Disturbing news

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Nexus6
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Disturbing news

Post by Nexus6 »

Hey guys, my opae tank is still doing well, except...

I have a lot of angel hair algae and they are growing rapidly. I cant seem to get rid of it, and its tough to grab hold of and pull out. They are starting to look like cobwebs. The poor opaes get stuck in it and have a hard time getting out of it without popcorning a few times. I even saw a larvae get stuck deep in it. Im afraid some may have perished from it. I now have another 2 berried shrimp and a bunch of larvae floating around. I dont see a lot of babies, there should be like 20 or so of them but i only see a few, i wonder maybe either theyre hiding or they too have perished.

I also have brown algae or diatoms that wont go away and is ugly to look at.

Another issue i have is lately ive been seeing these flatworms swiming in the water, just floating around, wiggling their way around and some even just below the surface. I hope they are not parasitic and can cause harm to the shrimp.

Now for the real disturbing news, im thinking about starting a new clean fresh tank and moving all my opaes over to this new tank. Ive learned a lot from this first tank and i think i know how to avoid algae, worms, parasites, copepods, amphipods, whatever better than i have with this tank. The reason for doing so, is i feel really disgusted and sickened. It all happened after i bought a microscope to see what lives in my tank and to get a closer look at the creatures that live within. As i took water samples, and samples of other things floating in the tank, i saw a lot of really gross things like eggs, worms, and stuff i have no idea what they are. You cant see these things with the naked eye for the most part. Imagine dipping your hand in the water to do some maintenance or whatever reason and not sanitizing or cleaning yourself well afterwards and have it end up on your body/face in your eyes or worse digested somehow. I know im being a bit paranoid, but if you could see what i saw you'd be too. :|
Varanus
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by Varanus »

How often are you feeding? To have so much growing out of control it seems like there could be excess nutrients in the water.

And yeah, to some the stuff in water on a microscopic level may seem gross, but its mostly harmless. At any given time our own skin is crawling with multitudes of different microorganisms that rarely do us any harm.
Nexus6
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by Nexus6 »

I dont feed them at all, i dont add anything to thw water, no water changes, i just test the water every once in a while. Where would all these nutrients be coming from?

Also, i realize there are lots of microorganisms i the household, ive looked at various things in the house, but what i saw in the tank was nothing like the things i saw elsewhere. And i know they are probably harmless, but who knows...
Mech
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by Mech »

have you a photo of your tank? brown algae should appear when a tanks in its early stages of life and quite normal. Where has the hair algae come from?
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mcdaney
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by mcdaney »

Oh no... :(
I noticed you had placed BioDigest capsules in the tank, looking at the video you posted.
Is this the tank that's affected?
viewtopic.php?t=5748#p36936
Mustafa
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by Mustafa »

I wouldn't worry about what you see under the microscope. You can pretty much take a sample from any given tank out there and you'll see lots of "stuff" crawling and swimming around under the microscope. The hair algae ("the angle hair moss" as someone calls it and has been selling as such to unassuming people for years) is a problem though. Shrimp do get stuck in it. Some can't free themselves and die and others die when you have to harvest the dense algae clump and can't possibly see all the shrimp stuck in there. If I were you i'd just try to pluck at it little by little every day until it's gone while making sure under a light that no shrimp are stuck in it. I'd cut down on the feeding, too, to starve the algae. If you have any of my brackish water snails they'll eat the remaining algae over time (along with the shrimp) as it's slowly starving and decaying. The macroalgae are much coarser and don't have the problem of "catching" shrimp as much.
Mech
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Re: Disturbing news

Post by Mech »

mcdaney wrote:Oh no... :(
I noticed you had placed BioDigest capsules in the tank, looking at the video you posted.
Is this the tank that's affected?
viewtopic.php?t=5748#p36936

i am using biodigest and haven't had any issues, its suppose to help reduce algae growth lol.
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