# 65 gallon tank needs overhaul!



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

So over the summer my 65 gallon tank too a bit of a beating. I had an ich outbreak that killed all but my severum, 5 blackskirt tetras and one dwarf pleco. The tank also got over run with algae and black beard algae. To try and get the algae under control I shut the lights of for 2 months. That got rid of all the algae on the glass, but also almost all my plants are now dead, the ones that aren't have black beard algae on them. To get rid of the black beard algae I have tried: turning lights off, adding co2, using fertilizers. So far nothing has really worked. 

For lighting I have 2 bulbs, a 6500k and 4800k placed about 10 inches above the tank. They are on for 9 hours a day on a timer.

Not sure what to do now. How can I get rid and keep away all the algae and get my tank back to looking nice and lively? Can I just add a ton of plants and to out compete the algae?

Anyone know of any fish that will work well with an increasingly aggressive gold severum? I had a blue acara and 2 bala sharks that had to be moved as the severum would only leave them alone if they were in the back corner of the tank.


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

Here are some pics of the tank as it is now.


----------



## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

Bba algae will be cleaned up by silver flying fox. Contact canadian aquatics, I just recently got two for a friends 135 and 55 both tanks spotless now. I also have one in my dad planted tank since bba outbreak long ago and just keep it in there since and have no bba ever. Other bca members might have some for sale but be sure you can tell the true flying fox and not an oto, my old man and buddy won't let theirs go because they do such a good job.

Silver Flying Fox (Crossocheilus reticulatus) - Information on Silver Flying Fox - Encyclopedia of Life

A true silver flying fox is described here.


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

Thanks for the advice. I will check out the flying foxes. I have read that a lot of the algae eating fish only eat it if there's nothing else to eat so a regularly fed tank its hard to get them to eat the algae. Any experience with that?


----------



## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

+1 on that crosso somethin-or-other. It has been 2 months and he's gobbling it up slowly but surely. He/She didn't dive into it straight away though, ate other stuff first. But recently he's working on the BBA. I removed the established BBA and he/she keeps it from coming back. Before I added this fish I couldn't keep on top of it by trimming affected leaves and squirting h202. It's not all gone but I don't cringe when I look at my tank now. In addition to the crosso, I kept the CO2 the same (pretty high, in my tank) but was diligent on weekly water changes and keeping up with my ferts. dosing. Also only feeding the bare minimum of food (crosso will eat fish food!) plus keeping my cannister filter cleaner than normal in an effort to reduce extra organic gunk. Squirting H202 everywhere did make the algae turn reddish-gray but within a week it was back. There's a good sticky on BBA in the planted tank section. High water flow didn't reduce growth. It's growing the most right in front of my filter out-flow. 

I found that h202 squirted above the water (ie filter tubes, heaters etc) really affected the BBA. More so than the BBA squirted below the water line. Maybe you could keep that tank at half full and syringe away above the water? If you can have a temporary home for the fish, maybe a couple weeks and lots of hydrogen peroxide might put a big dent in the BBA?
Mind you, I soaked a sponge with BBA in pure h202 for a few hours and the dang stuff grew back. I suppose it could have re-attched new spores from the water column...

It's a good bet that adding a lot of plants will only make the BBA happy to have more things to attach to. Dunno, though, I'm new to this BBA fight.

It's insidious.

I'd be inclined to do a tear-down and see if I couldn't soak my equipment in something nasty.


----------



## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

Yes reduce tank feeding so that the silver flying fox doesn't get lazy and adjusted to pellets, they will eat your normal fish food and leave the black beard. Only feed a tiny tiny bit for your normal fish so none gets to the flying fox. Sounds bad but you need to keep them hungry and for algae not to eat fish foods. It's like would most kids eat a salad if it's good for them and they should but they have had McDonalds before so now no fruits and veggies. Same thing for true flying fox.


----------



## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

I think your title states what you need to do. Tank overhaul. Your tank looks very dirty in all the pictures. IMO Id rip it all apart and start over. Add more filtration and do a better job keeping it clean. Scrub all your rocks and filter tubes in a sink. There is no simple solution to getting rid of algae. You didnt mention your water conditions or how often you are doing water changes????? IMO you let the tank get a little out of control so adding a fish to eat it wont help. Time for a restart. It happens, learn and try again. How much are you feeding?


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

I do a water change once a week. About 30-40%. Admittedly over the summer is when things got out of control and I did slip on maintenance. I tested the water today before doing the water change and the results were:
Nitrate 10
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
PH 5.5
So the only thing that is really off is the pH. And I feed the fish once every other day.

I don't have another tank to move the fish to and most of the parts covered with the bba are the rocks on the background are all siliconed to the back of the tank.

I have read the bba thread in the planted tank section and the only thing I haven't tried is the h202, but that sounds like it only works for awhile and it comes back.


----------



## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

BBA seems like it will always come back unless you change the environment in your tank so that it can't get a toe-hold again. h2o2 will kill the BBA. If you tear down your tank (my brother stored his fish in a huge rubbermaid tote for a couple weeks with great success.) and are generous with the h2o2, it would probably put a serious dent in the life cycle of the BBA, then putting the cleaned tank back together with a crosso, might be good. Simply plopping a fish in there won't solve it, like jbyoung says. Maybe someone near you will lend you a tank? Actually it can be useful to have a back up tank in your arsenal. 

Remove anything you can and scrub that. You may have to get a brush and scrub the rock surfaces you can reach. Hose it off and rinse, repeat treatment. The permanent rocks may make your task harder but not impossible. Physically removing the tufts will help a lot.


----------



## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

Beg to differ maybe vancitytony will back me up. With bba over taking his tank like a field of grass and was simply mowed down with only one fish added. Now he did add LEDs and swapped old t5ho creating the problem. But still I don't think pulling it apart is the ony option but just my opinion do as you choose.


----------



## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

Wow! How fortunate! Maybe his crosso was hungrier for BBA than mine. Or maybe I had tastier algae to eat through first. Who knows. Mine is eating it (thank heavens) but I notice he doesn't eat the dark green "healthy" looking BBA. Now that most of the tufts are going kind of grey-ish, they are being eaten. I would not want to tear down a tank either if I didn't have to. Hopefully the OP will do what's best for his situation. At least there are a few options from different members. Looking at the algae in the picture, it doesn't look like mine did. Perhaps there are different strains of BBA? I really don't know enough about the stuff. I have learned that an outbreak is usually caused by several variables making it tricky to solve. The crosso is my absolute best weapon against it though!


----------



## vancitytony (Nov 13, 2012)

Silver flying fox will take care of your tank just have to find one


----------



## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Vancitycam said:


> Beg to differ maybe vancitytony will back me up. With bba over taking his tank like a field of grass and was simply mowed down with only one fish added. Now he did add LEDs and swapped old t5ho creating the problem. But still I don't think pulling it apart is the ony option but just my opinion do as you choose.


I have a Crossocheilus reticulatus aka silver flying fox. Ill back you up Cam. He ate all the beard algae that was on the anubias I took out of my dads tank. Took him a few weeks but he picked it clean. He has become over weight because he also eats the food I feed.

I still don't see a fish fixing this tank. Easiest thing to do is catch the fish that are in the tank. Stick them in a big bucket and give them an air pump. Than rip the tank apart. Take out all the substrate and put it in a bucket. Rinse it with garden hose. Take a brush. Scrub all the rocks including the ones silicone in the tank. Fill the tank again and drain out all the waste. Once you are satisfied with it being clean. Refill the tank. Clean your filters etc... Should take 3-4 hours. Ive done it many times over they years. Sometimes a tank can get away from you so restarting it is the only option. Your PH is 5.5, so you KH is low and Ill assume so is your GH which is not good for plants so yes bba algae will take over very easily. It will continue to come back until you fix the problem. A band aid fix is a fish, but the root cause is lack of maintenance. More water changes are needed and done routinely. Tap water PH is usually higher than 5.5 so you aren't changing enough water. Your fish is swimming around in acidic water. Ph should be at least above 6.
Anyone with a nice tank sticks to the routine. A summer off can set a tank back as you are seeing. As the saying goes...... If having a nice tank was easy, everybody would be doing it.


----------



## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

I agree the water not being changed enough may have helped this problem along, but. What about older t5 bulbs and fixtures of the like having the gases change as bulbs age. Isn't that why people with nice tanks often sell their used bulbs to people who figure it turns on so its fine. Can't these bad or old lights also help create the problems no?


----------



## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Vancitycam said:


> I agree the water not being changed enough may have helped this problem along, but. What about older t5 bulbs and fixtures of the like having the gases change as bulbs age. Isn't that why people with nice tanks often sell their used bulbs to people who figure it turns on so its fine. Can't these bad or old lights also help create the problems no?


Sure the lights can be part of the problem. I think his algae issues are a combination of things but the root cause is a dirty tank. Since you like comparing things to trucks Cam LOL. If your truck motor is burning oil, sure you can put thicker oil in and it might work for awhile but the problem is still there. Only a matter of time before it comes back. Next time worse. So you have to rebuild the motor( rebuild the fish tank?


----------



## maximusfish (Sep 2, 2014)

I had some driftwood that came with my Craigslist tank. I scrubbed it really well, but when it went in the water I could see a lot of bba. I took it out and scrubbed it again, same result. My lfs recommended getting Excel and putting it in a spray bottle and spraying it thoroughly all over the driftwood and leave it for an hour. When I put in back in the tank, no more bba. Bba doesn't seem to scrub off, so in addition to a good cleaning you could spray everything with Excel before putting the water back in.


----------



## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

maximusfish said:


> I had some driftwood that came with my Craigslist tank. I scrubbed it really well, but when it went in the water I could see a lot of bba. I took it out and scrubbed it again, same result. My lfs recommended getting Excel and putting it in a spray bottle and spraying it thoroughly all over the driftwood and leave it for an hour. When I put in back in the tank, no more bba. Bba doesn't seem to scrub off, so in addition to a good cleaning you could spray everything with Excel before putting the water back in.


Use hydrogen peroixide - works much better


----------



## greenfin (Nov 4, 2013)

and cheaper!


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

I agree my maintenance slipped. Even when I was on top of my maintenance the water in my tank would always go back to around 5-5.5. About once a month I usually add so ph balancer to keep it in check. I guess I need to do larger water changes then?

For my lights I have a CFL and LED at 6500K and 4800K, so I don't think it would be the bulb. Unless I have too much light.

I think I have found what I am going to do.
1. Clean filters
2. I read about this on a planted tank forum. In the thread it was called the one two punch. You take all the fish out of the tank and then add 2tbsp of H2o2 per 10G, increase the flow in the tank and leave it for 15 mins. Then do a 50% water change and then dose Excel at 5ml per 10G. That is supposed to kill a large portion of the algae and not have a negative impact on the fish or my few remaining plants. Sounds like a last resort nuke the tank kind of option, but I think it's come to that.
3. Get a couple silver flying foxes, hopefully they will eat what is left and be able to somewhat keep it in check.
4. Add a bunch of plants, all my plants died over the summer and I keep reading that adding lots of plants can help. Not sure if thats true or not.
5. Get on top of my maintenance and get my water parameters correct and set up a basic ferts regime.

Im hoping that will get rid of it and keep it away. If that doesn't work, I don't know what to do.


----------



## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

If it doesnt work. I will come over and help you get the tank back on track. Keep half the water and clean the heck out of everything. Its like doing a 50% water change. Your fish will be smiling. 

What filter is on the tank? How are you doing water changes?

We have all slacked on tank maintenance. Youve reconized it and seen the outcome. I use an agenda to keep track of all my maintenace. Keeps it simple and lets you know when you actually worked on the tank. Life keeps us busy so Ive often found its been a lot longer than I thought its been since the last water change.


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

Awesome, I have a plan B now!

I have a eheim 2213 and 2217 on the tank.

water changes are done with the gravel vac.


----------



## lnk (Mar 10, 2013)

This weekend I cleaned out one of my filters and have been trying to get my ph back to normal.

I tested my tap water and it came out as 7 and before the water change my tank was still at 5.5. After a 50-60% water change, the ph in the tank was at 6.0 so I added some ph balancer to help bring the ph back to 7.

Next weekend I will clean out the other filter and try and get myself a couple silver flying foxes before using the h2o2 and excel to kill all the algae.


----------



## Blueturtleman1 (Oct 3, 2011)

Still got evil Severum?


----------

