My worst fish stocking experience ever... what's yours?

[William]

Plants consume very little, to no ammonia.


What they consume like greedy buggers is Nitrates.




Also, If the tank was propperly cycled, 80-90 neons in a 55gal tank don't sound that bad...They are a dinky fish, and love being in schools, and the bioload impact isn't that great per fish.


Now, if I were to see just how they looked in real life, weither they lookd crowded or not, I may change my story.




My worst stocking experiance, which still is my greatest nightmare to this day, Is my first tank.


I foolishly listened to the advice of the LFS, and purchased 2 dozen feeder goldfish for my 10gallon aquarium starter kit.


Needless to say, That was not a very smart idea...and it was like a fish holocaust in my tank.


Thankfully, I've become more knowledgable in the fact that the LFS are a bunch of ignorant wankers

 

[sciencegirl]

Plants won't consume ammonia - the ammonia needs to be converted to nitrite, then nitrate by various bacteria, then the plants can use the nitrate as fertilizer. In theory they will do the same job as algae, without the ugliness of algae. Thus, the tank still needs to be cycled, but plants reduce the need for frequent water changes to rid the tank of nitrate. As for the ammonia levels, I'm a total newbie at this but I thought that ammonia needs to always be 0ppm. Not many fish can tolerate ammonia.

eta: William I didn't see your post - sorry I'm just being a parrot

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Neons are schooling fish and when you have 90 neons in a 55 gal tank, they are going to school together. Thats not too much room for the school to move around in. Plus, neons are generally a single dwelling fish. Which means that they generally stay at one level in the aquarium. This is crowding. That's my opinion though. With my 55 gal tank I am going to slightly overstock it but I chose fish that swim in different levels so it wouldn't be an issue.

 

[tetrin]

i'd blame it on the neons and not the aquarist

i stand by this comment whole-heartedly.

as for the plants consuming nitrates, not ammonia, AFAIK, its the nitrogen they crave. and the nitrogen is better available as ammonium (NH4+) than as nitrates to plants. but since its not possible to dose large quantities of ammonia to your tank, people dose nitrates instead.
and that's the reason why you can't use regular ferts (for terrestrial plants) to dose your tank.

 

[Guest]

but you forgot the most important part.. this guy SEEDS his tanks, he doesn't just rely on the plants

Mr. Amano asks "which side do you want to be the front?". The tank is an
Oceanic 58 gallon (approximately 219 liters) aquarium (approximately 36" x
18" X 20") Mr. Amano starts things off by sprinkling a thin layer of his soil
bacteria (Power Sand); he says it's similar to dried dirt from an established
filter. Next, he adds bacterial food (Bacta 100)

so he has his bacteria and some sort of food for it!!!!!! thats why he's able to add cleaner fish after teh first week.. and then main fish in ONE month.

 

[tetrin]

power sand and bacta100 sound like some sort of marketing gimmick to me...despite coming from a great man.

anyway, this could go on for some time .

 

[Guest]

well, marketing gimmick or not, im pretty sure the guy seeded the tank somehow with bacteria... if hes as great as everyone says.

 

[tetrin]

he says it's similar to dried dirt from an established
filter

doesn't make sense. any media that's not moist shouldn't contain any live bacteria. maybe a mutant strain ?
anyway, this is the first time i'm hearing of something like this. just skeptical i guess.

 

[cplawrence]

doesn't make sense. any media that's not moist shouldn't contain any live bacteria. maybe a mutant strain ?
anyway, this is the first time i'm hearing of something like this. just skeptical i guess.

Well, it could be bacteria in spore form, similar to what is supposed to be in Cycle.

However, the main reason I posted that link was in response to the overstocking question.

 

[tetrin]

well, mediocre minds will always try to pull genius' to their levels (as demonstrated by me in the last few posts ).

anyway getting beck to the main point, the 58g has a width of only 36", giving the school even smaller room to cruise than a 55g. so, if you want to believe in great minds, the tank was in no way overstocked .

 

[greenmaji]

Many plants prefer to consume NH4 to any other form of nitrogen.. Many aquatic plants have to convert NO3 into NH4 to consume it.. its a common misconception because plant-keepers dont dose NH4 (it would be a bit dangerous for the fish)..
http://www.aquabotanic.com/plants_and_biological_filtration.htm

 

[cplawrence]

Thanks for the link greenmaji. I remember reading that a lot of fast growing plants could be used to avoid a traditional cycle, but I was confused about that point--that makes a lot more sense now.

 

[cgcaver]

hey y'all, sorry i was grouchy last night... I was super tired ;(

As for cycling my tank, I dont think any human on earth could have done it safer and more thoroughly. First, I had a LARGE pop. of MTS in my tank for around 9 months that Im sure kept a nominal bacteria colony alive. When I setup my current tank-setup, I used all my old sponges, bio-max, etc. Second, I added 2 SAE's right after I planted my new setup. At that time, I started adding small amounts of NH4 to help speed up the starter colony's growth. Well, I kept dosing NH4 and it kept disappearing, more and more over time, and I dosed all the way up to 2ppm. My bacteria colony grew very fast. I waited till it ate all the NH4 and NO2, then I added my neons. However, I wanted to be extra safe, so I also dosed it with Bio-Spira as well. (I am a huge fan of BioSpira... Ive used it on 3 tanks since it came out with incredible success - a tropical, cichlid, AND oscar tank - it's the best thing since sliced bread )

If this still doesn't pass the test for being cycled... well hell, I dunno what would

Some plants do absorb NH4, btw. However, frankly the species of plants I have aren't too great at taking Ammo outta the water. They love the nitrates tho

As for size of neons... Im sure you guys are right in that many breeders produce neons 2" long. In fact, Im sure Ive even seen some that big in LFS's. I can assure you tho, in the school of neons I bought, for the most part "jumbo" was 1" LOL yeh... I got some pygmies

 

[meya]

My story sort of fits in here. Several years ago, i used some meds for ich that was starting to develop on one of my clown loaches. Measured it all put the meds in and then went to get some work done.
Came back one hour later and everything in my tank was DEAD. I lost 9 rummy nose tetras, 6 clown loaches (5 inches in size) 2 angels (5-6 inches tall), 3 silver dollars (also between 5-6 inches in height), Nelson, my black ghost knife who was 12 inches or a bit more, 4 sailfin mollies and 1 red-tailed shark (6 inches).
I was CRUSHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't understand what happened so I call my fish store, and went in to see them. I told them the size of my tank and how much I used (which was under the reccommended dose). They couldn't explain it.
So I found the company that made the med and went to the head office. As soon as I showed the bottle and batch number he started to apologise. That batch was 10 times the reccomended dose and they had put a message out to all fish stores. They got everyone back apart from TWO. Mine was one. He put up money to replace my tank but it didn't make me feel better at all.

 

[Guest]

hey y'all, sorry i was grouchy last night... I was super tired ;(

As for cycling my tank, I dont think any human on earth could have done it safer and more thoroughly. First, I had a LARGE pop. of MTS in my tank for around 9 months that Im sure kept a nominal bacteria colony alive. When I setup my current tank-setup, I used all my old sponges, bio-max, etc. Second, I added 2 SAE's right after I planted my new setup. At that time, I started adding small amounts of NH4 to help speed up the starter colony's growth. Well, I kept dosing NH4 and it kept disappearing, more and more over time, and I dosed all the way up to 2ppm. My bacteria colony grew very fast. I waited till it ate all the NH4 and NO2, then I added my neons. However, I wanted to be extra safe, so I also dosed it with Bio-Spira as well. (I am a huge fan of BioSpira... Ive used it on 3 tanks since it came out with incredible success - a tropical, cichlid, AND oscar tank - it's the best thing since sliced bread )

If this still doesn't pass the test for being cycled... well hell, I dunno what would

Some plants do absorb NH4, btw. However, frankly the species of plants I have aren't too great at taking Ammo outta the water. They love the nitrates tho

As for size of neons... Im sure you guys are right in that many breeders produce neons 2" long. In fact, Im sure Ive even seen some that big in LFS's. I can assure you tho, in the school of neons I bought, for the most part "jumbo" was 1" LOL yeh... I got some pygmies

well then i have to say that i was completely wrong about you, i was under the impression that you thought you cycled just meant you let the water sit for a couple days/weeks.. whatever

in that case.. i still think maybe you had a mini cycle with the .25 of ammonia is probably what killed the fish, and maybe .. although you don't believe so.. maybe they were a bit overcrowded and that caused stress and some to die off..
on the other hand, maybe you have some sort of disease in the tank.. are neons still dying? Maybe it could be parasites or something that hasn't really shown up yet.. have you tried melafix? its kind of an all purpose antimicrobial that doesn't hurt the biological filter and is actual suggested for adding new fish to ease stress (its like tea tree oil or something)

 

[frenchpea2002]

didn't you also say your pH is a little high? I've heard that ammonia gets more toxic to the fish the higher the pH is...can anyone else give support to this?

 

[greenmaji]

I think that my first assumtion might be true.. You did cycle the tank but the bio-load of fish was a little more then your cycle was prepared for, giving you a mini-cycle..
Are you reading NH3 anymore? How are the fish doing?

I finaly thought of the worst stocking situation I have been involved with.. back about 15 years ago Frontosa were new to the hobby in our area and my mom's boyfreind at the time desided he wanted to spawn them so he went out and got 5 of them for the 125gallon in the house.. he has 2 left (most of them jumped over the years) and had to downgrade to a 90 gallon after the 125gallon split.. he had no luck spawning them..