Murky tank! Need help!

[alia258]

This thing tortures me!



View attachment 79212


It's just dripping!!!

 

[Greater-Ajax]

My tank gets like that.

Change water weekly or every other week.
Make sure the filter is clean, and change it when the package says to. You may just have to rinse the filter out, use tank water for that.
Clean with gravel with a hose like this: http://web.mac.com/woodyandlaura/Site/Blog/Entries/2009/10/20_Gross_Me_Out_the_Door!_files/shapeimage_1.png
Watch how much your feeding them.

 

[Snype2live]

lol its good you got a pure water source lol

 

[alia258]

Restarting the whole tank, look at all my fish:



View attachment 79225


3 guppies
3 neon tetras
1 cory
1 pleco

 

[Snype2live]

what do you mean by restarting ..if you upset your bb you will surely kill of most if not all of your fish ... but if you mean your just taking the tank down and giving it a good cleaning thats good but try to not to mess with the filters to much and only rince the rocks with good pure water and same with decor

 

[alia258]

Alrighty then, I'll do that ^^

 

[Snype2live]

hope everything turns out okay for ya ...you might suffer a mini cycle so for the next couple days i would do 10% water changes then move to every other day then every three days then 25% every week after that to take care of any ammo/trite spike you might have

 

[maestromad]

The muck has come from te gravel, do you have a gravel cleaner? This will remove all the fish poop from the gravel and prevent it from mucking up the water when you pwc

 

[Bearchumjs]

Getting bad info sucks. It's a good idea to listen to what the pet store says, but go home and do your own research. I recently lost a gourami because I had no idea what cycling a tank was and had never heard of it before. Good luck with getting your tank clean! It will look so good when you are done and the fish will be much happier.

 

[Maltimomma]

"pwc" is partial water change. You should vacuum the gravel about 1 to 2 times a month and do a pwc weekly. You should rinse the filter pads or whatever you have in your filter in a bucket of water from the tank and then put them back into the filter. Is the pleco the only fish in your tank?

 

[alia258]

My mom just cleaned out my whole tank. (I'm out babysitting

 

[alia258]

She used the tap, and she did use dechlorinater, but the whole tank (and everything in it) has been thoroughly cleaned out with hot water from the faucet. The BB is probly dead too. What am I supposed to do now??!

 

[alia258]

Here, she sent me a pic:



View attachment 79241


Can I save my fish, or are they doomed?

 

[Bearchumjs]

What a nice mom! Don't get mad at her, she was trying to help and didn't know any better. She was probably all proud of herself for helping you out. You may want to explain to her the right way to do it next time so she knows.

Your fish aren't doomed. The tank will probably have to cycle again. When are you planning on getting the liquid water testing kit? I suggest you do 25-50% water changes everyday until you can test to see if there is ammonia/nitrites in the tank. The fish should be ok if you keep up the water changes. I'm doing a fish-in cycle right now. I do 50% water changes every day right now until I start to see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites.

More experienced fish keepers- please chime in!

 

[Bearchumjs]

Here, she sent me a pic:

Can I save my fish, or are they doomed?

Since its all clean now probably wait until tomorrow to do a water change.

 

[alia258]

In my future water changes I'll be using the filtered drinking water source from now on!!! But please, will my fish make it to be healthy and happy again?

 

[blert]

Props to moms for cleaning your tank for you but did she run the filter media under tap water? If yes, tell her she owes you a test kit so you can recycle your tank and keep your fish safe. If she didn't then you should be fine, unless that Pleco is still in there. You will probably be doing PWCs every day until your BB catch back up. BTW, that filtered water you use, is it RO water? If so, stop using it and use regular tap water. A RO system takes too much stuff out of the water that your fish and BB need and you need to add the minerals back into the water. Straight tap, or well water, with a good water conditioner is best. But if you have been using RO then you need to do the switch over to tap water slowly.

 

[alia258]

My mom just filled the tank with tap, there isn't any chances to slowly switch to tap. She washed out the filter cartridge, but not the the white one, but everything is in tap water now.

 

[Bearchumjs]

My mom just filled the tank with tap, there isn't any chances to slowly switch to tap. She washed out the filter cartridge, but not the the white one, but everything is in tap water now.

Crossing my fingers for you!!

 

[blert]

My mom just filled the tank with tap, there isn't any chances to slowly switch to tap. She washed out the filter cartridge, but not the the white one, but everything is in tap water now.

Ok, I suggest you keep it that way. If you want to use the RO water you need to buy something like RO Rite or Replenish to add the essential minerals back to the water. Since you have the poop machine Pleco in there I would be doing 50% water changes daily (more if you see issues with you fish) until you get a test kit and you can see where your tank is at.