The Beginning of my 80g

[krap101]

amonia - 0
nitrite - .03
nitrate - 21ppm
ph - 7.2

How are you measuring your nitrite and nitrate so precisely? Liquid test kits for nitrites only give you intervals (the smallest) at .25ppm up to 3ppm and nitrates from 5 to 80..? If the number is between 5 and 10, the best you can guess would be 6 or 7, because of the significant digits (thank you hs chemistry ) You shouldn't be able to estimate it at 5.56257, especially with colors.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

lol, i use the nutrifin kit for amonia and nitrites, i'm not sure what it is for nirates and ph, i got those from a friend.
i followed the instructions, and those were the results that it gave me

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

i finally found the nitrate and ph test and another store and bought it...these are the results as of last night. now i use the nitrafin test kits for all 4 tests, amonia, nitrites, nitrates and ph.

amonia - 0
nitrites - 0.3
nitrates - between 10 - 20
ph - between 7 - 7.5


now i know i've read alot that you should keep the nitrates between 20-30? but on the color chart on the instructions for nitrates it's darker than 10 but not as dark as 20...don't know how to calculate that.

is this bad, could it be the cause of my loss of fish? i lost one more this morning. But he was really skinny, and i spoked to the lfs that i got them at. They let me keep the ones i had left and gave me a full refund for the full 12 that i originally had, but they said after i bought mine a few of theres died too. So maybe they were just sick to begin with?

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

we've also found another snail in the tank. i'm not sure what kid they are. i think the one is an mts and the other it looks like a ramshorn, but it's body is pinkish and his shell is darker with spots, never seen one like that.

 

[Crepe]

Is the shell all curly like an @ sign? If so, it's a ramshorn. I've got tons of tiny 2mm ramshorns they don't hurt anybody though.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

yes that what it looks like, this ones a bit bigger, no idea where he came from, we saw him yesterday, i'm thinking when we got the drift wood and java ferns he was in there but only saw the mts.

Oh by the way, we have also added some more decor, some small pebbles and river stones. makes it look more like a river bed. and i figured id put some pebbles in there for when my dragon goes in there. he loves to pick up the pebbles in the 20g. i heard they scrape algae off them, can anyone confirm that?

 

[krap101]

If you don't have any plants, as long as nitrates are under 40, you should be fine. Normally when you don't know (it's between), you usually round to (in your case) 15. You can't really make a good estimate of any precision beyond that.

It's possible the .3 nitrites was the cause, but normally that amount of nitrites would cause stress rather than death. I'd put the % of deaths somewhere between 30-60% depending on the fish, so the sooner you buy them when they ship, the more likely you're going to get one of the fish that were already going to die. (usually beyond anything we can do, shipping losses are kind of a given, except in maybe the more hardy cories and danios, and if you lucky tetras). I try to buy fish the day before the new shipment comes in so the fish have a week to "settle down". Sometimes when I forget, (a few times I bought it on the day of the shipment), I got close to 100% losses (these were cardinal tetras). When bought the day before, it's closer to 0% losses. Depending on the store, and the quality of the fish, I may buy on the day of shipment, as they get rarer fish, and generally they do pretty well.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

amonia - 0
nitrites - 0.3
nitrates - between 10 - 20
ph - between 7 - 7.5

i made a mistake, i met to put 0.03 for nitrites

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

If you don't have any plants, as long as nitrates are under 40, you should be fine.

How ever, I do have 2 java ferns

 

[krap101]

I wouldn't worry too much about them, java ferns will do what java ferns do best, survive . They are a very hardy plant, and shouldn't need any specific care. If you take care of your fish, your fern will take care of itself.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

so now seeing that my parameters are fine, and the guppies were possibly sick to begin with...would you say it would be fine to add more fish? for example, is my dragon goby ready to be moved?

 

[Aquarium1]

Well nitrites aren't very good either, you might want to wait til those go down to zero as well, but they might already have. At least, that's what I'd do.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

i did another nitrite test and they have stayed the same...should i do a pwc?

 

[krap101]

If it gets any higher you should try to reduce it to keep your fish from stressing. You want some nitrite while cycling, or you might starve your nitrite bacteria. I used to believe it was better, but I've been hearing lately nitrites are just as bad as ammonia, so try to keep it around .25

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

ok thanks guys! i'll posting again tomorrow with any updates!

 

[logansmomma1228]

Well I would wait to see if you can figure out what is wrong with the guppies first; you wouldn't want to get your goby sick. You might want to wait a little bit longer. Just to be safe. MO

edit.... just a little late lol. but if you are still cycling then the guppies probably are dying off due to the nitrites. i would definitely wait to add your goby if you are indeed still cycling.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

thanks for the info,

i went and bought a couple more plants for the tank, the girl at the lfs didnt know what they were called, ones kind of grassy looking, looks like the same plants that are dragonfish's 80 gal, the other one i know it starts with a "c" and i know its not brackish, so when im ready to go brackish it will move to my 20 gal.

i had to turn down a really good deal on some fish cause i dont want to spend anymore money on fish before i know the guppies are okay. my boyfriend figures the last one got hurt in a netting the night before. i took some of the fish out to hook up a bubble curtain. when they went back in the tank, the last one we lost seemed very stressed after going back in the water.

i have the bubble curtain going softly around the driftwood so it looks like its producing bubbles through the wood.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

along with the one of the plants we got a hitchhiking ramshorn. about 20 minutes after being in the tank. there is a small patch on the glass. Now, i know nothing about snails but are these snail eggs. its a clear circular patch and it looks like bubbles in it, but its at the bottom of the glass close to the sand.

 

[ilovemydragongoby]

guppy fry

so i'm assuming that the rest of my guppies are fine, but i'm not jumping to conclusions yet. one of my prego females finally popped lol, only 2 fry survived that we can see anyways.

i picked up 3 more shoots of val and 2 java ferns. the fry that we can see are enjoying hiding out in the val.

also not related to my 80gal at all, but i picked up 2 more otos for my 20 gal. they're so cute, the 2 news ones and my other oto are playing i guess you can say. the ones i picked up today are a bit bigger than my 1st oto.

 

[logansmomma1228]

Well the ramshorns will reproduce like crazy in your tank, as far as I know most snails will. Pond snails are more annoying than my ramshorns. in fact all the ramshorns I had are gone and there are hundreds of pond snails in my 29 and 5 gallons.

I don't take fish out when doing stuff to the tank. I would if it was something huge but IMO taking them out for something like that is more stress than they need. They will either hide on the other side of the tank from you, or come see what you are doing.

i hope your otos make it, I had a horrible experience with them. 4/5 (maybe all 5 i still cant find the last one) died within two week.s