RADF814
Aquarium Advice Newbie
So I know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but here is my current situation starting with the (long) back story, so you can skip to the bottom if you do not feel like reading all of it:
I started a 20 gallon FW tropical community tank about 6 weeks ago. As you can see from the stats below it is really overloaded, and I do not think it ever properly cycled. I started with the starter kit filter, which was crap. About 3 weeks ago I put a Fluval C3 power filter on (but did not seed it). In addition to that large group of fish I committed a cardinal sin and had a small goldfish in the tank. I will not go into the whole story of how or why that happened. So needless to say my water conditions were dismal even though I thought that I was doing everything right (we live and then spend a lot of money to learn, right?). All of a sudden overnight my mollies and the goldie got sick and I went to Petsmart for advice, which started with "never keep a goldfish in a tank that small or with other fish." I ended up taking the goldie out and put him in a new tank and he died a few days later - no surprise there he was in bad shape with really bad fin rot.
I did a 30% water change, added aquarium salt and upped the temp on the 20 gallon tank, and within an hour my mollies were much better. The next day I went back to have my water tested again, and without giving me all of the numbers Petsmart said that my ammonia was WAY too high, and I should do another 25% wc and then 20% changes once a week to bring the ammonia safely down, and that I could use an ammonia remover at first to help. So I went home and did yet another wc. 4 days later, on my usual wc day I did another water change just to get back on my schedule.
Then I started doing more and more research and looking through tons of threads on this site, and started to see that I have been the cause of all of my own grief! So today I went and bought an API master water test kit. I tested my new 55 gallon tank that I just set up because it is day 3 after adding the first fish, and all of my levels are the same as my tap water, so I know it is still okay, and I will continue to test every day. I am doing fish-in cycling because my husband refused to do fishless, but that is another story.
Back to my 20 gallon, on first test today the pH is 7.6, Ammonia 0-0.25 (hard to tell), Nitrite 5.0, Nitrate 80. So I did a 50 % wc and waited over an hour and retested, and it is now Amm: 0-0.25, Nitrite 2.0-5.0 (definitely not quite 5), and Nitrate 20-30. (Tap water is pH 7.6, Ammonia 0-0.25, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5). I use Prime water conditioner. I was using Stability with the tank early on, but I am really over chemicals, so no more. With the last two water changes I did not add aquarium salt, because it has been at least a week since the mollies had spots.
So here are some catches that will certainly be annoying in giving me advice: The fish store will not take any fish back, and I have no one to whom I can give any of the fish. My husband is going to flip if I even think of getting another tank, but I have a brand new 5.5 gallon tank that is empty (was my quarantine tank for the goldie for 2 days).
Now to the questions:
1. How often should I do partial water changes on the 20 gal. tank to keep it clean? At Petsmart they said no more than once a week because I will cause other problems, but the water obviously needs more changing. Will I harm the fish or disrupt the cycle by changing more often? Isn't it worse for the fish in the toxic environment?
2. Looking at the stats below, and knowing the story of my unhealthy 20 gallon, would you recommend transferring any of the fish to the 55 gallon (say the dojo loach? or the cat?). I really want to be careful with the new tank.
3. On top of all of my other mistakes I got 1 male and 1 female molly, and the male is relentlessly breeding with the poor female! He will not leave her alone. I would really like to get one or two more females to help her out, but that would require moving some fish out, or over loading this tank even further which I cannot bring myself to do. Any thoughts?
Sorry for the novel, just wanted to give as much of the story as possible. I know I made a ton of mistakes and I am now willing to spend the time trying to learn this new hobby, but I feel like I need someone with more experience to help me start to get on the right track. There is so much information out there that I am getting overwhelmed and confused about what to do.
Fire away! I know I deserve it!
__________________________________________
20 Gallon FW Tropical Community Aquarium: 2 Platys, 2 Mollies, 4 Fluorescent Danios, 2 GloFish Electric Green Tetras, 1 Dojo Loach, 1 Cory Catfish (I think?), and 2 african dwarf frogs.
55 Gallon FW: 2 Silver Dollars, 2 Bala Sharks and 1 Spotted Pleco
I started a 20 gallon FW tropical community tank about 6 weeks ago. As you can see from the stats below it is really overloaded, and I do not think it ever properly cycled. I started with the starter kit filter, which was crap. About 3 weeks ago I put a Fluval C3 power filter on (but did not seed it). In addition to that large group of fish I committed a cardinal sin and had a small goldfish in the tank. I will not go into the whole story of how or why that happened. So needless to say my water conditions were dismal even though I thought that I was doing everything right (we live and then spend a lot of money to learn, right?). All of a sudden overnight my mollies and the goldie got sick and I went to Petsmart for advice, which started with "never keep a goldfish in a tank that small or with other fish." I ended up taking the goldie out and put him in a new tank and he died a few days later - no surprise there he was in bad shape with really bad fin rot.
I did a 30% water change, added aquarium salt and upped the temp on the 20 gallon tank, and within an hour my mollies were much better. The next day I went back to have my water tested again, and without giving me all of the numbers Petsmart said that my ammonia was WAY too high, and I should do another 25% wc and then 20% changes once a week to bring the ammonia safely down, and that I could use an ammonia remover at first to help. So I went home and did yet another wc. 4 days later, on my usual wc day I did another water change just to get back on my schedule.
Then I started doing more and more research and looking through tons of threads on this site, and started to see that I have been the cause of all of my own grief! So today I went and bought an API master water test kit. I tested my new 55 gallon tank that I just set up because it is day 3 after adding the first fish, and all of my levels are the same as my tap water, so I know it is still okay, and I will continue to test every day. I am doing fish-in cycling because my husband refused to do fishless, but that is another story.
Back to my 20 gallon, on first test today the pH is 7.6, Ammonia 0-0.25 (hard to tell), Nitrite 5.0, Nitrate 80. So I did a 50 % wc and waited over an hour and retested, and it is now Amm: 0-0.25, Nitrite 2.0-5.0 (definitely not quite 5), and Nitrate 20-30. (Tap water is pH 7.6, Ammonia 0-0.25, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5). I use Prime water conditioner. I was using Stability with the tank early on, but I am really over chemicals, so no more. With the last two water changes I did not add aquarium salt, because it has been at least a week since the mollies had spots.
So here are some catches that will certainly be annoying in giving me advice: The fish store will not take any fish back, and I have no one to whom I can give any of the fish. My husband is going to flip if I even think of getting another tank, but I have a brand new 5.5 gallon tank that is empty (was my quarantine tank for the goldie for 2 days).
Now to the questions:
1. How often should I do partial water changes on the 20 gal. tank to keep it clean? At Petsmart they said no more than once a week because I will cause other problems, but the water obviously needs more changing. Will I harm the fish or disrupt the cycle by changing more often? Isn't it worse for the fish in the toxic environment?
2. Looking at the stats below, and knowing the story of my unhealthy 20 gallon, would you recommend transferring any of the fish to the 55 gallon (say the dojo loach? or the cat?). I really want to be careful with the new tank.
3. On top of all of my other mistakes I got 1 male and 1 female molly, and the male is relentlessly breeding with the poor female! He will not leave her alone. I would really like to get one or two more females to help her out, but that would require moving some fish out, or over loading this tank even further which I cannot bring myself to do. Any thoughts?
Sorry for the novel, just wanted to give as much of the story as possible. I know I made a ton of mistakes and I am now willing to spend the time trying to learn this new hobby, but I feel like I need someone with more experience to help me start to get on the right track. There is so much information out there that I am getting overwhelmed and confused about what to do.
Fire away! I know I deserve it!
__________________________________________
20 Gallon FW Tropical Community Aquarium: 2 Platys, 2 Mollies, 4 Fluorescent Danios, 2 GloFish Electric Green Tetras, 1 Dojo Loach, 1 Cory Catfish (I think?), and 2 african dwarf frogs.
55 Gallon FW: 2 Silver Dollars, 2 Bala Sharks and 1 Spotted Pleco
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