New To This Forum

[Many Tanks]

Hello. I'm a fairly recent retiree and am now keeping fish tanks as my hobby. I have several, but am always in the learning phase. I'm hopeful, I'm not too old to get the hang of this hobby of "Water Keeping".

 

[Andy Sager]

Welcome to the forum. There is a lot of information contained in old and new threads so break out the reading glasses and have a good look around. If you can't find your answer, ask all the questions you have. We have enough people with different expertise here to help you along your way.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Welcome to the community. Looking forward to seeing and hearing about what you are getting up to.

 

[Many Tanks]

Hello and thanks for the "Welcome". I've collected some of my tanks from the local thrift stores and some from the local sites that advertise used tanks for sale. I don't have any small tanks, because I think they'd be too hard to keep. The bigger ones allow my mistakes in tank management, so I don't kill any fish. Does that make sense? The more water, the easier the job!

MT

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello and thanks for the "Welcome". I've collected some of my tanks from the local thrift stores and some from the local sites that advertise used tanks for sale. I don't have any small tanks, because I think they'd be too hard to keep. The bigger ones allow my mistakes in tank management, so I don't kill any fish. Does that make sense? The more water, the easier the job!

MT

Well, that is and isn't correct. In freshwater tanks, sometimes the smaller ones are easier to keep because you have to pay more attention to details. Larger tanks have an advantage of giving you more time for things to go wrong but when/if they do, they can become more expensive to fix. ( That's the is/ isn't part. ) I've found the key to success in fish keeping is setting up a routine and keeping that routine. Feeding schedules, water change schedules, testing schedules all should be a routine. The one thing that fish like most is stability. Drastic changes in any direction generally have bad outcomes no matter what size the tank is. If you feed a fish the wrong diet, the fish won't do well no matter what size the tank. So you see, your thoughts on tank size are not 100% on target. Larger tanks WILL make it a bit easier to learn from tho so you've got that in your favor.
Yes, the objective of the hobby is to not kill fish but sometimes fish deaths are going to happen even when we do everything right. Your job is just to figure out why the fish died and whether it was something you did or didn't do or something outside your control.
Have you started looking into what fish species you might want to keep?

 

[Many Tanks]

Hello Andy. Thanks for the help! I keep larger tanks, with just a few fish in them. I have my water change routine down, I think. I remove and replace half the tank water every few days. I don't allow the water to go unchanged for more than five or six days. I only feed roughly every other day and will also feed on a water change day. I feed a little flaked or pellet food. Nothing fancy. I'll keep everyone informed. So far, I've been able to keep my fish pretty healthy. I keep pretty hardy fish too. Again, nothing fancy.

MT

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello Andy. Thanks for the help! I keep larger tanks, with just a few fish in them. I have my water change routine down, I think. I remove and replace half the tank water every few days. I don't allow the water to go unchanged for more than five or six days. I only feed roughly every other day and will also feed on a water change day. I feed a little flaked or pellet food. Nothing fancy. I'll keep everyone informed. So far, I've been able to keep my fish pretty healthy. I keep pretty hardy fish too. Again, nothing fancy.

MT

This is kind of what I was talking about. There is no fish that will live a full lifespan on being fed " roughly every other day" and only being fed " a little flaked or pellet food. " Depending on the fish specie, they should be fed multiple times per day. Most active species of fish should be fed as much as they will eat in 1- 2 minutes, 2-3 times per day at least. In reality, active fish can be fed as many times per day you can feed them. All you would do is take the total amount of food they should be fed in a day and divide that into the number of times per day you are going to feed. For example: if you were to feed a full teaspoon full of food per day ( this is just an arbitrary amount for ease in explanation.) , you could feed 1/2 teaspoon 2 times per day OR 1/3 teaspoon 3 times per day or 1/4 teaspoon 4 times per day, etc. At the end of the day, the fish still only ate 1 teaspoon full of food while getting the energy from the food throughout the day and you not having excess food in the tank that the fish may not have eaten. With more sedentary fish species, depending on what they are being fed and how much, you may only need to feed them every few days or even less. For example: I used to keep Oscar fish. I put in 25 feeder goldfish in their tank at the beginning of the week and nothing again until those 25 goldfish were gone. Sometimes it was in 3 or 4 days. Sometimes a week. The key was they fed themselves when they were hungry.
So let's make a good plan by letting us know what fish you have.

As for the water changes , good clean water is always a plus but you may be going overboard changing as much as you do as often as you do. Again, the types of fish you are keeping will help us make a plan to suggest.

 

[Many Tanks]

Whoa! Thanks for the details. I'm feeding more than the fish would be getting in their natural habitat, I think. If I were to feed more, then the fish would "poop" more and this would create a water chemistry problem. I'm using Ramshorn snails to determine the amount to feed. If I see a lot of these snails, then I'm fairly certain the fish aren't eating all the food. I figured by feeding less, the fish would be more active by scouring the bottom for any uneaten food. I don't keep pricey fish. I currently have Platies, Buenos Aires Tetras, Giant Danios, Black Skirt Tetras, Red Eyed Tetras, Red Tailed Rasboras, Guppies, Scissor Tailed Rasboras and White Skirt Tetras.

MT

 

[Andy Sager]

Whoa! Thanks for the details. I'm feeding more than the fish would be getting in their natural habitat, I think. If I were to feed more, then the fish would "poop" more and this would create a water chemistry problem. I'm using Ramshorn snails to determine the amount to feed. If I see a lot of these snails, then I'm fairly certain the fish aren't eating all the food. I figured by feeding less, the fish would be more active by scouring the bottom for any uneaten food. I don't keep pricey fish. I currently have Platies, Buenos Aires Tetras, Giant Danios, Black Skirt Tetras, Red Eyed Tetras, Red Tailed Rasboras, Guppies, Scissor Tailed Rasboras and White Skirt Tetras.

MT

That sounds good in theory but look at this way, how healthy would you be if you cut down your food intake to control your eliminations? All the fish you are keeping are commonly coming from breeding farms so they are used to getting fed 3,4 even 5 times a day. You can only compare food intake of wild fish if you are keeping wild caught fish. None of the fish you have are usually wild caught anymore. A properly setup and maintained tank will be able to handle the fish poo. The biological filter bed, when matured, can handle the amount of ammonia the fish are producing as it grows and shrinks to the amount of ammonia present at the time. So let's get down to basics: Have your tanks been up and running long enough to be " cycled"? ( Do you know about the cycling process? ) Do you have any test kits that can measure pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate? Do you have your current readings from these tests?

 

[Many Tanks]

Hello. Thanks for the help! Tanks have been running for some time, so the "Nitrogen Cycle" should be complete. My more aggressive water change routine should be keeping out the ammonia and nitrite and the nitrate should be pretty low. My tap water is a little acidic. I haven't tested in quite a while, but the pH was 6.8 at the time. My fish look healthy and I've been seeing fry regularly. No fish deaths that I'm aware of, but the the tanks have a lot of plant growth. I keep Anacharis, Anubias, Java Fern and Dwarf Water Lettuce. I'll do some water testing in the coming weeks, but I'm sure the water chemistry is very stable.

MT

 

[Andy Sager]

Hello. Thanks for the help! Tanks have been running for some time, so the "Nitrogen Cycle" should be complete. My more aggressive water change routine should be keeping out the ammonia and nitrite and the nitrate should be pretty low. My tap water is a little acidic. I haven't tested in quite a while, but the pH was 6.8 at the time. My fish look healthy and I've been seeing fry regularly. No fish deaths that I'm aware of, but the the tanks have a lot of plant growth. I keep Anacharis, Anubias, Java Fern and Dwarf Water Lettuce. I'll do some water testing in the coming weeks, but I'm sure the water chemistry is very stable.

MT

There are 2 ways of fish keeping: Thinking things are okay and knowing things are okay. I do the science way so I know when things are okay and why they are okay. From a scientific view, your pH being under 7.0 naturally turns any ammonia into ammonium so even if the ammonia level was high, it shouldn't be affecting your fish. Your plants help absorb the ammonium and nitrate as well so that's a plus.

What kind of fry have you been seeing?

 

[Many Tanks]

Well. Let's see. I'm always seeing the Guppy fry. Lately, I'm seeing more Platy fry and just a few, small Buenos Aires Tetras.

MT

 

[Andy Sager]

Very good. Livebearer fry are usually a given but new BA fry is a good sign.
If you increase the food amounts, you may also see more of your Tetras breeding as well.