Quarantine question

[Ponch]

Hey everyone - so I've been setting the water out overnight as suggested and it's going pretty well with the PWC s and keeping ph more stable.

Im finding that ammonia gets up to about 0.25 daily so the PWC is def Necessary to bring it back in line. Is it harmful to have fish at 0.25 ammo on a daily basis? Have been in the 10 gallon for a week now and there's 3 more to go!

Also , my eagle eye son pointed out this morning that there's baby fish swimming in the QT tank! It's funny bc I specifically asked the LFS guy to pick out a couple females that did not appear pregnant. So I guess the fact that these were smaller females doesnt necessarily mean "not pregnant". I'm not really equipped to deal with fry right now though there are Some pretty good hiding spots in my plastic plants...so I'm going to just leave them be and see who survives I suppose!

 

[Bbush]

Congrats!

 

[jlk]

Congrats on the baby! Are you using prime as a conditioner? If so, I wouldnt be overly concerned about .25ppm ammonia. No, its not ideal but just as long as your not seeing big spikes, you should be ok.

 

[Ponch]

Congrats on the baby! Are you using prime as a conditioner? If so, I wouldnt be overly concerned about .25ppm ammonia. No, its not ideal but just as long as your not seeing big spikes, you should be ok.

Yes - I am using prime as conditioner. Assume you are asking b/c it neutralizes the ammonia in addition to conditioning the water? Def no big spikes on the parameters. I'm too vigilant with daily PWCs this time around .

I just wish i could just do a 90% pwc and get the ammo down to near 0. But based on my last experience a few weeks ago I'm a bit nervous about a Ph shock with any PWC over 50% of total tank volume.... Since I only have a 5 gallon bucket to se aside over night. Any thoughts are welcome here-thx!

 

[jlk]

Well, prime converts ammonia to ammonium. Not ideal but it is no where as toxic as ammonia. I think you have a good system worked out right now with the 5g bucket set out overnight. You could always get another bucket (yeah, i know!) or maybe consider hiding something bigger somewhere to keep enough water for larger or more frequent changes.... not sure how well this would go over! Maybe something like a 20 or 30g storgage container from walmart? Just a thought!

 

[Ponch]

Lost one of the two new females today so I'm bummin again. There was one day a couple days ago that the ammo test turned up 0.50 ppm and I did a PWC immediately. Besides that day it's never been above 0-25 ppm and I've been religious about the daily PWC with treated water. It looked like her stomach was (
"shrunken" so to speak. She was drifting around this morning unusually not afraid of me as I approached the tank. Then I found her stuck to the filter.

This QT thing is really hard. It's further complicated by fact that I think any BB bacteria I had in my qt filter from the previous fish died off before getting the new ones in the qt. So I'm really just at a loss. I ordered a new active sponge filter from angels plus today but not sure that will get here before next weekend with the long weekend and all.

As I've typed this I've decided to take another piece of media from my established tank and see if I can't kick start the new cycle..... since experience tells me when one fish dies if I can make fit another week without another loss ack eyes I should be ok. so these are critical days. Luckily the las t Molly seems to be doing ok. She is half black half orange and ack eyes. Really cute. I hope not too loses s

 

[jlk]

Im so sorry! Hang in there!!! Your doing a great job taking care of these guys/girls! Unfortunately, theres no way to know the history of the fish your purchasing or what they may have been exposed to along the way. A shruken stomach can be an indicator of parasites (among other things) so keep a close eye on things for now.

 

[Ponch]

Im so sorry! Hang in there!!! Your doing a great job taking care of these guys/girls! Unfortunately, theres no way to know the history of the fish your purchasing or what they may have been exposed to along the way. A shruken stomach can be an indicator of parasites (among other things) so keep a close eye on things for now.

Thanks JLK. I'll monitor closely. Last time i successfully introduced me fish I had the angles plus filter running so I hope that will do the trick this time too. Oh yeah , I don't think I'll be returning to that LFS again since there. Is a distinct possibility it was stock related issue!