FishieMomma
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2011
- Messages
- 499
A detailed in another thread, I lost at least half my fishies, probably due to two "rookie" mistakes. Thought I'd share what I learned so others can avoid them: #1 - I added too many fish at once to my 55 gallon. The recommended about is no more than 3 a week. The tank wouldn't have been overstocked had I added them slowly. The ammonia spiked and I wasn't doing the twice a day parameter checks with my API Master Kit so a bunch of old and new fish died from the stress. This weakened them enough that when I made mistake #2 that was too much for much of the remaining stock.
#2 A week or so after disaster #1 I accidentally dumped too much food in the tank and figured the fish would just eat really well that time. What I SHOULD have done was tried to skim off the food, done a major PWC and watch the chemistry twice a day doing major water changes as needed and proactively.
Both mistakes happened because I naively assumed that my usual water change schedule of 76-80% twice a week remained adequate despite the added pressure on my BBs.
Sigh...Let this be a lesson.
#2 A week or so after disaster #1 I accidentally dumped too much food in the tank and figured the fish would just eat really well that time. What I SHOULD have done was tried to skim off the food, done a major PWC and watch the chemistry twice a day doing major water changes as needed and proactively.
Both mistakes happened because I naively assumed that my usual water change schedule of 76-80% twice a week remained adequate despite the added pressure on my BBs.
Sigh...Let this be a lesson.
