Mental imbalance or eco-imbalance...you decide.

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NoTownKasper

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
11
Location
Central California
I'm incredibly new to fishkeeping of any variety, having only had 2 aquariums in the past, one a goldfish and one a beta...so if this question seems silly, forgive me. :p

As it sits right now I have a 5.5gal tank, an AquaTech 5-15 filter a 4" bubbler disk fed by a low-end topfin air pump. This tank is housing 5 fish, 2 fancy guppies, 2 neon tetras and an oto and despite the overstocking, everything seems to be doing well enough. At just over a week into the fish-in cycle (No one told me about fishless cycling till i was too late...) the ammonia levels are down around 0.75, give or take (Possible false readings thanks to AquaSafe dechlorinator and TopFin Bacteria Supplement) and when I get my hands on a nitrite/nitrate testing kit I'll have those numbers too, but my budget is -EXTREMELY- limited. I had to save up a couple of days to afford the ammonia test kit and water treatments. If the aquarium wasn't a gift, I'd still be raising rats.


Anyway, now that you have the background, let me get to the question. The water -seems - to be in good condition all things considered and all my fish seem to be behaving normally, (Even the tetras, despite their low numbers. I know I should school them, and when I get a bigger tank, I intend to.) except for my orange guppy named Son of Salmon. Son is a weirdo. He occasionally likes to try and jump "Upstream" into my filter, something I thought was an 'Urban legend' type of thing among aquarists, he loves to hang out in the bubbles, chases all the other fish around, (Though I don't notice any violence, he isn't nipping or anything that I can see) and from what I can see, never sleeps.

Weirdest of all though, he has this habit of sinking down to the gravel and bolting up towards the surface of the water as if he were going to jump...and only stopping right before he breaks water...it would be amusing to watch since it's almost like he's practicing for the day I leave the lid off...but I want to make sure this isn't a sign of something far worse for the lil guy.

Any thoughts are appreciated...

PS: As I hit the send button, I have just noticed that he now has one of the tetras doing it too...though it seems to be a monkey-see monkey-do sort of thing...once Son swims away the tetra finds better things to do.
 
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Well it could very well be from nitrite/ammonia poisoning. Or it could just be his personality :) You really need to get a good test kit IMO. API Freshwater liquid regeant test kit is only 18$ at walmart.com. This is an essential thing to have. You can have lots of problems if you don't have good water params.

I am sure you know this already :) But you really should get a good kit asap. Also, are you doing water changes everyday? Again, IMO, you need to be. That many fish in that small a tank with that small a filter= trouble. Especially if you are cycling.

My advice would be to change 50% water daily, get a good test kit and try and get a bigger tank or rehome some fish asap. Good luck! Welcome to AA :)
 
Yeah, I've been doing water changes daily/bi-daily as schedule allows, usually between 25-70%, since it's a decorated tank it's hard to measure by sight. I will also be picking up a better test kit once I have the funds, but at the moment, $18 is the difference between groceries for the whole week or eating beans for several days straight.

So I guess my options are to keep up with the water changes and pray it's just his personality...
 
Good idea lol. I know how it goes having literally no money. I'm a single mom so I scrounge as well. The water changes will be a good help for you. Do you use any kind of dechlor? Like Prime ? It is about 4$ at Petsmart for a bottle that will last for a long time (you only need a couple drops per 5 gal). If you don't have any you can leave your tap water out over night before doing the water change. This will gas off the water and bring it up to room temp for your fishies :)
 
Ok, first off, stop using the bacteria supplement and the AquaSafe. That's going to cause problems. I lost a full tank and almost a whole other tank because of that crap. I trust them for a fishless cycle but not for cycling with fish or for general maintenance (refer back to almost losing an entire tank and did lose another entire tank). Go to Walmart and get some Jungle Start Right, it's the cheapest stuff that I'll trust.

All you need right now is a good test kit (API) a good dechlor and to do water changes. Keep the ammonia under .25, anything higher than that will start affecting the fish, burning gills etc.
 
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