New member needs lots of help!

[BeavisMom62]

Hi, I am Judie from FL. New to fishkeeping. Started out "simply" with a small goldfish tank. LOL! First thing I learned, there is nothing simple about goldfish or fishkeeping in general. Next thing I learned, you can't keep four goldfish in a 13 gal tank. Next, don't trust the clerks in petstores. Armed with a little education, upgraded to a 30 gal tank (by this time I only had three goldies), had an up and running 13 gal, and fishkeeping being the addiction that it is, I just HAD TO fill that tank. After many mistakes and unfortunate fish casualties , I now finally have a healthy, functional and cycled community tank with 3 otos, 3 fancy guppies, 8 neon tetras and one large apple snail. Two of the casualties in this tank were african dwarf frogs. I had no trouble with them to begin with, but added a new one who apparently was carrying a disease, which killed my two original ADFs. So, hubby and I fell in love with the frogs and decided to do it right this time. So we got a new tank and bought three more frogs for a total of 4. Put them in QT and treated for chytrid fungus. All was well, until the last day of treatment, one of the frogs escaped and we never found him. Put the remaining 3 froggers in their tank, but for some reason one of them died!

More drama and casualties. Lost two more goldfish, but due to the treatment in the tank (decided to treat all of them since, I was pretty sure at least one of the sick goldies had flex) my cycle pretty much crashed. Also, I'm pretty sure that my frogger tank is cycling. On top of all of this trouble, my tap water ph spiked from 7.2 to 8.8! Yikes.

So, at the moment, I'm dealing with ph difficulties (but pretty much under control now), high ammonia in two of the tanks. Which involves daily water testing and daily water changes. This is taking over my life! It has definitely turned from a hobby to an ADDICTION!!

So, I've joined in the hopes of furthering my education and getting some help with all of these issues that I am dealing with. Hello all and glad to be here.

 

[WhiteDevil]

7.2 to 8.8 is a huge swing in Ph, what is your tap water Ph?

High ammonia all you can do is clean the gravel well, clean the filter well( one piece per week or every couple days to not harm the bacteria colony. I suggest some easy low light low maintence plants to aid in the ammonia removal and just keep on WC's

I have only had 1 ammonia spike and it pretty much consumed my tank ,I had to completely tear down but all is well now.

13g is way too small for those fish, that is alot of the reason for rapid disease spread and death due to parameters and stress.


Welcome.

 

[BeavisMom62]

That IS my tap water ph, Devil. It used to be 7.2 forever. Then a couple of weeks ago, I came home from work, noticed low water pressure out of the tap and thankfully decided to check it and the ph has been 8.8 ever since! For two weeks we were going to water stations to fill up 5 gal water containers. After spending over $100, I've been letting the water sit out and using SeaChem Neutral Regulator. The ph has been holding steady in all the tanks at 7.2.

Strangely, my overstocked tank is the healthiest one. Clean that tank at least twice a week. The other two tanks get cleaned daily at the moment.