Hi.. neewbie fish keeper here.

[pixie11206]

Hi... well.. In here cause I wanted to set up a tank for my daughter she loves animals and fish and she wanted some fish for a pet since she can't have a dog or cat where we live. Ive had fish as a kid and I figured why now. Well she won a gold fish at the fair....bought it a tank (turned out to be to small from the get go).. the fish died 2 days later (didn't really expect it to live long). Bought another goldfish from the pet store.. it ends up dying 2 weeks later Im not sure really what went wrong there.. But we decided to try a sturdier fish and after some research on line we were told guppies were a good first timer fish. I had guppies as a kid and they lived for like 5 years. So ... we got a bigger tank (the current 5 gallon one)..set it up and just recently picked out 4 guppies (didnt know at the time but 3 were male 1 female).about a week ago... im not sure what im doing wrong but we lost one already. The poor thing.. he was fine the first few days but it was like he couldn't swim his little fins in the front would go all wild and try to lift him off the bottom but his tail wouldn't work. I was told to put him in a different tank so i did and i did water changes like i was told to do well he died sometime last night. I thought he was getting better cause he started to swim more yesterday. Now the female is acting a little weird and their fins are shredding or being ripped.... The males have been chasing each other so i dont know it its cause they are fighting or something else. I don't know what im doing wrong so any helpful hints would be great!! i dont want to have to lose these last 3 guppies my daughter loves watching them. Their water has been cloudy lately i did a partial water change yesterday but that didn't seem to do any good... any ideas??

 

[Chiroptera]

Welcome!

First off, sometimes those goldfish at fairs or pet stores are sick to begin with, but since your fish seem to be lasting only a few weeks, I have a few ideas what may be wrong.

Do you know about "cycling" a tank? It's where the bacteria that naturally take away harmful levels in an aquarium and help your fish feel more comfortable set up to live in your tank.

There's three levels. Ammonia - from food and waste. This is super bad.
Nitrite - the bacteria turns ammonia into this. Then it turns this into something else. Still very bad.
Nitrate - this is the last level, what every other negative level listed gets turned into. It's alright, but bad in high numbers.

Now, this is very bad if you already have fish. You need to test your water to see when you need water changes. Go to the pet store immediately and do/get the following:
An API master test kit. This will tell you your levels.

Unless the ammonia is below, lets say, 0.25 parts, the nitrite is close to 0 as well, and the nitrate is below 40, do a water change. Test every day while the cycle is still working. Once it starts consistently coming up as 0 for Ammo and NitrIte, your cycle is over. You won't have to do water changes as often, but you may every week to a month. Test once a week with the kit (there's instructions inside) and do a water change as needed.

When you do a water change, follow the instructions on the siphon. The hose end should be in the bucket to fill it with the tank water you're getting rid of. You also need to dig the siphon in the gravel to get rid of waste and leftover food.

Leave your fish in during the process.

If you do have the kit, post your levels and it will help us out!

Lastly, your female is getting torn up because the male to female ratio is bad. They'll probably end up killing her. You need 3 or so females to each male, or if you don't want tons of babies, just males, or they'll chase the females to death. And since there's only two males, they probably are fighting.

Your tank is really small for even a few guppies, but if she does get just males to replace her. Female guppies are ALWAYS pregnant, and you have no room for the fry (babies).

There's a great thread that says this and more, probably in a better way than I can, but I'm on my phone and not my computer. I'll make sure to post the link ASAP though! Tell us when you need any help or don't understand, it's a lot to explain and I may have missed something small that would have helped you understand. There's no such thing as a stupid question!

Good luck!

 

[Andrew McFadden]

to AA
Take a look at this
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/fishin-cycling-step-dark-side/

 

[butterfly_koi]

I think that Chiro covered the basics of it
Welcome to AA!
Feel free to ask any questions!

 

[Samzter]

Welcome to AA! Hope you like the site so far!

 

[pixie11206]

Thanks everyone!!. sad to report that i have lost 2 more guppies... and looks like the last one wont last long... I have been testing the water with strips since i set it up.. and they say everything is within the safe levels.. except i have hard water (i dont know if that would kill them) I was doing full water changes... i didn't have a siphon at the time i have one now that i use for the water changes. I figured that the males were fighting, i didn't know how to tell the difference between males and females.. I think that might be why the other died.. The poor red one we had... within just a few hours his poor tail was completely shredded and almost gone.. he couldn't swim. The blue one picked on him alot. But.. the blue one died only hours later.. I don't get it. The blue one didn't show any signs of being ill or anything. No clamped fins, no red gills, no swimming funny, eating good, normal activity.. then just.. i checked on him and he was dead. SO i don't know what happened there. But the female is left now.. and im trying to make sure she don't die either but its looking like she wont make it. I don't know why.. is it possible the test strips i use are duds?? i bought them from walmart but i had so many people tell me they use the brand that i figured they were good. Its the Jungle brand 5-in-1 test strips.

 

[Chiroptera]

The test strips can be really off, but they give a general idea. I honestly don't know what could be wrong then

 

[Brandon K.A]

Sometimes fish aren't healthy to begin with. They could have been sick from the store. full water changes are something that's not really recommended.

 

[Brandon K.A]

I usually let the filter clear the cloudy water. It could be cloudy because of a bacteria bloom. I don't know about others, but to me, doing too many pwcs could stress a fish out? Not sure if that's possible, but i don't do too many pwcs anyway.

 

[Brandon K.A]

Thanks everyone!!. sad to report that i have lost 2 more guppies... and looks like the last one wont last long... I have been testing the water with strips since i set it up.. and they say everything is within the safe levels.. except i have hard water (i dont know if that would kill them) I was doing full water changes... i didn't have a siphon at the time i have one now that i use for the water changes. I figured that the males were fighting, i didn't know how to tell the difference between males and females.. I think that might be why the other died.. The poor red one we had... within just a few hours his poor tail was completely shredded and almost gone.. he couldn't swim. The blue one picked on him alot. But.. the blue one died only hours later.. I don't get it. The blue one didn't show any signs of being ill or anything. No clamped fins, no red gills, no swimming funny, eating good, normal activity.. then just.. i checked on him and he was dead. SO i don't know what happened there. But the female is left now.. and im trying to make sure she don't die either but its looking like she wont make it. I don't know why.. is it possible the test strips i use are duds?? i bought them from walmart but i had so many people tell me they use the brand that i figured they were good. Its the Jungle brand 5-in-1 test strips.

Maybe try buying fish from a different store? I have a 5 gal with a few guppies. They're hardy and don't really need much... Sorry for multi posting.