Weird Water & New Fish......Any Ideas?

[MeganL3985]

Yesterday I bought 2 oto cats and put them in the tank. I went onto otocinclus.com to learn a little bit more about them and they mentioned that if your tank doesn't have enough algae to supplement with parboiled zucchini (sp?) and algae disc's. I did both. I put one chunk of zucchini and one algae disc in. Now my water is all funky. Its kind of cloudy and the top has bubbles and some sort of a layer of gel on the top b/c the food doesn't seem to move around much when I put it in. Whats going on? Is the zucchini making my water all weird or is this just some fluke thing. Also since I put the oto's in and the discs/algae, I am reading 0 ammonia. Usually my tank has a little in it, its hard for me to keep it down to 0, but now it is? I dunno, I keep getting worried that its a false reading cause of the gunk at the top. Someone help. lol.......

[Algenco]

how long have you had the tank set up? The ammonia thing sounds as if it is still cycling or just finishing. The algae wafers go bad fast, I remove any leftovers after 12 hrs. I haven't noticed any problem feeding zucchini. I have 6 oto's, they usually won't touch the zucchini until after it's been in the tank for about 12 hrs, remove any leftovers after 24 hrs.

The zucchini just needs to be blanched, I slice it up and freeze, when I want to feed I put it in about 4 oz of water and microwave for 1 minute.

[Drumachine09]

do you have any surface agitation?

[MeganL3985]

The tanks been set up for about a month now. Haven't had any of the bubble/gel problems before though. Not until the algae discs and zucchini....hmm.....weird...

[MeganL3985]

What's surface agitation? I have whatever my tank set up came with. I know when the water comes out of the filter it moves the water at the top and has a couple airbubbles. But nothing like gel bubbles or anything.

[SkarloeysMom]

Some thought about feeding otos...I noticed that when I got my otos recently that they took a few days to get used to my tank and start eating. Also, I think they can sometimes be noctural so you might try dropping in half an algae wafer at night and see if its gone in the morning. Perhaps try either the wafer or the zucchini but not both at the same time. Too much uneaten food will just funk up your water.

[gm72]

Are you performing regular water changes?

[MeganL3985]

Yes I have been, I was having problems with my ammonia test strips giving me off readings, so once I started to use the dropper/test tube kits I've been able to monitor and change my water as often as needed. Just out of curiosity, how much and how often is considered regular? I just want to be sure i'm not doing too much or too less.

[gm72]

Weekly water changes are the norm, you will hear people doing anywhere from 30-50% as the norm, some like...I think it was Fishguy, does 75% changes. I, among many others, do 50% changes weekly.

[zackish]

0 ammonia is good, I wouldn't be worried about that. Did you boil your zucchini in plain water?

[MeganL3985]

I had to do a 75% last week cause our power was out for 8 hrs while I was away on vacation. My husband only did like 25% not knowning any better. So when I came home thankfully my fish were still alive, so I did a 75% right away. And have been doing 25% every other day since the 75%. Things are starting to get back to normal. Still at a .25 though........

[zackish]

I had to do a 75% last week cause our power was out for 8 hrs while I was away on vacation. My husband only did like 25% not knowning any better. So when I came home thankfully my fish were still alive, so I did a 75% right away. And have been doing 25% every other day since the 75%. Things are starting to get back to normal. Still at a .25 though........

DO note once your tank is fully cycled a little more than 25% water change is good enough. Also, you might want to go every few days with the water change. By changing your water every day you are slowing down ur cycle.