whats happening in my tank?

[claire472]

Hi everyone.

im not entirely sure whats going on with my tank. i would just go tothe local pet store and ask for advice but i live in germany with the british forces so the language barrier makes it hard to ask.

i have goldfish and sucker fish. i use something in the water to make it 'nice' for the fish to live in as the pet store said. every day i do a 20% clean because the water get so murky very quickly. they have recently been treated for redness in the gills. the pet store didnt have a clue what i was on about so gave me 2 medicines which could be used together and would kill all bacteria in the tank good and bad so was advised not to feed them for the 3 day course. the fish didnt get the memo and ate the plants instead. its only been 8 days since i did a full clean of the tank, stones, plants etc... but yesterday the water was so bad i did about an 80% clean to tryand get rid of majority of the manky water but without doing a full clean again so soon. today the tank is manky again and i can barely see the fish, its so murky and cloudy.

i have a stingray filter.

any advice would be great. please be nice. this is my first post on a forum lol

 

[bigbanker]

Depending on the size of the tank and fish that may be your problem right there.

You've got goldfish, who are messy, and a pleco who is also messy., these two fish are rarely housed together.

What size is your tank?

 

[shellieca]

+1 with bigbanker. What size tank? What sized filter? How many goldies? What kind of sucker fish? Goldies alone are huge waste producers & it is recommended that one Goldie (depending on type) should be in a 20g & each additional Goldie should have 10g, so if you have 3 Goldies your tank should be at a minimum 40g. Red gills is often a sign of ammonia poisoning. Do you have a liquid water test kit to find out what your ammonia, nitrites & nitrates are? If not I would take a sample of the water to the LFS & have it tested. I suspect the biggest issue is water quality, if that is the case you will need to make some decisions; rehome some fish, get a bigger tank, do much more frequent water changes, etc.

 

[SKB]

to the forum!

I agree with both of the posts above. But since you stated that your local fish store had no idea what the red gills meant, they might be testing water with strips. You could still let them test your water but it could be inaccurate. Liquid test kits are ideal.

Along with all of the other questions above, did you cycle your tank before adding fish or is it cycling now?