Ok so here it goes. I had a 10 gallon tank and bought a 36 gallon bow front fish tank. I went home, put the decors together, put the water from the 10 gallon into the 36 gallon and put the fish I had (2 platies, 2 swordtails, pleco, 2 guppies, striped raphael catfish, and 2 corys) into a bowl. I filled the rest of the tank up with water and used water conditioner to get the chlorine out of our water. Then after that I put the fish into the tank not thinking I needed to wait for everything to cycle or anything. I just was so excited to get this nice new tank. Well I lost some fish, obviously, to my stupidity. Well my boyfriend wanted to go get more corys because we only had one left and we thought the cory we had was getting lonely. So we got 2 more corys. Then a few days later our platies and swordtails started getting white stuff on top of their heads. We thought maybe they were hitting a new decor and it was a tight squeeze or something. Well I went to Petsmart to get the corys I told the woman about our platies and swoardtails and she convinced me it was ick and she gave me a box of super ick by API. So I've been putting that stuff in water and following the directions. Well, my pleco started acting weird, not eating, and having a white belly and white over his eyes (he died tonight), I also have lost my catfish and corys (only the one original remains). I thought maybe my pleco was lonely as well as the corys so I went out and got another pleco. Well once the first one I had died tonight, the other one is starting to lose his color on his belly. I'm just really tired of losing fish. So far I have lost 11? fish (from trying to replace or make some happy). I took one of the corys back to the store to see if they could tell me what is wrong. She tested the water I had in the bag with the fish (lol Yes I know the fish is dead but I just thought it would be proper). When she tested the water she said that everything looks good besides the pH, which was at like 8.2 or higher, so she sold me some pH Down and said she was surprised my plecos haven't died. I started using that yesterday. I know this post is all over the place, but if you can follow it and let me know whats up with my fish tank and fishies, please let me know. I'm afraid to buy anymore fish because I'll just kill them. If you have questions, don't be shy just ask them. I won't bite your head off, just be nice I'm still sort of new to all of this.
Oh, and I can finally do a water change tomorrow at 4:30. Poor fishies. Oh and my platies and swordtails act just fine oh and the one guppy I have left. So long story short, my bottom feeders are dead except a pleco and one cory and the top water fish are still alive and kickin having the time of their lives.
This was a test I just did.
pH: 7.6 (maxed out)
High range pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0.5 ppm
Nitrite: 0.5 ppm
Nitrate: 0? maybe 2? ppm it was the color in between the 0 and 5 ppm.
Oh, and I can finally do a water change tomorrow at 4:30. Poor fishies. Oh and my platies and swordtails act just fine oh and the one guppy I have left. So long story short, my bottom feeders are dead except a pleco and one cory and the top water fish are still alive and kickin having the time of their lives.
This was a test I just did.
pH: 7.6 (maxed out)
High range pH: 8.2
Ammonia: 0.5 ppm
Nitrite: 0.5 ppm
Nitrate: 0? maybe 2? ppm it was the color in between the 0 and 5 ppm.