Hello all! My name is Ashley and I acquired a 10G tropical community tank for my son's first birthday. I'm new to the hobby, but since getting the tank I've done a good deal of research to properly care for our tank. We've had the tank for almost 8 weeks and it's completely cycled.
Not knowing any better I started the tank with one neon tetra, one guppy, and one other larger tetra (not exactly sure what kind). They all did well through cycling and survived. Last week when I discovered my tank was cycled I decided to add more fish. I added two additional neon tetras so that I would at least have a small school and two oto cat algae eaters since there is visible algae in my tank. To my surprise after adding the new fish my original neon died, but the two new ones continue to do well. Is it possible he died from the stress of the added fish? Also, one of the oto cats died, but the other is doing great. After some reading I learned that it's common for oto's to die within the first month of being introduced into a new tank so I'm not too worried about the death of the one.
I've since added a black loach that seems to be doing fine, but I added an additional guppy that I think is about to die. Is it common for new fish to die due to the stress of the change in water conditions? I'm worried about the pH in my tank. I started out using the test strips, but after research quickly learned test tube kits are better so I recently acquired one. The strips read my pH as 7.8, but I compared with my API test tube kit and it says my pH is 8.4. Could it be my high pH that has killed some of my new fish? I've read that stability is the most important factor concerning pH and that the commercial pH correctors are more harmful than good.
Another concern I have is my original guppy seems to like to nip at new fish. Could he be stressing them to the point that they die? He did this with the two new neons, but he's since stopped and they seem fine.
Water parameters:
pH 8.4 (per API kit) or 7.8 per strips
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0
TYIA for any suggestions! I'm really enjoying the hobby so far and I look forward to learning from the group!
Not knowing any better I started the tank with one neon tetra, one guppy, and one other larger tetra (not exactly sure what kind). They all did well through cycling and survived. Last week when I discovered my tank was cycled I decided to add more fish. I added two additional neon tetras so that I would at least have a small school and two oto cat algae eaters since there is visible algae in my tank. To my surprise after adding the new fish my original neon died, but the two new ones continue to do well. Is it possible he died from the stress of the added fish? Also, one of the oto cats died, but the other is doing great. After some reading I learned that it's common for oto's to die within the first month of being introduced into a new tank so I'm not too worried about the death of the one.
I've since added a black loach that seems to be doing fine, but I added an additional guppy that I think is about to die. Is it common for new fish to die due to the stress of the change in water conditions? I'm worried about the pH in my tank. I started out using the test strips, but after research quickly learned test tube kits are better so I recently acquired one. The strips read my pH as 7.8, but I compared with my API test tube kit and it says my pH is 8.4. Could it be my high pH that has killed some of my new fish? I've read that stability is the most important factor concerning pH and that the commercial pH correctors are more harmful than good.
Another concern I have is my original guppy seems to like to nip at new fish. Could he be stressing them to the point that they die? He did this with the two new neons, but he's since stopped and they seem fine.
Water parameters:
pH 8.4 (per API kit) or 7.8 per strips
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0
TYIA for any suggestions! I'm really enjoying the hobby so far and I look forward to learning from the group!
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then after the bag is halfway full, you can net the fish out and put him/her in the tank
