svtdc
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hello everyone, I am a 28 year old new businessman in the chicagoland area, I have always lived with pets, but moving into chicagoland, most high rise apartments do not allow dogs and mine does not even allow cats. I have been doing some decorating and have always wanted a tank so I decided to take a plunge. I purchased a 29 gallon marinland led aquarium kit, with a biowheel filter. I have read a lot on cycling tanks, although not till after I purchased fish did I find anything about fishless cycling. So it is too late for that. I have had the aquarium going now for almost a month now, and I just ran into some major problems.
In my 29 gallon tank I put in tow female betas, because they are beautiful and 6 small about 1 inch tiger barbs, which I read keeping them in schools well keep them from nipping other fish. The first few weeks were going great, my betas are doing well, but when I first got my barbs after a day or so they stopped schooling. And for the most part hiding in a little plastic plant head standing, after reading up, I realized that the issue might have been not presoaking my fish flakes. So after presoaking my flakes they started becoming much more active and schooling once again.
After a week or so of them schooling very well I noticed what I had originally thought were bubbles on their tails, not the betas just the tiger barbs, I didn’t know what they were and didn’t think anything of it until they kept growing, and getting worse, I did some internetsurching and found out it was ich. Once I realized that the tiger barbs had ich I purchased a ich medicine only to more closely examine my tiger barbs and see they had fin and tail rot as well. Never the less by the time I discovered all this they were in very rough shape. I am now down to two tiger barbs and 2 betas, there are still traces of ich on the two tiger barbs but I believe that is going away, but the fin rot is still not getting any better although this is just day two of treatment. I hope these last two can pull through but in addition to the medications, I have also started putting in aquarium salt somewhere around 1 tbls for ever 5-10 gallons I have head both so I am just splitting it. I have been doing water changes roughly 5 gallons ever other day to try and keep my ammonia down, however it has been almost a month and I still have no traces of Nitrites. My ammonia I have been trying to keep below .5ppm because I have fish in my tank, is it safe to go higher, does the ammonia have to get so high before my good bacteria start forming in my biowheel?
How many fish should I have to start a 29 gallon tank? Would I be ok with just my 2 betas maybe get a 3rd. I like the betas one because they are beautiful and two well if the water isn’t that great they can still breath air, I figured that would be a pretty safe fish to cycle a tank with, but everyone seems to suggest tiger barbs. Which are not doing so well.
Please Help.
In my 29 gallon tank I put in tow female betas, because they are beautiful and 6 small about 1 inch tiger barbs, which I read keeping them in schools well keep them from nipping other fish. The first few weeks were going great, my betas are doing well, but when I first got my barbs after a day or so they stopped schooling. And for the most part hiding in a little plastic plant head standing, after reading up, I realized that the issue might have been not presoaking my fish flakes. So after presoaking my flakes they started becoming much more active and schooling once again.
After a week or so of them schooling very well I noticed what I had originally thought were bubbles on their tails, not the betas just the tiger barbs, I didn’t know what they were and didn’t think anything of it until they kept growing, and getting worse, I did some internetsurching and found out it was ich. Once I realized that the tiger barbs had ich I purchased a ich medicine only to more closely examine my tiger barbs and see they had fin and tail rot as well. Never the less by the time I discovered all this they were in very rough shape. I am now down to two tiger barbs and 2 betas, there are still traces of ich on the two tiger barbs but I believe that is going away, but the fin rot is still not getting any better although this is just day two of treatment. I hope these last two can pull through but in addition to the medications, I have also started putting in aquarium salt somewhere around 1 tbls for ever 5-10 gallons I have head both so I am just splitting it. I have been doing water changes roughly 5 gallons ever other day to try and keep my ammonia down, however it has been almost a month and I still have no traces of Nitrites. My ammonia I have been trying to keep below .5ppm because I have fish in my tank, is it safe to go higher, does the ammonia have to get so high before my good bacteria start forming in my biowheel?
How many fish should I have to start a 29 gallon tank? Would I be ok with just my 2 betas maybe get a 3rd. I like the betas one because they are beautiful and two well if the water isn’t that great they can still breath air, I figured that would be a pretty safe fish to cycle a tank with, but everyone seems to suggest tiger barbs. Which are not doing so well.
Please Help.
