Ozdude wrote:


Are you over feeding? It doesn't sound like anything other than that
to me,
unless there is something in your water out of the tap.

Oz


Ya know, Oz, I'm not sure. When I was a kid, and warned about
overfeeding Sammy the goldfish, overfeeding meant using only the food
he could eat in 5 minutes. Now, I'm starting to understand overfeeding
from a different prospective. Just a few years ago I had a tank
running crystal clear for two years. What I didn't know is that the
nitrates were probably running in the mid two hundreds! I just had a
humungous bacteria colony able to process all the food.

So when I've been feeding this tank, I've been very careful, and
actually proud of myself for not overfeeding. Or have I been? I feed
once a day, only the amount the neons and angels can eat in about 2
minutes. In that two minutes however, they absolutely gorge themselves
and turn into round balls with head, tail and fins. When I give them
live or frozen brine shrimp, the angel fish have extended stomachs that
look as if they will pop!

So my fish aren't over fed, just ask them. :) But I think I'm
overfeeding my _tank_. With the plants I've got going and water
changes my nitrate levels are staying low, around 10, not more than 20.
After the last water change, the nitrates were only 5 or so. I'm going
to try less food, start 'em off on a new years diet, see if I can keep
the nitrates at zero from food, and then either feed a bit more or dose
KNO3 to boost the plants.

steve