Wednesday, December 2, 2009

How do you prevent bacterial bloom in freshwater aquariums?

They grow and spread in just few hours and ruin your tank and fish. If you have the tank properly cycled, monitored the water levels, have a proper filtering system and haven't over fed your fish - what more should you do?How do you prevent bacterial bloom in freshwater aquariums?
If it is indeed a bacterial bloom that you have then unfortunately your tank is not cycled like you think it is.





A cycled tank is a perfect balance of bacteria to waste. A bloom is an excess of bacteria that was produced in response to high levels of ammonia. Once the ammonia levels drop due to the bacteria feeding on the ammonia then so do the levels of bacteria because they basically starve until you end up with a level of bacteria to support a normal level of ammonia. When you achieve this balance you will not see the bacteria but in huge numbers of bacteria you will see them as milky cloudy water. This should clear without any intervention other than by looking after your water conditions through a lot of the methods you described like not overfeeding and keeping the tank clean and with fresh water





You may be putting your tank through mini-cycles by accidentally killing off bacteria causing an ammonia spike followed by another bacterial bloom. Ways in which you may be doing this is by changing more than 50% water over more than a few days, by adding non-conditioned water, by adding cold water not brought up to temperature, by overscrubing decor or over vaccuuming or by leaving decor out to dry out. Or by rinsing filter media under non-conditioned water or leaving these out to dry out during cleaning, by having an overstocked tank or by stocking your tank too quickly.





Basically anything that will increase ammonia too quickly like feeding too much and leaving it to rot or adding too many fish too quickly for bacteria to cope with or by killing off some bacteria so they cant cope with the current level of ammonia will cause an ammonia spike and an ammonia spike will be responded with by the bacteria over producing to cope with the extra ammonia. When you have huge bacteria colonies like this, they become visible as milky water





Hope this is clear and helps :DHow do you prevent bacterial bloom in freshwater aquariums?
Are you talking about bacteria or algae?





There are 2 kinds of bacteria, good / friendly bacteria and harmful / unwanted bacteria.





Good bacteria include nitrifiers. They convert ammonia into nitrates.





While harmful bacteria is pathogenic or disease causing bacteria.





Both types of bacteria is present in every aquarium. Most of the pathogenic bacteria lay dormant until your fish becomes stressed and lower their immune system. When this happens, these opportunistic bacteria will infect the fish.








If you were talking about algae, then you need to address an issue of bad water. The algae is due to bad water conditions and partly due to amount of light.





Check the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels. If you have any traces of ammonia or nitrites, then your tank isn't fully cycled. If you have more than 30ppm of nitrates, then your tank is either over populated or haven't done the required water changes. (since you stated you don't over feed your fish)





If all your levels are under control, then try reducing the amount lights your tank is getting.





One you get your water parameter under control and reduce the lightning time down to about 8 to 10 hours a day, then your algae problem would disappear.
Bacterial blooms are not harmfull to your fish. They are caused by an imbalance of the water. These can be from underfiltering,, over filtering over stocking, over feeding, adding too many fish too close together as well as an unstable PH.





Water quality is the most important item here. Bacterial blooms don't kill fish or your tank. Cleaning the entire tank does. Water changes , unless really needed should never be more than 25%. Be sure to clean the gravel an rinse out the filter.
Make sure you don't leave the metal halides on for more than 6 hours a day. If you don't have metal halides then don't leave the lights on for more than 8 hours.
barley and algea chem treatment every 2 weeks in the pond and this controls the algea. Thats how I keep my pond clear
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