dying algae eater & platty

Question
Am new to this - my daughter came home with 2 platy from school - so we went out bought a tank, filter and all of the things the petco salesperson told us to do. We are 7 weeks into it. About 2 weeks ago we bought 2 algae eaters to keep the platys company and eat the rapidly growing algae. One algae eater died 2 days ago and the other fish are looking horrible. Since the algae eaters came to town the tank got increasingly dirtier so we have done the change 3/4 tank to cleanup and there isn't any change with the fish and I'm afraid we may lose them - should I continue to change the water? Should I change the filter? it's a Hagen aquafilter with 3 components and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do in terms of maitenance. help from the total novice

Answer
Hi Heather;

The tank may be too small for more than just the platies. It also depends on what type of algae eaters they are. Some types get over a foot long and others, even if small, can be aggressive. Keep making the water changes, but do only 25% at a time. You can do them daily to get toxins down, just no more than 25% in one day. Be sure to use a water conditioner and be sure the new water is the same temperature as the tank water.

It's always best to rinse the filter pads in a container of aquarium water and not replace them unless they are literally falling apart from months of use. In the filter pads is where the beneficial bacteria lives that consumes the fish waste. If you replace any of the filter pads you remove an essential part of your filter system.

If you could tell me what symptoms the fish have, how big your tank is, what type of algae eaters you have, how big they are right now, etc., I can help you further.

I hope they do better soon...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins