Jhn

A strange gray fuzzy algae or moss is growing along the edges of the leaves of my amazon sword. Some leaves don't have it.My ammonia is .05. Nitrites 0
nitrates 10 ppm. Hardness 80 ppm. PH 6.8.

Isabella

Hi Jhn First off, how old is your tank? How many fish and what kinds of fish do you have in there? Your tank is either cycling or going through a mini-cycle because you have ammonia. Ammonia is present usually in new tanks, during the cycle, or in established tanks that have too much bioload, during the mini-cycle. If you have any fish in the tank, I'd perform daily 50% water changes until ammonia = 0, as even smallest amounts of ammonia (and nitrite) can kill your fish. What is your nitrite level? As for the nitarte, fish can handle it up to 40ppm, however, I'd never want to go above 20 ppm with nitrate. Nitrate above 40 ppm is toxic to fish as well.

You have algae because there are probably too many nutrients available in your water to cause algae. Nutrients for algae are no other than fish wastes, meaning you probably have too many fish wastes in your water (ammonia would be the proof of that). Also, every fish keeper will always have more or less algae - which is why most of fish keepers have algae eaters in their tanks - but as long as they don't have ammonia and nitrite in their water, their fish are OK. And as I've said before, nitrate shouldn't exceed 40 ppm either. The higher the nitrate, the bigger algal problems you'll have.

Jhn

actually I haven't replaced my filter in a long time so I just did that and that's propbably where the ammonia came from correct me if i'm wrong. My fish are 3 cory cats, 6 white clouds, 4 amano shrimp, 2 cherry barbs and 4 sword tails and 2 snails. No deaths in over 4 months.

Isabella

If you replaced all of your filter media at once, then that's most likely why you had an ammonia spike. By removing all filter media at once, you're also removing all the beneficial bacteria from that filter, and these bacteria are what keeps your tank cycled. If you remove them, there's no bacteria in the filter left to convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate. It takes some time afterwards for the new filter media to build a sufficient colony of bacteria to keep the tank cycled again. Until that time, you'll be seeing ammonia and nitrite in your water.

Also, what size is your tank?