# How do you guys keep your organic waste down in your nano?



## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

Hi all, I'm having trouble with BBA and am starting to see cyanobacteria pop up though it grows very slowly. 

I dose Thrive S every day with a water change and inject Co2

My stock is 

3 hastatus corydora
1 CPD
1 oto
1 scarlet badis
1 RCS

All of the inhabitants look healthy and are very active. I'd say it's heavily planted but my background plants aren't fully grown to the top of the tank so I'd say the overall plant biomass is at a medium-high level. My water out of the tap is 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 20ppm nitrate

I have a large amount of Biological filtration, I clean my filter weekly, and I use purigen.

Is this a result of overstocking? Is it my water quality out of the tap? The only way to keep the BBA and particularly cyano at bay is to do daily 50% water changes, but that's getting quite old. thoughts?


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## Thoswe (Jul 31, 2018)

Have you tried a gravel vac? It would help get some mulm and stuff away... in my nanos it tends to get quite nasty so I use one by dennerle for nano tanks, it has a small gauge tube so it sucks very slowly so you have time to clean up properly  




I found this video very helpful, she's using a chop stick to get waste away.. good if you have many plants. Also using a very fine filter sponge has helped me collect lots of stuff from the water column like poop and dead plant matter and so on.. if you can have a heavy flow thats good because stuff won't sink to the bottom.


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

Thoswe said:


> Have you tried a gravel vac? It would help get some mulm and stuff away... in my nanos it tends to get quite nasty so I use one by dennerle for nano tanks, it has a small gauge tube so it sucks very slowly so you have time to clean up properly
> 
> I found this video very helpful, she's using a chop stick to get waste away.. good if you have many plants. Also using a very fine filter sponge has helped me collect lots of stuff from the water column like poop and dead plant matter and so on.. if you can have a heavy flow thats good because stuff won't sink to the bottom.


I do quickly vacuum the sand substrate which does a good job of keeping mulm from sinking down and I replace filter floss weekly during my filter clean. 

Draining too fast has been an issue, it is very hard to be accurate in my cleaning when the tank is empty in half a minute

I'll watch the video when I've got a little more time


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## Thoswe (Jul 31, 2018)

It sounds like you should definitely get the dennerle vac. Its amazing, it sucks soooo slowly! 




Here's a vid on that, unfortunately not in English but there are subtitles  you get the idea.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

If your doing all that, your more than likely have to reexamine your lighting situation.


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## waterblossom (Jun 19, 2018)

Thoswe said:


> It sounds like you should definitely get the dennerle vac. Its amazing, it sucks soooo slowly!
> Dennerle Nano Gravel Cleaner - YouTube
> Here's a vid on that, unfortunately not in English but there are subtitles  you get the idea.


This sounds like something I need for sure! A lot of waste and detritus gets trapped in my carpet and I've been trying to think of ways to clean it out without pulling up a bunch of substrate above the carpet as well. Although I looked for this particular vac and it seems like it's not readily available for purchase in the US  Do you know of any other gravel vacs that are similar?


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## Orichid123 (Feb 25, 2018)

I use siamnes alage eating fish they do a great job at keeping this algae in check


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

asteriod said:


> If your doing all that, your more than likely have to reexamine your lighting situation.


Will do... I can't believe I haven't thought about dimming my light. Do you think a 10% drop would be enough to start seeing differences?



Orichid123 said:


> I use siamnes alage eating fish they do a great job at keeping this algae in check


Can they go in a 5 gallon? I've noticed that my oto goes after it fiendishly. His stomach is ALWAYS visibly full and he chows down in the BBA, but he alone isn't enough it get it all and he also seems to struggle a bit to remove it from the hard surfaces, though he tries hard enough that I'm proud of him lol


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## tamsin (Jan 12, 2011)

I don't think more fish is a good idea. I would start by either shortening your light period or dimming the lights. Do it a little more than you'd like, then if it goes well you can gradually increase til you find the point you start seeing a little algae.

That said, I'd try and killing the cyanobacteria as step one. So do a good clean removing as much as possible and do your water change. Then turn off your light and cover the tank e.g. tape some newspaper over. Leave it for a week, do another waterchange and put the lights back on the lower setting. 

For gravel cleaning, poking with a stick as you go can help disturb it. Another things that can work is before you do a water change give everywhere good waft with your hand, that will kick all the mulm up into the water column so it leaves with the water.


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## Thoswe (Jul 31, 2018)

waterblossom said:


> This sounds like something I need for sure! A lot of waste and detritus gets trapped in my carpet and I've been trying to think of ways to clean it out without pulling up a bunch of substrate above the carpet as well. Although I looked for this particular vac and it seems like it's not readily available for purchase in the US  Do you know of any other gravel vacs that are similar?


U can probs find it on ebay or amazon?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Rnasty said:


> Will do... I can't believe I haven't thought about dimming my light. Do you think a 10% drop would be enough to start seeing differences?


It's hard to say what 10% would do since every setup is different, but usually a reduction in light will help assuming the plants have enough to grow. It doesn't sound like you should have that much waste on your stocking, but algae will take advantage of light very easily.


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

Do you think my tap water could be naturally high in organic waste? Coming out of the tap at 20ppm nitrates doesn't have me thrilled. I don't think I've ever gotten a tank under that number sadly


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## Proteus01 (Mar 12, 2017)

20ppm in the tank is really not a concern, I believe. 
My usual nano tank recovery from BBA and CB: manually clean, reduce light, skip some feeding, increase water flow, gravel vac, clean filter, add more plants...and then more again.


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## Timothy13 (Aug 23, 2018)

I think you need more cherry shrimp and snails. I have a 10 gallon with about 70+ shrimp and about 100 snails in there (they take up practically no space for stocking a tank) and I never clean it at all.
I also think you are probably a bit overstocked in that tank, although it would be a different story if they were all the same species.


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

Timothy13 said:


> I think you need more cherry shrimp and snails. I have a 10 gallon with about 70+ shrimp and about 100 snails in there (they take up practically no space for stocking a tank) and I never clean it at all.
> I also think you are probably a bit overstocked in that tank, although it would be a different story if they were all the same species.


How do you have so many in such a small space? I had 5 at one time and my tank was absolutely covered in poop


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## mertgezer (Jan 8, 2020)

Rnasty said:


> Hi all, I'm having trouble with BBA and am starting to see cyanobacteria pop up though it grows very slowly.
> 
> I dose Thrive S every day with a water change and inject Co2
> 
> ...



Hi,


It can't happen be because of your livestock, i believe you have minimal fish, comparing to that plant mass. 

What are you water parameters gh/kh/ph ?
Did you change anything on your lightning or schedule ? did you put any new plants to the tank ?

It "might" happen because of low nitrate or high phosphate (test your tap water)


For short term Bba cleaning, get some horned nerite snails and put them over the bba infected plants they will clean it. it works perfectly on my anubias plants.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

While its not what you thread is about I would like to point out that the oto, cory, and cdp all should be in groups of 6 or more. Don't add more fish. I'd remove them (since all those need a 10g-20g+ and proper shoal size (source https://www.seriouslyfish.com/)) all and get 6-9 smaller pygmy cory. Or just more shrimp (and a lot less feeding since they don't need much)!
20ppm nitrates doesn't sound good, are you using strips or liquid test kit? Strips are notoriously inaccurate. I'd retest with another liquid nitrate kit and remember to shake bottle #2 and the final vial solution like your arm is going to fly off! Just to be sure, tap really shouldn't have such high nitrates (mines 10ppm which sucks but densely planted tanks and understocking fauna helps).


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## Crazyjayb (Jan 9, 2020)

Rnasty said:


> asteriod said:
> 
> 
> > If your doing all that, your more than likely have to reexamine your lighting situation.
> ...


NO, less fish not more. SAEs belong in groups and not in anything less than a 20g. I would recommend a larger tank for them than a 20 as they grow up to 6ish inches. Definitely recommend dimming lights as well as redoing your stocking choices


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