Amlyel
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hello! Last Thursday I took a tank over from a friend. It's a 40g that has 5 fish. It has a Yoyo loach (5in), 2 pictus cats (3in), an upside down cat and an x-ray tetra. I'm not sure of the age of these fish although I can say over a year for all of them. I need to find that out. So the person I took them over from was kind of over having a tank so he hadn't been doing water changes as regularly as previously and he didn't use any water conditioners maybe ever. At least not for a long time. I did water changes and vacuuming when I got them thurs and again sat. I'm planning on doing a full change tomorrow to clean the tank and remove and replace the gravel. It's a very course white gravel. I have a smooth natural looking gravel to switch to from my goldfish tank. I'm dealing with some ammonia .50 and had some nitrites but that's now at 0. Also nitrates are at maybe 2.5. It's between 0 and 5. So far everyone but the loach is eating. He may be picking at food at night but before he came here he was always the first to eat and was at the top to get his food. I'm really unfamiliar with all of these fish although I've been researching since before I got them. I'd love any suggestions to make these guys happy, I've read the pictus cats should have a big tank but they've been in this tank a while and seem fine? I didn't want to get rid of any of these fish I'm just trying to make it work as best I can. I've got a new center piece to add tomorrow to give them more hiding places and I'm trying to figure which plants would be good for these guys. Any suggestions? Also I got catfish pellets and hikari sinking wafers but they show no interest in them. They were fed mostly flake food. They will eat brine shrimp and blood worms. Even the tetra turns its nose at the omega flake food I got. Seems the cats eat it though. Sorry this is so long! I'm tired so I probably rambled way too much. Thanks for any help!