About to give up!

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mantis said:
I've checked the city water and nothing. Overstocked???? 11 fish in a 39 gal??? I'm amazed by this especially since my LFS keeps tellin me I can put up to 29 fish in there (never made it though). Another kicker is that a friend of mine bought the very same setup and is having identical situations. But shes lost her whole tank, cleaned it out twice!

Maybe you shouldn't be taking advice from this "expert". Alot of people working in aquarium stores and pet super stores don't know jack about keeping aquariums. I've found time and time again that the internet is the only way to solve your aquarium problems. Most of the time the people at the stores just give you thier time in order to make a sale. Even at the inch per gallon rule 29 fish in a 39g...come on?! Research, research, research. That's the best thing to do, if you plan on keeping aquariums it's a full time job that requires more research than buying a new car at times.
 
Cd I think we've already established the fact that the "expert" wasn't up to par and I am researching thats why I had all the info to give out. I've kept aquariums for a very long time. This is the first one I've had this much trouble with. I've moved tanks from MO to WY to IN back to MO. I hadn't setup a tank in KS before Jan 3 '03 because the movers had busted the tank!! *Must have been a sign* Its just puzzling that I'm having such spikes in the nitrates/nitrites without doing anything to the tank which leads me back to the bio-wheel filter. I just don't know but time will tell on this one. I've got to be overlooking something trivial. BUT.....the good news is that all fish in the tank have "pinked" up and no one has died today!!! The water is clear too. but this makes me nervous .......this is when it goes haywire! SO since they seem better should I wait to do another water change or do I just keep stressing them out!! LOL
Ahhhhhhh.......the crab was the funnest thing to watch in the tank. It never went after the fish but kept the bottom cleaned!! It would crawl up into the filter to eat algae and to vegg!! I'm surprised its still alive with all the water problems. Well off to watch the tank in case something goes wrong. Thank you all again for all the help. Mantis
 
Measure the nitrites and nitrates in your water, and ammonia for that matter, and if you are high on any of them, then keep doing the water changes. That will always be your guide. Once you have no measurable nitrites or ammonia then you do water changes to keep your nitrates down.
 
If the tank is cycled, then you should have 0 nitrItes. NitrAtes are only reduced by water changes. I've found live plants help in reducing the waste products in the water (limited live plant experience though). If you've kept tanks for years, you should know about the one inch/gallon rule. It sounds like it's quite possible that all of your massive water changes have prevented the proper cycling of the tank.
Just a thought...
 
hello,

hm, sounds like none of you really have "real plants" in your aquariums... very strange to me... plants keep eating the no3 (nitrates) away and produce o2, so no need for things bubbling away in your aquarium. in case nitrates are too high, I can imagine bacteria eating no2 not liking it and maybe going on strike.....
in any case, whether you reduce nitrates by plants or by water change, a level below 50 mg/l (sorry for the european measure) should not make your fish die!! heavily varying nitrate values point to difficulties with water changes -> either you have a lot of nitrate in your tap water, making the aq. water worse each time you change water, or you don't do enough water changes so that (cause of no plants) nitrate levels keep building up.

water changes NEVER disturb the cycling of a tank. bacteria use surfaces like decoration, the aq. glass and filter surface to live. only a very very limited amount actually float in the water. so keep changing water how often you want!! point is, do NOT change or clean the filter unless it is clogged (-> that would remove bacteria).

For the colour+smell, I only heard about it during heavy nitrite no2 peaks. that would explain your fish dying rather than no3!

All this to say what's already been said -
- keep on changing water AND
- PLEASE TRY AGAIN WITH LIVE PLANT!! (it surely won't make your aq. worse! but nitrates better.)

kind regards,
silvia
 
Thanks, Silvia. You are quite right, as in my heavily planted tank I am basically wanting to add nitrates as a nurtient for them. However, this is only in the tank with high light and CO2 added. It still does not obviate the need for me to do water changes. In my lower light tank with moderate planting and no CO2 I am lowering nitrates with water changes. I think the nitrates have to be relatively high to kill the fish (over 40ppm) but nitrite does not have to be too high to have a detrimental affect, same with ammonia. Still, in any case, water changes are the answer, like doing a fishy cycle. I hope we will hear back from Mantis to see how things are going.
 
My girlfriend has had a crab in her 10g community tank for months. It's even molted, so I am assuming that it's happy there. As long as you have some tall plastic plants (that reach the surface of the water and form a little floating mat) the crab will be able to climb up there to get the air it needs.

I definitely agree that the crab is the most interesting thing in the tank to watch! Just make sure there is somewhere for it to climb out of the water, and maybe even keep the water level an in or two lower than you'd normally keep it, and I think your crab should be set- Sorry I don't have much advice about the water qaulity issue- I'm pretty new to this myself.

-Jeff
 
hello tankgirl,
totally agree with you. never leave out water changes!
although I have learned about well-functioning old water aquariums (changing only once a year, or not at all), I would never go and recommend it on a basis like a forum, without knowing the person/having seen the tank. I'd rather recommend weekly changes of about 20-33% (for a normally cycled tank, with not too many fish). I think to supervise an old-water tank demands a lot of experience, as water conductivity seems to play a role as well. I'm not really familiar with that, and so I don't expect others to be ;)
no2 and nh3/nh4 levels are in fact important as they are the more hazardous. however, I think for any no3/no2/nh4/nh3 problem, it will probably come around to the same measures: water changes, less food, more plants, no stocking up.

all that to say, I'm happy to have found this forum! 8)
kind regards,
s.
 
I know a 7-year-old who has a tank that has NEVER had a water change in the 3 years it has been set up. It is a 20-gal with an angel in it the size of the palm of your hand, and it has been in there the whole time. The family just has no idea about taking care of fish tanks, so his mother just adds tap water when the level goes down. My sister joked that I would march in there in a heartbeat and do the gravel vacs and water changes, etc., because she knew I would not be able to stand the current "maintenance" plan, but I absolutely would not touch a thing! I know the instant you did a water change and gravel vac that angel would die! I would not attempt to duplicate that, but it is a very interesting situation. When this kid grows up he will be the one in the LFS insisting that he never "cycled" a tank, and when he was a kid he had a tank that did great for years without maintenance, etc. etc. Now someone will hopefully get this thread back on topic.....sorry!
 
hi tankgirl,
maybe we should open up a new thread for the "water change" discussion, you're right...
yeah! I absolutely agree. I wouldn't touch it either. I had sort of the same thing going when my bf and I moved in together. he had had guppies for about 1 or 1.5 years, and never done more water changes than every quarter. filter was cleaned the same day, one occasion, you know.... it probably went ok since the ancistrus took care of the occasionally dying guppies, and guppies as well as the anci can take a lot. but guppies inevitably lead to overstocking if you don't do anything, so that's where problems came in... I spare you the rest.
I think a low-stocked tank with quite robust fish can endure without freshwater. bacteria should not be overly stressed by it. mostly, I'd fear:
- hardening up the water since the water that goes away leaves salts on the glass which are back in the water once you add tap water (to do that correctly you'd have to use osmose (?) water).
- rising levels of phosphate cause of feeding too much, and consequently algae problems
- rising nitrates which help algae and in the end become hazardous for fish too.

it's just sad that the angel will stay that small and die before its time.... putting it in a 20gal (~80 litres?) tank, you'd be tarred and featherd in my "home forum"!
but it seems that there are many many more small tanks with big fish out there than we'll ever know...

-s.
 
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