new aquarium owner help!

[lorraineg]

Hi my name is Lorraine and I am a new fish keeper. We purchased oyur first tank early November and had problems setting it up (3 weeks and had to use water from pets at home) then at last got our first fish and have been going great it is a 60 litre tank we have 15 fish tetras and harlequins we then purchased 3 shrimps!!!! they hv disappeared? cld the fish hv eaten them? cant find skeletons and also we had 2 bigt snails to help with algae they hv gone too??? then yesterday we lost a fish so I did an immediate water change and cleaned all the gravel with siphon and hv taken the water levels today and nitites and nitrates are fine but ammonia is slightly up? not sure if our filter is gd enough it came free with tank but barely ripples the water? should I go and get a better filter? I read that the filter cartridges shld be rinsed in old tank water which I do but when do they need to be changed surely if I purchase a new filter and put 2 new cartiridges in I hv lost my biological filtration help!!!!!
do you feed the snails or do they just eat algae????

 

[thebritishbloke]

So the fish have just completely vanished?

As per the fish that died, I'd go and get yourself an API Freshwater Master Test Kit, you can get it on amazon for about £15, probably around £30 in Pets At Home. Once you get some test results you can start to figure out how to remedy the tank.

I guess if the lid is open on the tank, the snails could have escaped, although it's weird.

 

[shellyx]

Hi, it's possible your fish could have ate the shrimp? But do you have a lid like britishbloke asked? The snail's could've crawled out and yep you feed them algae wafers or fresh veg which you can blanch. Which filter do you have? Could you possibly take a picture of it so we can take a look.

53 gallon elephant nose tank
16 gallon Giant African shrimp tank

 

[BigRedsReefs10]

Did u cycle the tank? And I always over filter by at least one level usually two(i.e. I run an ac70 on my 30 and an ac110 on my 55). I also recommend the aqua clear hob filters if u want to stay affordable. They feel cheaper than the more expensive ones but they work just as good and there inserts are easy to find at almost any chain lfs.