Caffee
- #1
Well all was fine and dandy for a steady month or so with the new 10 gallon, till i forgot the mayhem i went through with the 5 gallon tank when my water turned green and i had to do a black out to fix it. You guessed it, my water is green! Hurray! Though my tank is definitely not getting as much sunlight as it did when it was on the other side of my room, i recently got a new light that i bet i could blind a man with if i tried (aka it is BRIGHT.) Mind you, this sucker was labeled for 5 gallons and under, but honestly i think it could light up a tank up to 20 gallons pretty well. I love the light dont get me wrong, but oh boy does it love to conjure up algae. Considering that im pretty particular in doing my weekly vacuuming/water changes, im assuming the algae isnt due to lack of maintenance on my part (hopefully.) Ive been a little too hopeful in my new mystery snail that he will do the dirty work on the walls for me. Lets just say i would fire him if he was my personal employee. I was gonna wait till tomorrow to deep clean the tank but after sitting and staring at it for a couple of minutes, i was just itching to get in there. I did about a 75% water change (note that isnt normal for me, i only between 25-50% weekly) in hopes to empty out some of that ugly water. Since i was taking so much water out i decided to get real deep into my substrate since i normally just bounce around on the top layer to avoid uprooting my plants. Bunch of yuck and bluh came out. Still surprises me how much nasty can come out of such little creatures. Then i just did my typical tooth brush cleaning on the walls and took apart my filter to clean out the insides a bit. I often hear controversy about wether you should or shouldnt clean your filter or filter pads, but i think its fine as long as you use the tank water to avoid removing the beneficial bacteria from your original cycle. The filter pad was definitely due for a good scrub, it looked like a square moss ball from how much algae was trapped in it. I really wish i could get a new one but again, dont want to risk screwing up my tanks bacterial flow (or whatever you wanna call it.) Once i was satisfied; i put it back together, turned everything BUT the light back on, and shut the window closest to the tank. I plan to keep it like that and see if my filter will filter out that green tint. The window really doesn't pour direct light into it, but better safe then sorry right? (Aint that ironic for me to say). Im looking at my tank at this very moment and i gotta tell ya, i dont know how some folks like the greenish pond water look. I know its not harmful in anyway, but yeesh its almost a little embarrassing. I think im going to look into those water polishing pad doo dads. Yea the green water is annoying, but as long as its not hurting my fish or invertebrates im not willing to spend an arm and a leg on something like a UV sterilizer for a simple 10 gal. Anyway, this was just kinda my bored, Friday afternoon post since i dont want to talk my families ear off about fish stuff. Hope yall have a good day, night, afternoon, morning- you get the point.
