i am indeed curious...as i have one 2" goldfish in a 20 gallon aquarium with a penguin biowheel 330 and i can't go more than 3 days without changing the water, otherwise i'll have a major black algae outbreak. mind you, i'm not talking a little bit growing on the glass here and there, i'm talking a bloom where my water turns greenish brown and slim coats everything- and in worse case scenario clogs my filter...

so i want to know, is there some trick to keeping the water in a semi-decent state for longer periods of time(aka, longer than 24 hours)? granted i don't mind changing a bit of the water daily, as its easier for me than making a huge weekly change,but i've been treating kagome for a baterial infection this past week and her waters just nasty looking now as i haven't been able to do my daily changes.

Hmmm im not so sure,my aquarium will get foggy white but i know
it's because im over stocked and that the good bacteria has not where to go (i think)....hmmmm sorry i can't really help.... is your aquarium close to a window?

nope; it gets very little or no sunlight.

When you treat with meds it mess up the biological filter in the tank causing the cloudiness of the water.

All my tanks get 30-40% water changes every week. I only feed my fish once a day only what they can eat in 5 mins. I also have then in 12-15 gals per fish except my Handicapped tank. Filtration is a good thing too as most people try to shoot for 10 times an hour on the tanks, this way the tank picks up more of the waste products in the water, thus causing less cloudiness in the tank.

Just curious, how are your water params? And what
kind/brand of lighting do you use?

Along the same lines with Pm94, how long do you leave the light on?

How long do you leave the light on, and maybe consider testing your water for phosphates. Do you overfeed? If there are lots of nutrients for the algae, it will definately take advantage of it!

UV baby. clear you right up.

A UV Sterilizer will only clear suspended particulates. It will not clear anything that is growing on a surface.

Put more plants. They'll suck the nutrients before the algae does.

maybe some janitorial snails to boot

wow..lots of people replying for once! now to answer your questions..

i don't really think this has anything to do with my cycle crashing as i checked the water twice daily during treatment and never detected any ammonia or nitrite. also, this exact same problem happens to me anytime i go longer than 2/3 days without changing the water.

i feed my fish 3 small meals a day(small as in one to two mouthfuls) and i always remove any uneaten particles afterwards, so i'm hoping that i'm not overfeeding.

the water parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 22 nitrate as of today.

finally, my lighting is veryyyyyyyyy low and that is my personal guess as to whats causing all this. 16" deep tank being lit by one 40 watt tube which i leave it on for about 9 hours daily- not good at all. and the sad thing is, i've really wanted to grow live plants (actually one of my main reasons for wanting an aquarium) but i can't find a hood to fit my tank that holds more than one tube..

Yes, very low light will cause brown/black algae to grow like the dickens. Horrible stuff it is too! If you increase the lighting in the tank you'll find you'll get much more green algae - which the fish will eat and is far less unsightly - than the brown/black. If you get a high-intensity tube for your hood, that would probably make quite a difference. Moving the tank closer to a window would probably help too, if its possible for you to do that. You could also try putting some phosphate-removing granules in the filter to cut down the nutrients the algae feeds on.

If you want live plants, try Anubias, Moss Balls or Java Fern. They will all grow even in really dim conditions.

upon emmas advice, how old is the tube in your lighting fixture?

keep in mind that flourescent tubes go bad pretty quickly. thats why its recommended to change them once a year to mainain the same intensity of lighting.

just my

also, using a sylicate and phosphorous removing media in the media baskets of your penguin 330 should help to reduce the amount of algae growth greatly.

Is .22 a high reading for nitrAtes?

Cheers! Annette

well ima say the tube i have right now is about 5 months old, so it's ready to get replaced.
problem is, the pet stores around here have virtually no selection; so i highly doubt i'm going to be able to find anything to aid my situation- it's hard enough finding simple activated carbon and florescent tubes (petsmart seems to have an incandescent fetish). i'm going to try a high intensity bulb for now, and maybe go ahead and get some of that filter media. anybody know any good online stores that would carry such things in case i can't find them here in town?

fishmerised- 22 is a slightly high nitrate reading, ideally nitrates should be lower than 20

Good online sites are:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/
http://petsolutions.com
http://www.bigalsonline.com/splash.html

I just get my bulbs from the regular old hardware store. The plants do just as good under them as the "speciality" bulbs.