Freshwater Problems

[AwesomeMarioFan]

Hello,

We have a silver molly that has been in our tank for about a year, and we have noticed that in the past 6 months or so, a black outline had been on his tail. I assume this is some sort of burn, and today when we added another molly, its tail immediately got a black outline similar to the other fish.

This is our most recent water testing:

I assume it corresponds with this key (Note that the test strip in the below picture is not ours, it is from a key I found on the internet!):

The tank itself:

Molly black fins (Sorry for the blurriness of some of them):

Hard to see the outline in this one, but it seems just barely visible:

There has also been issues with 1-2 centimeter cotton ball-like things floating in the water when we clean it. (It almost looks like mold.) Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this at the moment though.

Some statistics, we have a 10G tank with currently 6 fish (2 guppies, 3 mollies, 1 tetra). We normally do water changes once every 1-2 weeks, and change about 45% of the water out, and we have never did a full water change. We are using the stock filter and are trying to change that more often (Once every 2 weeks or so).

Some general questions:
- Does anything we are doing currently sound bad?

- How much should we feed the fish? - we've been told over the phone by Petsmart that feeding them as much as their eye is good, as well as the website telling us as much as they can eat in 2-3 minutes.

- When fish were put into the tank, we were told they let off chemicals, which doesn't make sense to us, is that true?

Thanks in advance,
- Mario

 

[ImACoolguy]

Welcome Mario!

First thing I would do personally is another water change. I'm not a fan of strips but reading the chart your nitrates look very high. Let's say your nitrate is at 40ppm, changing 50% of the water will bring it down to 20ppm. Easy math. It's good to keep those nitrates below 20ppm. And of course ammonia and nitrite levels at 0ppm always.

Second thing I would do, ditch the test strips. Most LFS sell a API Liquid Master test kit for $30. It is much more accurate and you can get about 80-120 tests out of one kit.

Third thing, did you cycle the tank when it was first set up? If not, this link will help you out.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154837

Fourth thing, when you say clean the filter every 2 or so weeks are you washing the pads in tank water or tap water? It's good to set some tank water aside to clean your pads with because they contain the precious bacteria that keeps the aquarium looking nice and clean and stable. By washing them with tap water you are killing that bacteria because of the chlorine and chemicals in most of our drinking water. Only replace your filter pads when they are just falling apart on you.

To your questions:
1. Just be gentle and add a little food at a time. I follow the 2 minute rule. Whatever is left over, if any, just get it out with a net.

2. Fish poop. If your tank is cycled, the poop is broke down into these chemical: Ammonia(toxic to fish)->Nitrate(toxic to fish)-> Nitrate(safe in low levels below 20ppm)



Hope I've provided some insight I'm sure others will chime in


Caleb

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