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shadyladyx61

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
4
Hi, i am new here and i am hoping to getsome good advice. I have had a tank for a year now. It was a 10 gal and it was established and running well. It had a pleco , 2 neon tetras, 2 golden barbs. I decided to upgrade and get a bigger tank. After talking to lfs i bought a 36 gal aqueon bow front kit with the filter and thermostat and was told that i could just transfer the established tank and add water and water conditioner to my new tank and be good to go, however it has been a nightmare. All seemed well at first and they said i could add fish so i started with 3 mickey mouse platies and 2 corey cat fish. Then my neon tetras and my golden barbs died. Then the coreys died. They said my water was ok amonia was a little high just keep up with water changes everything should be fine. Through all this i was told my water was going through the normal nitrogen cycle and it was fine. My fish started to look like they had white fuzzy stuff on them and almost all of them died except 2. Finally was told my water was perfect and cycle was complete so i bought 3angels making the tank total a tetra 3 angels a pleco and a corey catfish and evrything was fine for a week and then my water turned green. The tank is not near a window , i dont know why this is happening . The angels and the tetra died and i am devastated. Could this be a faulty filter from the start? Please help , i dont want to keep losing fish. Thanks
 
Moving this to the FW general discussion forum. More people will see it there and be able to help you.
 
My first suggestion is stop listening to your LFS.
Buy your own liquid test kit for ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/pH
How often do you do partial water changes? While your tank is going through a cycle you should be testing the water for ammonia/nitrate/nitrites every couple days. As soon as there any trace of ammonia, do a 50% water change.

Buy your own test kit...do a test on ammonia...if you have any ammonia at all, do a 50% water change and test again within 2 days. If there is still some ammonia, do another 50% water change. Your tank should cycle quicker since you added some stuff from an established tank. Just got to keep testing and doing water changes.

Do you have any fish left? If so, don't add any more until your cycle is complete. You can then add 3-5 smaller sized fish. Adding too many small or several large fish at once can cause problems.
 
Sorry to hear what you went through.

+1 for the API test kit and the water changes.

My suggestion for you is to start to read as much as you can about the Nitrogen cycle. The link below my name will direct you to a good reading about it.

After you read it I'm sure that you will have maybe more questions but a lot of more information on what to do.

:eek:
 
Green water and Just 1 fish left

Well my ammonia is fine , it is my ph which is way too low and i also have this issue of algae apparently since my water is green. I did do partial water changes and had to keep up with it cause my ammonia kept going up but prior to the algae ammonia was not an issue. So I did 50 percent water change and put some algae gone in the water as well as some php 7.0 in the tank, hoping to save the last remaining fish, my emerald green corey. I was told that the algae was caused by either too much sun or the tank light. i dont know if this is true or if what i did will correct the situation, any suggestions?
 
Changing pH can do more harm than good. A stable pH is what you should be looking for. Your fish will acclimate to the pH. Drastic pH changes can kill fish more than living in pH that is not normally associated with the species.
 
Hmm, though situation here. By doing the water changes, you will be only feeding the green algae bloom, but (If there is any trace of ammonia) it is going to be hard to get rid of it (i.e. water changes = more green algae).

You could try a UV sterilizer, they work great when it comes to green algae problems (did this on my grandmas pond and it worked like a charm.)

Like said from others, never trust the pet-store. They will do anything to sell something.

What test kit are you using?
 
Right now just using ph test kit cause the ammonia has been fine via lfs. I have been keeping my tank light , cause i was told this could make more algae bloom. Is this true? also what causes algae blooms? Where do you get UV sterilizers and how do they work?
 
In my opinion, the algae is the less important issue right now for your fish. Maybe bothers you more to see the water green, but algae is not killing your fish.

The important part here is the levels of Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate, don't trust your LFS for the readings, you need to "invest" in a liquid API master test kit, which will allow you to test by your self.

You need to cycle your tank first, as mentioned above by others, read the Nitrogen cycle, do water changes constantly to maintain low to cero levels of ammonia and nitrites. You mentioned that the ammonia is fine, but also you said you are having spikes of it, so keep up the good work of the water changes.

Last suggestion is not to use any chemicals for the pH, leave it alone right now, after the tank is cycled, you will see how "low or high" truly is and more people can give you advice on it.

Good luck
 
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