Hello, new to the site and first post here. I would like to state early on that I am not an expert or super experienced in this area, however here is my post lol. This is a long one, but please hang in here with me. I have an aquarium at work, that is a 30 gallon tank, that before the pandemic, belonged to my boss and once covid it, since I'm the only one in my department that can come to the office so they were given to me. The following are the kinds of fish this tank held when it was given to me (These are the closest that I could identify them): Tiger Barbs x2, Clown Loach x2, Bronze Cory x1, Pleco x1, and Silver black and white tipped Bala Shark x1.
Obviously, this is waaaayyy too small of a tank for multiple of these fish, let alone all of them together (However they all seemed to get along strangely enough). I felt absolutely horrible for them so I decided to upgrade their living situation, and ended up picking up a 50 gallon tank with my taxes. The whole setup was bought from pet smart (I know that can be a slippery slope in certain areas, but this all looked good to me), and the setup is as follows: 50 Gallon tank (not sure of the brand), Tetra Whisper IQ 60 for the filter, the heater is a Marineland Visitherm 150 (I know this one is for up to 40 gallons, however it has done the job wonderfully), then of course some props, 30lbs of aquarium gravel as well as water start treatments and other accessories. To prep everything I cleaned the tank out with a highly diluted bleach water solution (A bit less than 10%), then went back and cleaned it out with regular water. All of the gravel and props went through the same solution, then were all rinsed with water treated with Tetra AquaSafe, and placed into the tank. The filtration system and heater were set up after adding water and treating it with API Quick Start (going by the instructions) however I didn't add the fish for a couple of days. One of the props is a standing hollow tree trunk that looks like tree beard from lord of the rings. The filter only "noticeably" effects one side of the tank and I had an air pump from tank that I used to own personally, and tree beard was hollow so I attached tubing to the drain hole on one of the roots and sealed it with GE #1 100% silicone as many people in the aquarium community said it was safe after fully curing, they just didn't recommend it. The curing time on the tube was 12 hours, however just in case, I set it on Friday and let it cure until Monday. Now the issues start. One of the Loaches went missing before I even changed them over, however once they were in the tank, they seemed to enjoy the tank and were showing signs of being healthy. After a few days, the other loach went missing, no sign of it and I noticed that day, that the Bala shark, had popeye in both eyes, one significantly worse than the other. I immediately pulled it and QT'd it in the original tank (I hadn't emptied it yet) I did tests on the water to see if I could find the issue (I'll list the results momentarily). The bala shark has flared its gills flared (Still red on the inside) and is taking shorter quick breaths, however its movement has increased quite a bit and it "currently" seems to be improving. Later that day while trying to rack my brain on what to do, I removed tree beard and the all parts of the pump in the water just in case and trashed it, and then treated the water with Tetra Easy Balance per the instructions.
A few days later (this morning) my co worker came in and one of the Tiger Barbs was floating on the surface dead. This morning I pull all of the remaining fish and put them back into the old tank. The water in the new tank is also now slightly hazy with a tiny bit of green tint to it. If anyone could please help, it would be really appreciated. Thanks! Old and new tank test results listed below.
New Tank: No3: 20, NO2: 0, PH: 7.5 KH: 120, GH: 180 (apparently we have very hard water here, however for years they don't seem to have had an issue with it), Ammonia: 0.25 ppm.
Old Tank: NO3: 200+ (I am doing partial water changes and treatments to try to reduce this, Idk how they've lived this long in it) it may be higher, that's just how high the scale went, NO2: 0, PH:7.5, KH: 120, GH: 180+, Ammonia: 0 (hadn't been anything in there for a few days).
I have a water softening pillow that is coming in today for the hard water issue.. hopefully that is.
Obviously, this is waaaayyy too small of a tank for multiple of these fish, let alone all of them together (However they all seemed to get along strangely enough). I felt absolutely horrible for them so I decided to upgrade their living situation, and ended up picking up a 50 gallon tank with my taxes. The whole setup was bought from pet smart (I know that can be a slippery slope in certain areas, but this all looked good to me), and the setup is as follows: 50 Gallon tank (not sure of the brand), Tetra Whisper IQ 60 for the filter, the heater is a Marineland Visitherm 150 (I know this one is for up to 40 gallons, however it has done the job wonderfully), then of course some props, 30lbs of aquarium gravel as well as water start treatments and other accessories. To prep everything I cleaned the tank out with a highly diluted bleach water solution (A bit less than 10%), then went back and cleaned it out with regular water. All of the gravel and props went through the same solution, then were all rinsed with water treated with Tetra AquaSafe, and placed into the tank. The filtration system and heater were set up after adding water and treating it with API Quick Start (going by the instructions) however I didn't add the fish for a couple of days. One of the props is a standing hollow tree trunk that looks like tree beard from lord of the rings. The filter only "noticeably" effects one side of the tank and I had an air pump from tank that I used to own personally, and tree beard was hollow so I attached tubing to the drain hole on one of the roots and sealed it with GE #1 100% silicone as many people in the aquarium community said it was safe after fully curing, they just didn't recommend it. The curing time on the tube was 12 hours, however just in case, I set it on Friday and let it cure until Monday. Now the issues start. One of the Loaches went missing before I even changed them over, however once they were in the tank, they seemed to enjoy the tank and were showing signs of being healthy. After a few days, the other loach went missing, no sign of it and I noticed that day, that the Bala shark, had popeye in both eyes, one significantly worse than the other. I immediately pulled it and QT'd it in the original tank (I hadn't emptied it yet) I did tests on the water to see if I could find the issue (I'll list the results momentarily). The bala shark has flared its gills flared (Still red on the inside) and is taking shorter quick breaths, however its movement has increased quite a bit and it "currently" seems to be improving. Later that day while trying to rack my brain on what to do, I removed tree beard and the all parts of the pump in the water just in case and trashed it, and then treated the water with Tetra Easy Balance per the instructions.
A few days later (this morning) my co worker came in and one of the Tiger Barbs was floating on the surface dead. This morning I pull all of the remaining fish and put them back into the old tank. The water in the new tank is also now slightly hazy with a tiny bit of green tint to it. If anyone could please help, it would be really appreciated. Thanks! Old and new tank test results listed below.
New Tank: No3: 20, NO2: 0, PH: 7.5 KH: 120, GH: 180 (apparently we have very hard water here, however for years they don't seem to have had an issue with it), Ammonia: 0.25 ppm.
Old Tank: NO3: 200+ (I am doing partial water changes and treatments to try to reduce this, Idk how they've lived this long in it) it may be higher, that's just how high the scale went, NO2: 0, PH:7.5, KH: 120, GH: 180+, Ammonia: 0 (hadn't been anything in there for a few days).
I have a water softening pillow that is coming in today for the hard water issue.. hopefully that is.
