loachlover1980
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello everyone,
I live in Colorado, semi arid climate in between the planes and the mountains. My son won a common goldfish, in August at the state fair last year and that's all it took. In October we scoured the Craigslist and found a 55 gal show tank running with fish and all accessories for $110. The previous owner helped me set it up and after testing for a week we concluded that the tank did not re-cycle. It came with (1) 8" sail fin pleco, (1) 7" Clown Loach, (2) 5" Silver Dollars, and (6) 1.5" black widow Tetras. I did notice the CL was showing signs of stress. He was hanging out in is cave and stick'in his face out and breathing about 5 time faster then normal. Eventually he died about 5 days later. I waited a month and then purchased (2) sunset guarmi and (2) cinnamon loaches. I was using the Tetra 6 in one test trips and doing 10 gal water changes every week. along with vacuuming . One guarmi did not make it a week. I attributed it to the move. I noticed the Nitrate was getting higher then 40ppm quite often so I decided to rid my self of the tetra's I did not like from the start. The tank started to mellow out at about 20ppm every week when i did the test half way through the week. To me everything seamed fine. My son kept asking if we could get this dinosaur bicher from pet smart. I decided on getting it. ( boy was that a mistake.) We had the bicher about four days and when i woke i noticed the bicher was dead and the head eaten off. I later found one cinnamon loach damaged and later died. (note to self, dont let them live together.) So at this point my stock was
1 cinnamon loach, 2 Silver dollars, 1 sail fin pleco, 1 sunset guarmi, and 1 common goldfish. Yes I know the GF is a cold water fish, however its been fine and there's been no fin nipping.
Now its Jan 2013 and my wife wants a tank. so we go get a 10gal Aqueon tank kit and gravel and deco. once set up we purchesed (2) fancy guppy, (2) blue platty, (2) gold platty, (1) albino bristle nose pleco and 2 rainbow sharks. I then got some books from the library and learned about cycling in detail. My thoughts were "oh boy, I just sentenced my wife's fish to death. I was lucky and only lost one gold platty. The others did suffer from Ammo poisoning by showing redning fins and gills. Which has mostly gone away. During the cycling of the tank a blue platty got prego and had three sets of twins and my wife asked for a larger tank to accommodation the growing family. I of course said ok. We found a 25 gal tank with stand on Craigslist. set it up and decided on the fishless cycle. Separate note the only male platty attacked one guppy to death and we watched the two rainbow sharks always harassing one another. So we moved one rainbow shark to the 55 gal tank. he's now doing fine. Its now been a month today is Feb 15 2013 and the tank is completely cycled and we are now using Prime and Stress Zyme to treat water conditioning, and API liquid test kit. This morning I moved over (1) 6" common pleco , came from a friend's dropp off, (4) fry gold plattys. This tank also has been set up with fertlizer for plants that im looking at buying.
well that was a lot but it is my fish experiance. so what do you think.
I live in Colorado, semi arid climate in between the planes and the mountains. My son won a common goldfish, in August at the state fair last year and that's all it took. In October we scoured the Craigslist and found a 55 gal show tank running with fish and all accessories for $110. The previous owner helped me set it up and after testing for a week we concluded that the tank did not re-cycle. It came with (1) 8" sail fin pleco, (1) 7" Clown Loach, (2) 5" Silver Dollars, and (6) 1.5" black widow Tetras. I did notice the CL was showing signs of stress. He was hanging out in is cave and stick'in his face out and breathing about 5 time faster then normal. Eventually he died about 5 days later. I waited a month and then purchased (2) sunset guarmi and (2) cinnamon loaches. I was using the Tetra 6 in one test trips and doing 10 gal water changes every week. along with vacuuming . One guarmi did not make it a week. I attributed it to the move. I noticed the Nitrate was getting higher then 40ppm quite often so I decided to rid my self of the tetra's I did not like from the start. The tank started to mellow out at about 20ppm every week when i did the test half way through the week. To me everything seamed fine. My son kept asking if we could get this dinosaur bicher from pet smart. I decided on getting it. ( boy was that a mistake.) We had the bicher about four days and when i woke i noticed the bicher was dead and the head eaten off. I later found one cinnamon loach damaged and later died. (note to self, dont let them live together.) So at this point my stock was
1 cinnamon loach, 2 Silver dollars, 1 sail fin pleco, 1 sunset guarmi, and 1 common goldfish. Yes I know the GF is a cold water fish, however its been fine and there's been no fin nipping.
Now its Jan 2013 and my wife wants a tank. so we go get a 10gal Aqueon tank kit and gravel and deco. once set up we purchesed (2) fancy guppy, (2) blue platty, (2) gold platty, (1) albino bristle nose pleco and 2 rainbow sharks. I then got some books from the library and learned about cycling in detail. My thoughts were "oh boy, I just sentenced my wife's fish to death. I was lucky and only lost one gold platty. The others did suffer from Ammo poisoning by showing redning fins and gills. Which has mostly gone away. During the cycling of the tank a blue platty got prego and had three sets of twins and my wife asked for a larger tank to accommodation the growing family. I of course said ok. We found a 25 gal tank with stand on Craigslist. set it up and decided on the fishless cycle. Separate note the only male platty attacked one guppy to death and we watched the two rainbow sharks always harassing one another. So we moved one rainbow shark to the 55 gal tank. he's now doing fine. Its now been a month today is Feb 15 2013 and the tank is completely cycled and we are now using Prime and Stress Zyme to treat water conditioning, and API liquid test kit. This morning I moved over (1) 6" common pleco , came from a friend's dropp off, (4) fry gold plattys. This tank also has been set up with fertlizer for plants that im looking at buying.
well that was a lot but it is my fish experiance. so what do you think.
