Fresh-Water Fish Help Please

Factual Questions
1

I just helped my friend clean his fish tank. He’s got a pretty bad green problem. He said the research he did said it was a bacteria problem from overfeeding. Everything he knows about fish care, he learned from the owner of a now closed pet store. I don’t know if the store closed for retirement, or because they killed all their fish.

So, please clarify some things for the sake of these fish…

  1. The tank is “thirtysomething gallons”
  2. He has “not nearly as many fish as he could have”.
    2 loach
    5 neon (small)
    3 flourescent, neon tetra looking things (about 1" long)
    2 bigger tetra type fish (maybe 3" long)
  3. He feeds them those flakes in the yellow can. He feeds them once a day. If he had to guess, he’d say they get maybe 24-40 flakes per day.
  4. Every time he puts a Pleko (sp?) in the tank, it dies.
  5. He had 2 large yellow snails and they died.
  6. When he bought the loaches, the bag had rocks from the pet store and some of the rocks turned out to be small snails (the kind you don’t want, apparently). He ended up with a snail infestation. He keeps getting occasional reappearances and he keeps getting rid of them.

Questions:

  1. What filter is best?
  2. What pump is best?
  3. What thermometer is best?
  4. Did I forget a piece of equipment?
  5. Are real plants better than plastic? Which plants are best?
  6. What’s the deal with the snails?
  7. What’s the deal with the algae eaters?
  8. What is the best way to keep this thing clean? Is there a cleaning product that works best? What can he use to clean the castle and bridge? Is dish soap ok? How exactly do you vacuum rocks?
  9. How many more fish can he put in here, and what should he get?
  10. Any other suggestions?

To clean it just now, I scrubbed the castle, bridge, thermometer and plastic plant using a toothbrush and very hot water. We both took turn scrubbing the sides with a scrub brush, no cleaning products. We used the net to fish out as much of the floaty crap as we could I fished out all the rocks and cleaned them by scrubbing them against each other, in a tub of hot water, rinsing and scrubbing again. The water started out dark green and ended up pale green by the time I was done.

Right now, the water in the tank is cloudy white, because we’re still waiting for the water to settle. It’s definitely much cleaner but we both know that green shit is still in there and will most likely get really bad again.

Thanks for any help you guys can give. I know how much he loves fish and this is very frustrating for him.

2

Green is algae.

Ammonia build up is likely to kill fish mysteriously in an unbalanced tank. Filter for it too.

Don’t add more fish the tank is unbalanced already.

3

Algae blooms are caused (or aggravated) by excessive amounts of nutrients (fish poop, urine and uneaten food) in the aquarium water. This can get even worse if the aquarium is near a window where it gets direct sunlight for a good part of the day or if the light is left on constantly.
Without knowing the specifics of how the tank is filtered it’s difficult to diagnose the exact problem however

  1. It’s likely you’re still over feeding the fish, fish do not need to eat every day. It’s very very very difficult to starve a fish. I’m on the every three or four day plan myself. When I feed a put a little food in there (enough that none of it makes it to the ‘floor’ of the tank) then maybe put a little more in, again making sure it’s all eaten and not falling to the floor.
  2. Your cleaning regiment is likely cleaning up all the good bacteria in the tank that serve to break down the waste in the tank. Naturally these bacteria grow in the gravel, and on the filter media. If you are regularly scrubbing them off, then after each cleaning your tank is not much more “cycled” then it was on the first day you brought it home. If the only filter on the tank is one of these overflow filers and you’re replacing the cartridge, you’re throwing away whatever good bacteria has managed to grow since your last cleaning.
  3. Hi Opal (I always wanted to do that)

I’d recommend googleing “aquarium nitrogen cycle” this info is mandatory for a successful aquarium