hydra70
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Good Morning,
Another new guy, with the same old, but different problems. Spent 2.5 hours reading through just about every FW thread, did some water tests - and now here's the story for anyone who would like to weigh in (PLEASE!). No doubt a boring story, but read to at least Day 7 to see why my story is a bit different than others.....sorry it's so long, but - as they say - the devil's in the details -
New 20g kit on Dec 27. Set up exactly as in Tetra-Care pamphlet in box, including the parts about using AquaSafe Cl neutralizer, tested tap water hardness (about 25-30) so added two tbs of aquarium salt (hardness now about 75), 1 to 1-1/2 lb gravel per gallon and let filter with BIO element run and temp stabilize (78-79F) for at least 24 hours - and ta-dah put in fish.
Ok, NOW I know that isn't all there is to it.
After about 48 hours of running the filter, I put in the first fish. They were: one swordtail, one orange molly, one albino tiger barb and one 2.5 inch pleco. Waited until the next day for first feeding, then did slow build up to two feedings per day, only the amount they ate in about 2 min. The world was a great place.
Day 3 (Jan 1): Water crystal clear, fish happy, bought a Python gravel cleaner, off to bed at 11:30pm.
Day 4: At 6:30am, water slightly clouded. Fish still happy. LFS says feeding them too much. Used python, got some but not much gunk out. About 5-6g water changed with this cleaning. Added 1/2 tsp AquaSafe and about 1 tsp salts. Changed filter element (did not touch BIO element).
Day 5: Water still cloudy, fish still happy.
Day 6: Swordtail dies. Not a mark on him/her - no scales missing, no fins eaten, no visible slime.
Day 7 (Jan 5): Molly, pleco and albino tiger barb still happy, water still slightly cloudy, and here comes the real story:
A friend of mine is the fish delivery guy for a chain of stores within a 100 mile radius of his home base. Says I can have some free fish if I meet him on this day. He travels around the state, dropping fish off to the pet departments. One of his rules is that once the fish are removed from the main tanks at the home base/hatchery, they can't go back - ever. Another rule is that - sometimes - store inventories aren't properly tracked, and he shows up with a bag full, but the tank for that species is still full. These fish are "rejected" because it would overload that tank. He tries to put them into stores between the reject point and home. If there is "no room at the inn," these fish are now in limbo, soon to be upgraded to fish-hell, in the form of their whole box, full of many bags of many fish, being thrown in a convenient dumpster at the end-of-route store.
I happen to live 2 miles from that end-of-route store.
I also happen to have a great dislike for killing things for no particular reason.
The guy who does this for a living was instantly downgraded from friend to "acquaintance."
Have you guessed what comes next?
Over a 5 hour period, I slowly acclimatized both by temperature and tank-to-shipping water mixing, my rescued critters. Did not add any shipping water to my tank. The list is as follows:
7 Otocinclus/Sucker Catfish (1 to 1-1/2 inch)
6 Corydoras (2 inch)
6 Pleco (3 to 3-1/2 inch)
8 Assorted Fancy Guppies
6 African Dwarf Frogs
4 Spiny Eels (4 to 5 inch)
16 Neon Tetras
12 Ghost Shrimp
I know (again NOW), way too much is an understatement, right?
Two days later, Day 9 (Jan 7): Water still same cloudiness level. Two PWC/gravel cleanings and another filter change later, one little sucker catfish dies. Neons which had been tightly schooling starting, one-by-one, to disorient and leave school. I come to learn this means they have about 4 hours left to live.
Day 10: Lost 6 Neons, the Molly and one frog in last 36 hours. Water remains lightly clouded - no change. Go buy a strip-type test kit. Doesn't check for ammonia, but does come up as follows:
Nitrate: about 5ppm (the color sample gives me 0 and 20, it's >0 for sure)
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Total Hardness: between 75 and 100 ppm (GH)
Total Alkalinity: close to 120 ppm (KH)
pH: about 7.2
Day 11: 4 Neons of 16 remaining. One more frog dies. One eel goes erratic - up out of the gravel, darting about tank wildly - shooting up to the surface a lot (coincidence? or intentional?). Eel dies this day. Was out of house for about 4 hours - eel swimming crazy when I left, stiff as a board and bleached white, laying on bottom when I got back. Water test strip still shows the same values.
Day 12 (Yesterday): Water still tests and looks the same, slightly clouded. Still doing gravel cleanings/PWC roughly each 36 hours, about 5g at a time. By sundown, all neons now dead, another eel starts to go wild.
Day 13 (Today): Last night's erratic eel dies. Water conditions unchanged from previous values.
OK, there's the story. I'm in head-scratching mode now. I can't get the water to clear, and remember - it clouded on me *before* I overloaded the tank, not after. I appear to be producing nitrate (6-7 tests strips all indicated definite non-zero values between 0-15ppm), so even though I didn't cycle this tank deliberately, I suppose it's getting there.
Everybody in my tank:
Plecos
Sucker Catfish
Corys
Guppies
Frogs
Eels
Albino Tiger Barb
Ghost Shrimp
All look and act healthy. But so did all the others - right up until when they died, of course. And as with the Molly way back when, there does not appear to be any foul play involved - no damage inflicted by other fish, no slime or fins/scales missing or unusual looking.......
Someone please help me out on this - I knew, at some level, that I was overloading the tank, and some deaths would result. But I couldn't bring myself to keep some of my rescues and toilet the rest of 'em.
I don't want to lose any more - what do I need to do?
Thanks ahead of time, and feel free to call me a dummy, if necessary - but I'd appreciate something constructive immediately following
Jim
Another new guy, with the same old, but different problems. Spent 2.5 hours reading through just about every FW thread, did some water tests - and now here's the story for anyone who would like to weigh in (PLEASE!). No doubt a boring story, but read to at least Day 7 to see why my story is a bit different than others.....sorry it's so long, but - as they say - the devil's in the details -
New 20g kit on Dec 27. Set up exactly as in Tetra-Care pamphlet in box, including the parts about using AquaSafe Cl neutralizer, tested tap water hardness (about 25-30) so added two tbs of aquarium salt (hardness now about 75), 1 to 1-1/2 lb gravel per gallon and let filter with BIO element run and temp stabilize (78-79F) for at least 24 hours - and ta-dah put in fish.
Ok, NOW I know that isn't all there is to it.
After about 48 hours of running the filter, I put in the first fish. They were: one swordtail, one orange molly, one albino tiger barb and one 2.5 inch pleco. Waited until the next day for first feeding, then did slow build up to two feedings per day, only the amount they ate in about 2 min. The world was a great place.
Day 3 (Jan 1): Water crystal clear, fish happy, bought a Python gravel cleaner, off to bed at 11:30pm.
Day 4: At 6:30am, water slightly clouded. Fish still happy. LFS says feeding them too much. Used python, got some but not much gunk out. About 5-6g water changed with this cleaning. Added 1/2 tsp AquaSafe and about 1 tsp salts. Changed filter element (did not touch BIO element).
Day 5: Water still cloudy, fish still happy.
Day 6: Swordtail dies. Not a mark on him/her - no scales missing, no fins eaten, no visible slime.
Day 7 (Jan 5): Molly, pleco and albino tiger barb still happy, water still slightly cloudy, and here comes the real story:
A friend of mine is the fish delivery guy for a chain of stores within a 100 mile radius of his home base. Says I can have some free fish if I meet him on this day. He travels around the state, dropping fish off to the pet departments. One of his rules is that once the fish are removed from the main tanks at the home base/hatchery, they can't go back - ever. Another rule is that - sometimes - store inventories aren't properly tracked, and he shows up with a bag full, but the tank for that species is still full. These fish are "rejected" because it would overload that tank. He tries to put them into stores between the reject point and home. If there is "no room at the inn," these fish are now in limbo, soon to be upgraded to fish-hell, in the form of their whole box, full of many bags of many fish, being thrown in a convenient dumpster at the end-of-route store.
I happen to live 2 miles from that end-of-route store.
I also happen to have a great dislike for killing things for no particular reason.
The guy who does this for a living was instantly downgraded from friend to "acquaintance."
Have you guessed what comes next?
Over a 5 hour period, I slowly acclimatized both by temperature and tank-to-shipping water mixing, my rescued critters. Did not add any shipping water to my tank. The list is as follows:
7 Otocinclus/Sucker Catfish (1 to 1-1/2 inch)
6 Corydoras (2 inch)
6 Pleco (3 to 3-1/2 inch)
8 Assorted Fancy Guppies
6 African Dwarf Frogs
4 Spiny Eels (4 to 5 inch)
16 Neon Tetras
12 Ghost Shrimp
I know (again NOW), way too much is an understatement, right?
Two days later, Day 9 (Jan 7): Water still same cloudiness level. Two PWC/gravel cleanings and another filter change later, one little sucker catfish dies. Neons which had been tightly schooling starting, one-by-one, to disorient and leave school. I come to learn this means they have about 4 hours left to live.
Day 10: Lost 6 Neons, the Molly and one frog in last 36 hours. Water remains lightly clouded - no change. Go buy a strip-type test kit. Doesn't check for ammonia, but does come up as follows:
Nitrate: about 5ppm (the color sample gives me 0 and 20, it's >0 for sure)
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Total Hardness: between 75 and 100 ppm (GH)
Total Alkalinity: close to 120 ppm (KH)
pH: about 7.2
Day 11: 4 Neons of 16 remaining. One more frog dies. One eel goes erratic - up out of the gravel, darting about tank wildly - shooting up to the surface a lot (coincidence? or intentional?). Eel dies this day. Was out of house for about 4 hours - eel swimming crazy when I left, stiff as a board and bleached white, laying on bottom when I got back. Water test strip still shows the same values.
Day 12 (Yesterday): Water still tests and looks the same, slightly clouded. Still doing gravel cleanings/PWC roughly each 36 hours, about 5g at a time. By sundown, all neons now dead, another eel starts to go wild.
Day 13 (Today): Last night's erratic eel dies. Water conditions unchanged from previous values.
OK, there's the story. I'm in head-scratching mode now. I can't get the water to clear, and remember - it clouded on me *before* I overloaded the tank, not after. I appear to be producing nitrate (6-7 tests strips all indicated definite non-zero values between 0-15ppm), so even though I didn't cycle this tank deliberately, I suppose it's getting there.
Everybody in my tank:
Plecos
Sucker Catfish
Corys
Guppies
Frogs
Eels
Albino Tiger Barb
Ghost Shrimp
All look and act healthy. But so did all the others - right up until when they died, of course. And as with the Molly way back when, there does not appear to be any foul play involved - no damage inflicted by other fish, no slime or fins/scales missing or unusual looking.......
Someone please help me out on this - I knew, at some level, that I was overloading the tank, and some deaths would result. But I couldn't bring myself to keep some of my rescues and toilet the rest of 'em.
I don't want to lose any more - what do I need to do?
Thanks ahead of time, and feel free to call me a dummy, if necessary - but I'd appreciate something constructive immediately following
Jim