Minnows345
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2018
- Messages
- 4
I have a 20 gallon freshwater tank that held 3 rosy red minnows for 13 months. Around 11 months, things fell apart. The ph was dropping. I would add ph increase and it would work for a while. One morning, I woke up to find one had died. The other just then swam into the tank wall and died, leaving one left. It was devastating to see. When I tested, it was the lowest the ph had reached. Talking to people, they all said it must be the ammonia reducer I’d been adding to the water. The tap water here has enough ammonia to make the tank test positive for it. I added ammonia reducer to the tap water before I added the water to the tank. The ammonia reducer also said it took care of dechlorinating etc. I was told to stop using anything except to treat for tap water issues, chlorine etc. After 4 days, the ammonia read higher. Since I had been told to not even trust the test, I tried to ignore it. But the fish began to show significant distress. The ammonia climbed. At a certain point it was enough to see visibly the fish was not well. So I stopped the hands off approach. I did water changes daily. Added the ammonia reducer, the ph increase, beneficial bacteria. Over the course of a month neither extreme worked, nor anything in the middle. The ammonia climbed and climbed until it reached 8. Then it never got lower than the horrific 8. I kept getting told there’s a difference between free ammonia and another kind. So I’d gotten an internal ammonia alert that seemed to say the ammonia was not perfect but somewhat ok. Slowly, at the end of the month, over 2 days, my fish died and it felt like torture. Then the tank was empty for a month. And I saw the internal ammonia alert change color. What I had read as not too bad, had been off the charts. It was so bad, the color didn’t match anything. I hadn’t thought I could feel worse about it, but that did it. Present day: internal ammonia alert days it’s fine. I change the water, it increases the ammonia level. Then a few days later it reads safe again. Tube test says 8. Multiple water changes since December. It is over. I would never put a fish in there again. I just would like to know how a tank becomes permanently broken like this. I’ve got an air pump, filter, changed the water, nothings been in there for 4 months. The water has definitely been changed 100% by now multiple times. I never over changed or over cleaned that could wipe out the delicate beneficial bacteria in the tank. But somehow it is just toxic in there. My mother was being treated for cancer during all of this, and she loved those fish. The whole experience was very sad. I am dumping everything but the tank, but I will never put fish in it again.
