xplanes
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello. This is my first post. I have been reading for a few days here and I see I have much to learn.
I had a 45g tank for years with under gravel filter and an assortment of fish. This was before bio wheels etc. and all I did was maintaining ph levels and do 25% water changes every few weeks. That was 15+ years ago. Now I have bought a 6g Eclipse tank with the cartridge and bio wheel.
I have a test kit that checks the combined NH3=NH4. If I understand this correctly only one of those is toxic to the fish yet I could be reading high nitrate with low nitrite and not know this. I used Bio-Spira to setup the tank about 5 weeks ago. My problem is I may have over populated the tank. I have two small angle fish, a blue gurami, two small rosy barbs, a pictus catfish, and a Chinese algae eater totaling about 8+ inches in my 6g tank. Shortly after I had it setup the water turned milky over night. I bought a test kit and figured I had high ammonia. I did a quick 25% water change and bought some Ammo Lock. This helped clear up the water but my NH tests read 3.0 mg/l or more by the time I get home from work. I have been doing 25% water changes with Bio-Spira treated water daily for a week now and the fish seem to be OK. I have a tetra test kit but the Bio Spira says it will give false high readings with test kits that use a certain regent. I would have written this off to incompatible tests but yesterday my Chinese algae eater died. I did the water change as usual but woke today with a very milky tank.
I am having trouble sorting out my real problem from my exacerbating the one I had. My treatments can be killing off my bacteria which I need to prevent the problem in the first place. Now that I have confessed my noobieness, can someone please help me figure out where to start in stabilizing my tank?
I had a 45g tank for years with under gravel filter and an assortment of fish. This was before bio wheels etc. and all I did was maintaining ph levels and do 25% water changes every few weeks. That was 15+ years ago. Now I have bought a 6g Eclipse tank with the cartridge and bio wheel.
I have a test kit that checks the combined NH3=NH4. If I understand this correctly only one of those is toxic to the fish yet I could be reading high nitrate with low nitrite and not know this. I used Bio-Spira to setup the tank about 5 weeks ago. My problem is I may have over populated the tank. I have two small angle fish, a blue gurami, two small rosy barbs, a pictus catfish, and a Chinese algae eater totaling about 8+ inches in my 6g tank. Shortly after I had it setup the water turned milky over night. I bought a test kit and figured I had high ammonia. I did a quick 25% water change and bought some Ammo Lock. This helped clear up the water but my NH tests read 3.0 mg/l or more by the time I get home from work. I have been doing 25% water changes with Bio-Spira treated water daily for a week now and the fish seem to be OK. I have a tetra test kit but the Bio Spira says it will give false high readings with test kits that use a certain regent. I would have written this off to incompatible tests but yesterday my Chinese algae eater died. I did the water change as usual but woke today with a very milky tank.
I am having trouble sorting out my real problem from my exacerbating the one I had. My treatments can be killing off my bacteria which I need to prevent the problem in the first place. Now that I have confessed my noobieness, can someone please help me figure out where to start in stabilizing my tank?