# Cleanup Crew with Sunfish in a 90gallon



## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Alright so my parents keep sunfish in a 90 gallon tank (I do believe there are 5 or maybee 6 of them) allong with a plecostomus, but the tank is still not terribly clean. This bothers me as I dont like to see dirty tanks, and I was wondering if anyone knows of a cleanup crew that I could get for my tank which the sunfish wouldnt eat. Common snails wont work, yes they reproduce fast, but when I attempted to transport a few over from my shrimp tank in the hopes they would go unnoticed untill there were too many to be eaten, they were all hunted down and turned into tasty snacks for the sunfish. 

Oh their Green Sunfish I believe, and they are very agressive to anything smaller than themselves.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

yeah north american cichlids..... I would just say clean the tank yourself. Other fish don't do this. IMO their are no "cleaning fish". Things like plecos add such a large bioload to the tank that their presence promotes algae. Only things I've ever owned are cherry shrimp and snails. Other than that I see no reason to buy a fish for the sole purpose of cleaning a tank. Reduce your feeding and increase maintenance. Every tank has a balance and any sign of algae means there is an imbalance.


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## Blue Cray (Oct 19, 2007)

Mikaila31 said:


> yeah north american cichlids..... I would just say clean the tank yourself. Other fish don't do this. IMO their are no "cleaning fish". Things like plecos add such a large bioload to the tank that their presence promotes algae. Only things I've ever owned are cherry shrimp and snails. Other than that I see no reason to buy a fish for the sole purpose of cleaning a tank. Reduce your feeding and increase maintenance. Every tank has a balance and any sign of algae means there is an imbalance.


Mik Sunfish aren't cichlids. 

Corwin your best bet is to take over the tank yourself and do weekly water changes and up the filtration if its that bad. Water changes are a fish's best friend. If you change the water more frequently the colors and behavior of the fish will change dramatically (sp?). 50% or so every 5 to 7 days is great. When you or if you ever go for larger more sensative fish you'd be getting into a habit of 50% water changes ever 4 days or so.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Alright, I think ill see if they will allow me to take over the tank (they have a rather strict opinion of what the tank should look like). 

The entire tank confuses me, im going to post some photos of it as soon as I can get a hold of a decent camera (blury photos wont do any good if your trying to help me), At first (second, third, etc) glance the tank seems to be very dirty, it has a thick layer of detritus and growth on the bottom of the tank as well as algae over everything, but when I did a test for nitrate, nitrite, hardness, chlorine, alkalinity, PH, and ammonia the results were that of a perfectly healthy tank. (Ill do another test soon and post the results). I also want to state that this is a very old tank, I know that it has been set up since before I was born (im 20) and that it has only been emptied and cleaned once in my memory. Also as far as I know I have never seen my parents do a water change on it.

This all seems wrong to me, as far as I knew dirty tank = unhealthy tank, am I missing something here.


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## shev (Jan 18, 2005)

The pleco is already your best bet for "cleaning", and even then he'll be making a bigger mess than he'll be cleaning. Manually sucking up / cleaning up the detritus and scraping off the algae is your only real option.

Also, sunfish do happen to be a part of the gigantic cichlid family. Kinda weird to think about the fish near home being in the same family as the exotic angelfish in your tank, but it really does range from all of the world.

edit: Oh yeah, and as for your test readings, it would make sense that the ammonia/nitrite are 0 for an established tank, no matter how dirty. You would think if no water changes are done that the nitrates should be ridiculously high, but it seems the algae, and any plants that my be in there, have taken up the role of regular water changes as the nitrogen-reducer.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

thats what makes me nervous about going in and cleaning it all up, I dont want to throw the tank out of wack. Though I do think I may go in and vaccume up some of the detritus from the bottom of the tank.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

I would go very very slow. I mean very slow. The tank is obviously happy chemistry wise and messing with it too much after 20+ years can lead to a crash. I would start with only some small water changes. Then I would do some really light vacuuming. And I would let much time pass in between.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

hmm I'm thinking that I may just allow it to continue on the way it is as it seems to be very established and happy. If im still at home when its current residents pass on then I may look into taking it over and revamping it.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

on a tank like that nitrate may get too high to not read correctly on the test kit. Read up on "old tank syndrome" before you do any work with the tank. Its important you do not shock a system that is unaccustomed to changes.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

alright, Ill do some research into Old Tank Syndrome and then post back here when ive got a better idea of what could be happening. I should also have a camera today and I will be getting some photos and posting them here as well if I feel they are clear enough to be of any use.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Ok so I have some photos of the tank, now how do I upload them into the thread? do I have to make a photo album on my forum account and then somehow link it?


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

make a photobucket account.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

its ok I figured it out how to do it with just the forum... I think lol


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Alright, so ignore the algae that is on the glass, I know that it gets in the way a bit with some of the pictures and i'm sorry about that. Also the photo where the flash from the camera is close to the middle of the picture was taken to show the layer of detritus sitting on the gravel (dark green line which can be seen where the gravel ends)

















































If the pictures dont work please let me know.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

don't see pics


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

odd... they show up for me on my screen.

Oh well, heres the link to the album http://www.fishforums.com/forum/album.php?albumid=357

hope that works lol


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

well they work now..lol

That ditrus layer... the blue green fluffy stuff is blue green algae(BGA) . Algae scrub pads can help with the glass. You will probably have to hand remove the BGA. Natives are very very tough fish. They can live in very neglected tanks for a long while. Since this tank will have old tank syndrom your best starting with very small water changes. I would not worry about the algae ATM.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

alright, small water changes it is. How long with water changes every... second day? (10%?) do you think before I should start working on vaccuming it (also going very slow with this.)


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Also, is blue green algae bad for the tank?


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

I would start with 10% then wait 4 days, test the tank before and after the change mostly you are keeping your eye on any sudden buffering or crashes. Unlike other tanks if you see ammonia appear or pH jump around don't go change more water as that will only add to the problem also sudden drops in the high nitrates can shock the fish accustom to these. If everything goes fine then change 10% every 4 days. Then you can step it up to 15% and so on. For cleaning I would vacuum small areas during each water change. But for the first water change clean out the filter and rinse the pad in old tank water don't clean anything in the tank. Focus on small frequent changes. 

Algae causes no harm by its self. However its presence always means a tank is unbalanced and not functioning as it should. It can mean anything from cycling, poor maintenance, and generally imbalances between light and nutrients. It is just the physical appearance of a more underlying problem. In this case it is poor maintenance and excess nutrients causing the issue. The algae will not directly harm the fish, but generally what encourages algae harms or stresses fish.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Alright, so I was given orders to revamp the tank, at the possible cost of its inhabitants, so thats what I did. The fish seem to be in good health after being returned to the now much cleaner and much redesigned tank (the cleaning took literaly an entire night) and I hope that the change didnt shock them too badly.

Time will tell regarding their health though I hope they are fine. Also I did discover that while they didnt do water changes OR vaccume the bottom (god I found things in that tank I would like to never ever see again, such as ages old dead fish, and an algae that was able to reduce a dead fish into a pile of bones in a couple of days). They did completely clean it once three to four years ago so the situation may have not been as bad as it we thought it could have been. 

Regardless I am VERY happy for all the support I got regarding this particular issue that I had (even though it wasnt used do to strict orders to clean the thing completely) and I would like to thank everyone who took the time to try and instruct me on what cource of action I should take.

PS: >_< when I was cleaning the tank, and attempting to vaccume it the detritus was so thick that it was clogging my gravel vaccume every few centemetres.

PPS: the tank has now been passed over into my care and if you guys would like I can post into this thread giving updates on the wellbeing of the 5 sunfish, and one pleco (who I now believe could possibly be a leperd pleco), over the next while.


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

Alright so here is the updated album; http://www.fishforums.com/forum/album.php?albumid=368

from after I redid the tank


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