fishscigal0825
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2017
- Messages
- 1
I purchased a 55 g tank about 3 months ago. I set up my gravel, decorations, carbon filter, bubbler, biological filter (ceramic balls and lava rock in a homemade filter), and heater, filled the tank, treated with a water conditioner and a bacteria supplement and let it run for about a month until I was happy with the water parameters and I had the expendable funds to purchase fish.
I purchased my fish from PetSmart simply for the convenience and I ended up with 7 small (roughly an inch, with a max size of 6 inches) cichlids and 3 black racer nerite snails. Things were going fine for about a month until I noticed there was quite a bit of brown algal growth on the decorations, gravel, and the homemade filter. I assumed the algal growth was related to overfeeding, as I got the fish when they were very small and I knowingly overfed to make sure they were all at least getting some food. I backed off on feeding and switched from rotating pellets and flakes to only flakes since it seemed like the pellets were more difficult for the fish to eat due to their size. I purchased a second over the back filter, a few more snails, 4 horned nerites, and one more cichlid to please my desire of having an even number of fish...
The new fish addition lasted about a week before I found him dead along with one of the snails. Okay, 7 fish it is. I removed the fish, did a 25% water change to account for the increase in ammonia, and all seemed to go back to normal, except the algae was still growing like crazy and any fish I added to eat the excess algae quickly died, every time. fast forward a week, my original 7 fish were all behaving oddly and a few days after I noticed the behavioral change, I noticed they were all COMPLETELY COVERED in white spots... Ick.
So, since treating ick can be tricky and 55 gallons of water was going to be impressively expensive to treat, I moved the fish into a 10 gallon quarantine tank and began treating. Great news, all the fish are fine. I treated them every day for about 2 weeks until I was certain there was no way the parasite could survive. Thank tank, however, has not fared so well.
I drained the entire tank, removed the decoration, the gravel, and the two 50 gallon over the back filters, cleaned everything and let the tank and everything else air dry for about a week. I put everything back together with a fine gravel substrate instead of the larger rocks, filled the tank put the heater in and cranked it to high to kill off anything that may have survived the dry-out. I let it run for two weeks, the numbers seem fine, no elevated ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, pH is good and I turned off the heater and allowed the water to cool so my fish don't fry the second they're re-added. I went to top off the water today so that I could add the fish on Friday, but now there is a thick, slimy, mucusy sheet of something growing on everything. It's clogging the filter. It's sticking to the glass. I don't want to add the fish until I have the tank under control. For the last two weeks I've had the lights OFF so I don't understand what in the world is growing and how it's growing without a light source.
PLEASE HELP. I just want my fish to be home again and to end the constant headache that this tank has become. ANY ADVICE would be greatly appreciated!!
I purchased my fish from PetSmart simply for the convenience and I ended up with 7 small (roughly an inch, with a max size of 6 inches) cichlids and 3 black racer nerite snails. Things were going fine for about a month until I noticed there was quite a bit of brown algal growth on the decorations, gravel, and the homemade filter. I assumed the algal growth was related to overfeeding, as I got the fish when they were very small and I knowingly overfed to make sure they were all at least getting some food. I backed off on feeding and switched from rotating pellets and flakes to only flakes since it seemed like the pellets were more difficult for the fish to eat due to their size. I purchased a second over the back filter, a few more snails, 4 horned nerites, and one more cichlid to please my desire of having an even number of fish...
The new fish addition lasted about a week before I found him dead along with one of the snails. Okay, 7 fish it is. I removed the fish, did a 25% water change to account for the increase in ammonia, and all seemed to go back to normal, except the algae was still growing like crazy and any fish I added to eat the excess algae quickly died, every time. fast forward a week, my original 7 fish were all behaving oddly and a few days after I noticed the behavioral change, I noticed they were all COMPLETELY COVERED in white spots... Ick.
So, since treating ick can be tricky and 55 gallons of water was going to be impressively expensive to treat, I moved the fish into a 10 gallon quarantine tank and began treating. Great news, all the fish are fine. I treated them every day for about 2 weeks until I was certain there was no way the parasite could survive. Thank tank, however, has not fared so well. I drained the entire tank, removed the decoration, the gravel, and the two 50 gallon over the back filters, cleaned everything and let the tank and everything else air dry for about a week. I put everything back together with a fine gravel substrate instead of the larger rocks, filled the tank put the heater in and cranked it to high to kill off anything that may have survived the dry-out. I let it run for two weeks, the numbers seem fine, no elevated ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, pH is good and I turned off the heater and allowed the water to cool so my fish don't fry the second they're re-added. I went to top off the water today so that I could add the fish on Friday, but now there is a thick, slimy, mucusy sheet of something growing on everything. It's clogging the filter. It's sticking to the glass. I don't want to add the fish until I have the tank under control. For the last two weeks I've had the lights OFF so I don't understand what in the world is growing and how it's growing without a light source.
PLEASE HELP. I just want my fish to be home again and to end the constant headache that this tank has become. ANY ADVICE would be greatly appreciated!!
