URGENT HELP! Catfish staying at the bottom...

[deepblue]

Hi

I just want to say thanks for all your replies......It has helped allot and special thanks Librarygirl.

I have taken out all my fish and placed them in a separate tank which i must say after doing the water change and using a friend filter is working great.....do see pictures....

Now for the larger main tank i have started from scratch. I have taken out the carbon filter and placed it for another filter and have been doing regular water change...My ammonia is below .25 and nitrate level seems stable......I have added 3x fish so far and will keep it like that for a while until i feel confident that the tanks has matured and running fine. i will carry on doing the water change but am doing around 1x water change in the morning and then let the filter do its job....The fish seem to be okay at this point..

Now for the smaller tank i have been doing around 2- 3x water change and have noticed my ammonia level has dropped to .25.....i am find it difficult to make it drop to 0..nitrate is slowly stabilizing but the ammonia is annoying...i have also delayed the feeding to twice a week......is this Okay? I use only 2x pellets........i am awaiting for the product Prime as i purchased the product from Ebay and a great price......I will let you know once i start to use it while doing the water change.

My catfish did past, well what could i have done.....i feel the damage had taken its course and there was no coming back....saying that the other one is alive and kicking!
Once again thanks....

Emran

 

[librarygirl]

I just want to clarify....

So you took out your fish and put them in a smaller tank? All of them? The smaller the tank the more quickly ammonia, etc is going to build. How small is the tank? Why not just keep them in the larger tank and do the water changes there and use your friend's filter on that tank?

The Mollies particularly put out a large bioload (waste) so putting them in a smaller tank than the 16 gals could be trouble. Also feeding all of those fish just 2 pellets twice a week isn't enough. Am I misunderstanding? (I could be, it's been a long day lol)

 

[Matt68005]

dont worry about the ph. there is no way to keep it at the level you want. Your fish have to get use to the ph of your local water. as for reccomending a product to help with Amonia, Nitrates, ect, Amquel plus

 

[deepblue]

I just want to clarify....

So you took out your fish and put them in a smaller tank? All of them? The smaller the tank the more quickly ammonia, etc is going to build. How small is the tank? Why not just keep them in the larger tank and do the water changes there and use your friend's filter on that tank?

The Mollies particularly put out a large bioload (waste) so putting them in a smaller tank than the 16 gals could be trouble. Also feeding all of those fish just 2 pellets twice a week isn't enough. Am I misunderstanding? (I could be, it's been a long day lol)

I have left 4 fish in the main tank and the rest in the smaller tank. It is a 35 litre and the fish and ammonia water level are fine as i have been doing the regular water change. There was a reason for this.

I just wanted to say to you that my tank has stabilized now. I don't have exactly 0 but it is very close.....i have slowed down the water change from 50% to 10-15% every other day. I add the fish slowly and still controlling their feeding for every third day.

i want to say thanks to you for all your help and advice.

emran

 

[librarygirl]

I have left 4 fish in the main tank and the rest in the smaller tank. It is a 35 litre and the fish and ammonia water level are fine as i have been doing the regular water change. There was a reason for this.

I just wanted to say to you that my tank has stabilized now. I don't have exactly 0 but it is very close.....i have slowed down the water change from 50% to 10-15% every other day. I add the fish slowly and still controlling their feeding for every third day.

i want to say thanks to you for all your help and advice.

emran

Glad to hear it's going well! Good luck with your fish.

 

[Hobgob]

So did you not do a fishless cycle or anything? Or did you just get the fish... A fishless cycle isn't hard to do and you will see how much better it is on your fish.

A general rule of thumb is a bigger aquarium is easier to take care of. The water levels cannot change as rapid or as sudden. When I set up a tank, I normally take a bunch of gravel and decor and put it into the new tank. 2 weeks before that I would have put an extra filter into an established tank so it would be building up some bacteria.

I then take the other filter from the tank, a bunch of gravel and decor and put it into my new tank. Also take 50% of the water out. Then you just test the water it should be 0,0,and whatever for nitrates. Then put a few fish in depending on how much seeded material you have used and test your water daily. If all goes well you should only see nitrate raising up and ammo, and nitrite will stay at 0!

Also are you going to buy a couple more another Cory or two? They like to be in groups and are shoaling fish I believe. At least mine don't seem to school.