, 2013 · Updated Thursday, September 17th, 2020

After the bad news on the beekeeping front yesterday I’m afraid it isn’t all good news from the fish tank either.

The plants are growing really well and putting out roots all over the place. The strong lighting and the fact that the old gravel in the tank is packed full of nutrients seems to be suiting them well. Unfortunately the algae thinks the same too and was beginning to look a little messy. I’ve been clearing it out as best I can but without any shrimps or algae eating fish such as Otocinclus to keep it under control it was a bit of a loosing battle.

As well as patches of algae on the glass, there was hair algae growing on the plants which not only looks unsightly but all smothers then plants. On top of this, the algal filaments trap any debris in the water compounding the problems and making it look even worse.

We therefore bought four shrimps over the weekend and have introduced them to the tank. They seem to have settled in now and are busily eating algae. We also did a water test over the weekend and all the parameters such as pH, nitrate and nitrite levels seem to be about where I’d want them.

Corydoras sterbai

Unfortunately though we do seem to have ‘lost’ one of the lovely Strebai Corydoras. I say lost as we just haven’t been able to see him. It is sometimes difficult finding them in such a well planted tank but they tend to stick together and over the past 24 hours we’ve only ever seen two of the three. There is no sign of the third anywhere. There is still a possibility that he is simply hiding away somewhere but that seems less likely all the time. It seems as though he may have died and we just haven’t found out where yet.

Quite a shame really as they are lovely fish and worse still, it may be a sign that all is not well with the tank yet. I knew it would take a while to settle down but now I’m worried that something isn’t quite right. If there is a problem with the water then we could lose more fish which isn’t only expensive and sad but not fair on the fish either.

I shall be keeping a close eye on it over the next few weeks and won’t be adding any more fish until things are looking better.