Hi. I joined the forum in search of help. My son got an aquarium for Christmas and we are having trouble with it. The aquarium is a 20 gallon freshwater. It has a hood, filter, heater, thermometer, aerator, gravel, bubble stone, and a few decorations in it.
When I set it up, I followed the directions for set up that came with the tank. I added water declorinator and washed everything with clean water. I wanted to wait for a few days before adding fish, but my son's grandparents came for an unexpected visit with 8 fish (2 tiger barbs, 2 goldfish, 2 swordtails, and 2 others that I forget the name of). We floated the bags for 30 minutes to let the fish acclimate to the tank temp and dipped the fish out of the bags so we didn't get the bag water into the aquarium.
And now, all the fish have died except 2 and they do not appear to be healthy. This led me to the pet store to get some testing supplies. Here's the results:
Nitrates: 20 ppm
Nitrites: 1.0 ppm
Total Hardness: 300 ppm
Total Chlorine: 0.0 ppm
Total Alkalanity: 180 ppm
pH: 8.4 ppm
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
I'm really not sure what to do next. The aquarium has been set up since saturday and the fish were added monday. I might also add that the water has been crystal clear until today and it's somewhat cloudy this morning. I really want a safe and healthy home for our fish. Can anyone tell me what I need to do? Thanks
When I set it up, I followed the directions for set up that came with the tank. I added water declorinator and washed everything with clean water. I wanted to wait for a few days before adding fish, but my son's grandparents came for an unexpected visit with 8 fish (2 tiger barbs, 2 goldfish, 2 swordtails, and 2 others that I forget the name of). We floated the bags for 30 minutes to let the fish acclimate to the tank temp and dipped the fish out of the bags so we didn't get the bag water into the aquarium.
And now, all the fish have died except 2 and they do not appear to be healthy. This led me to the pet store to get some testing supplies. Here's the results:
Nitrates: 20 ppm
Nitrites: 1.0 ppm
Total Hardness: 300 ppm
Total Chlorine: 0.0 ppm
Total Alkalanity: 180 ppm
pH: 8.4 ppm
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
I'm really not sure what to do next. The aquarium has been set up since saturday and the fish were added monday. I might also add that the water has been crystal clear until today and it's somewhat cloudy this morning. I really want a safe and healthy home for our fish. Can anyone tell me what I need to do? Thanks