Tropical fish tank advice needed

[alwaysthepessimist]

Hi everyone - we have a 110 ltr tank, set up in January, did the fishless setting up, have an air stone in there and use a Hydra filtration system, now stocked with rasboras, cardinal tetras, orange barbs, emperor tetra and glow light danios. All fish have grown well and tank was gradually stocked, not all at once but then lockdown happened before we could get the cleaning fish in so the tank seems to be struggling to stay clean, the substrate is also sand so when I vacuum out its tricky, really regretting sand now, should have chosen gravel. I can't work out if we have too many fish or we just need some shrimps, snails (to help with the algae) and a cleaning loach or 2 - total number of fish is 29 (all bought from independent fish Place)

No such thing as ‘cleaning fish’ or ‘cleaning snails’ or ‘cleaning shrimp’

They all add additional poo and mess to the system.

So called cleaning fish, are often the very worst!
Plecos for example shit like you would not believe and most species grow absolutely huge.
Way too big for a 110 litre.

If your tank is struggling to stay clean either:

• you have too many fish
• you’ve sited the tank in too much sunlight and it’s getting overrun with algae
• you are over feeding and the uneaten food is rotting
• your filtration system isn’t strong enough

Also, you say you have 29 fish total.

You say have:

• rasboras
• cardinal tetras
• orange barbs
• emperor tetras
• glowlight tetras

Each and every one of these fish are social shoaling fish and should be in groups of 10, 6 absolute minimum.

I think you are overstocked and have too little of each individual fish for them to be happy and secure.

What tank make do you have? I have a Juwel tank and you can get extra filter pads that can help to reduce algae growth (it's a phorax filter). There are several different types of filter pads you can buy depending on your particular concern in the tank.

110 litres is not very big so worth keeping that in mind.

What are your nitrogen readings (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate). I would expect at least one to be very high, leaving your algae with way too much food, thus the growth. Which one will determine if your tank filtration or water needs changing. If you don't have a test kit then it is well worth buying one and learning to read your levels - it's crucial info imo. API do one.

Sunlight , as pp said, may also be a factor.