naitch1980
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2006
- Messages
- 17
I have a possible contamination in my tank.
The reason I believe the water is slightly contaminated is because I lost a 3 year old black tetra randomly and the other fish appeared to have breathing difficulties. My tank is only 2 weeks old, but we'd been given an Angel fish, 2 black tetras and a cooly eel by my girlfriends father, as he is unable to look after his tank now. 5 days later, one of the tetras die.
I don't think it's due to ammonia levels being high, as i've treated the water for ammonia anyway.
Now, I was told the way to deal with this was to do a 50% water change, followed by 30% every day for a week (as long as the fish were still having difficulty).
So I water changed - 50% on day 1 after the fish had died.
Day two I did a 30%. Then I popped to Pets at Home to pick up some plants (I never buy fish from there) and my girlfriend mentions the situation to te "expert" there who says I have done wrong and i'm putting my fish at risk, i should have taken a water sample in for a free check.
Now, while I'll go ahead with the free check, I'd like to know the opinions of other people on how they would deal with potentially contaminated water in the meantime. The reason I don't want to empty it all out & start again is because I want to get my Eco-system up and running.
The reason I believe the water is slightly contaminated is because I lost a 3 year old black tetra randomly and the other fish appeared to have breathing difficulties. My tank is only 2 weeks old, but we'd been given an Angel fish, 2 black tetras and a cooly eel by my girlfriends father, as he is unable to look after his tank now. 5 days later, one of the tetras die.
I don't think it's due to ammonia levels being high, as i've treated the water for ammonia anyway.
Now, I was told the way to deal with this was to do a 50% water change, followed by 30% every day for a week (as long as the fish were still having difficulty).
So I water changed - 50% on day 1 after the fish had died.
Day two I did a 30%. Then I popped to Pets at Home to pick up some plants (I never buy fish from there) and my girlfriend mentions the situation to te "expert" there who says I have done wrong and i'm putting my fish at risk, i should have taken a water sample in for a free check.
Now, while I'll go ahead with the free check, I'd like to know the opinions of other people on how they would deal with potentially contaminated water in the meantime. The reason I don't want to empty it all out & start again is because I want to get my Eco-system up and running.