Metalette
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
I got a 10 gallon fish tank for Christmas and I set it up on Friday night with neon tetras, fancy guppies, platies, balloon mollies, and a plecostamus.
I woke the next morning to find all but one of my neon tetras dead, along with one of my guppies and my plecostomus. My friend pointed out the ick on some of my fishes fins (the white spots were so small that I wouldn't have even noticed if she hadn't showed me), so I got some ick clear and put it in the tank on Saturday night. I also got an aquarium water heater because my room isn't very warm all the time, and I GRADUALLY raised the temperature so I wouldn't put them in shock.
Yesterday morning I woke up to find my last neon tetra dead. I'm not sure if he died from ick because he was already infected and beyond help by the time I put the meds in, or if he died from the medication itself. I don't think the temperature killed him because it seems like other fish would have died if temperature was the culprit. I've been reading that tetras are very sensitive to changes in anything, so I think I'm gonna hold off on getting more tetras for a while.
I took a water sample to Petco to have it tested and they said the pH level was too high, and gave me some stuff to lower it. I haven't used the "pH down" yet because today is the first day that I didn't wake up to any dead fish, and I'm worried that lowering the pH now might kill them if they're already adjusting to the pH level that it's at (I don't remember what the lady at Petco said the level was at, but she said it was high.) Also, the bottle of "pH Down" says add 2 drops per gallon, which is 20 drops, but it also says "some fish may be sensitive to pH adjustments greater than 0.2 in a 24 hour period", but I don't know how much that is... Does it mean 0.2% of 20 drops? Meaning they'd be sensitive to more than 4 drops in a 24 hour period? If this is correct than should I just add 4 drops every 24 hours to the water for the next 5 days? Or should I just wait and only mess with the pH if another fish dies...
This all feels like a big frustrating science project, but the fish are beautiful and I love watching them so I'm determined to fix the problem.
Any advice would be extremely helpful. Thanks in advance.
I woke the next morning to find all but one of my neon tetras dead, along with one of my guppies and my plecostomus. My friend pointed out the ick on some of my fishes fins (the white spots were so small that I wouldn't have even noticed if she hadn't showed me), so I got some ick clear and put it in the tank on Saturday night. I also got an aquarium water heater because my room isn't very warm all the time, and I GRADUALLY raised the temperature so I wouldn't put them in shock.
Yesterday morning I woke up to find my last neon tetra dead. I'm not sure if he died from ick because he was already infected and beyond help by the time I put the meds in, or if he died from the medication itself. I don't think the temperature killed him because it seems like other fish would have died if temperature was the culprit. I've been reading that tetras are very sensitive to changes in anything, so I think I'm gonna hold off on getting more tetras for a while.
I took a water sample to Petco to have it tested and they said the pH level was too high, and gave me some stuff to lower it. I haven't used the "pH down" yet because today is the first day that I didn't wake up to any dead fish, and I'm worried that lowering the pH now might kill them if they're already adjusting to the pH level that it's at (I don't remember what the lady at Petco said the level was at, but she said it was high.) Also, the bottle of "pH Down" says add 2 drops per gallon, which is 20 drops, but it also says "some fish may be sensitive to pH adjustments greater than 0.2 in a 24 hour period", but I don't know how much that is... Does it mean 0.2% of 20 drops? Meaning they'd be sensitive to more than 4 drops in a 24 hour period? If this is correct than should I just add 4 drops every 24 hours to the water for the next 5 days? Or should I just wait and only mess with the pH if another fish dies...
This all feels like a big frustrating science project, but the fish are beautiful and I love watching them so I'm determined to fix the problem.
Any advice would be extremely helpful. Thanks in advance.