Just Got 4 Tropical Fish - Please Read

[Apolloefc]

Can i ask a question? This may sound rude. Have you bothered to do any research? I am reasonably new to keeping tropical fish, but before i did i read up on it!!

 

[Amerce]

~Ditto ~

Seems to me that if you have a friend in a petstore it would be far easier to ask him about how to keep fish.

You have gone from a cold water fish to tropical without finding out about the simple basics of how to look after the fish.

If you had whitespot with the coldy then personally I would have emptied out the tank and treated ALL of the items in the tank, Stress coat is not a disinfectant so what good it would do to an empty tank is baffling.

Any water changes do not necessarily require you unplugging the heater unless of course you empty the water to such a degree that the elemental side of the heater is exposed.

Any water you replace in the tank should be of the same temp as the water you are replacing, it should be dechlorinated (something your friend at the LFs can suppply you with).

Fish should be fed small portions, if you still see food at the bottom of the tank 20 minutes later then you are overfeeding, so cut the amount down.

One more comment, you added 4 largish fish very quickly and in my opinion before the filter was mature enough to support them, you may have problems with the existing fish so keep an eye out for a rise in Nitrate, invest in a water test kit to keep ontop of the situation.

No one is flaming you but if you ask for advise be prepared to get a COMPREHENSIVE discussion on the subject you raised. If we see a problem we are going to point out any problems, if you don't like it then talk to your friend.

People learn by their mistakes, we on this forum have all been in your position and gladly taken on board all comments made that is how you learn in life.

 

[lamonsas]

i had the tank for 4 months, how is my filter not ready mate? btw yes i did get 2 male sword fishes, they are really nice. and i will feed once in the morning and if possible ill feed in the evening too, i dont want to overfeed.

 

[alessasavoca]

Your filter would not have been ready because when there are no fish in the tank there is no ammonia source from the fish poo so the beneficial bacteria in the filter would have died off. Very quickly aswell I might add. Do you have a liquid test kit? They are definitely a fantastic buy.

Please describe the illness that your goldy had, it sounds like ich but there's a possibility it could be velvet as well.

 

[gowing238]

Hi,
Amazon sword is the name of a tropica pant not the name of a fish!

 

[babybell911]

Male swordtails are generally quite aggressive between each other and its recommend to keep one male to about 3 females. Keep an eye out for problems between these two.

 

[lamonsas]

please do not comment on the goldfish anymore, i have a new tank now, i have a question now, i saw a sucker kind of fish that is like sticked to the aquarium wall and it is like sucking, i asked the guys in the store and they told me he cleans the tank , should i get that fish? i mean it sounds like a very essential thing, should i get 1 of these sucker fish? tehy are like 5.99 i think. and like i said i clean 50% of the tank water yesterday before i put my new 4 tropical fish in, my new fish shouldnt get sick aswell right guys? should i do ANOTHER water change today? is it neccesary? how much % of the water should i change? and my filter didnt dry out, i took the goldie out, then i changed 50% of the water and then like 5 mins after i placed the new 4 tropical fish.

 

[littlest]

The problem with ich is that it has different life stages. One of those stages is living on the fish, another is living in the substrate, another is living in the water. If you removed the fish with ich, there would still be ich in the water and substrate, so doing a 50 per cent water change does not get rid of the disease. You may need to treat the tank for ich again (maybe a more experienced person can say whether this is recommended or not?) but first you need to positively identify the disease your goldfish had. Was it definately ich? White spots that looked like grains of salt.

As for the sucker fish, it may have been a common pleco, which grow to about a foot in size and need a very large tank. No way can you keep one in your tank.

You shouldn't even be thinking about adding fish yet though, as your tank may be harbouring a disease and your current fish are already at risk.

 

[lamonsas]

i have bought a clown pleco, dont tell me if its a good idea or not. just tell me, the guy in the store told me that i can feed him the tropical flakes i feed my other 4 fish, thats ok yea? the pleco will eat the flakes yea?

 

[littlest]

I don't mean to offend you but you seem to have a poor attitude to fish-keeping. You don't want to know if your fish are suitable for your tank, you don't want to know that your tank may be diseased. I understand there have been some posts with things you don't want to hear but the only reason people posted this stuff was to help you help your fish. A lot of people (myslef included) started keeping fish without the knowledge they needed and made mistakes, and making mistakes in fish-keeping is common and understandable, but you have to then learn from your mistakes by listening to advice. Ignoring advice and not learning from your mistakes will only hurt your fish.I don't know what clown plecos eat. My biggest tank is ten gallons so I have never kept one, as this is too small for them.Here's some info

 

[afishdude]

no, the pleco will NOT eat the flakes. it needs algae discs and a supplement of vegys and fresh bloodworm or brineshrimp to say healthy.

do you have a heater?
you want your tank to stay around 80ºF.


there is no getting around talking about your goldfish. im sorry but if you don't medicate you tank all your fish will get it and die. when you ask your friend at the pet store he is always going to tell you what will make him $. like when you asked if the pleco would eat flakes, he said yes, just because he wanted to make the sale.

edit, 10g is fine for ONE clown pleco.

 

[arvlyn]

i have bought a clown pleco, dont tell me if its a good idea or not. just tell me, the guy in the store told me that i can feed him the tropical flakes i feed my other 4 fish, thats ok yea? the pleco will eat the flakes yea?

Your clown pleco is going to need at least a 20 to 30 gal. tank. He'll need driftwood to chew on. He'll need to be fed algae wafers, veggies like zucchini and cucumbers and sinking pellets. He'll also cause a lot of waste so you'll need a good filter.

Please...don't put any more fish into that tank...

 

[lamonsas]

so i need to get the pleco pellets yea? ok ill buy them tommorow, and should i do the procedure for the ich ? i have the medicine, its from API, called super ich, its a blue liquid, its a procedure that takes like 3 days cuz i need to add the liquid, wait like 24 hours or so, i cant eremember the insutructions, they are on the bottle so yea im not looking at the bottle atm so i dont remember. the goldfish had a chunk of white inside his tail, it was inside because when i bought him he had like a small hole in his tail, i dunno why but anyway i bought him, and the ich started going there i think , i have a problem tho, i have a filter and it has a mix of ammonia and carb rockes, on the bottle the instructions say to remove any carb from the filter if present and leave on the ammonia rocks in the filter, the carb rocks need to be re added after the 3-4 day procedure of the ich treatment, is taking out the carb rocks neccesary? and no i dont plan on getting any more fish at all, stop making me feel bad with these comments about how i made this and that mistake, be nice to me.


cheers.

 

[littlest]

you will need to remove carbon when using any kind of medication because carbon will remove the medication otherwise. When you say ammonia rocks, are these zeolite? You may need to remove these too. To be honest carbon and zeolite aren't recommended as filter media. You are better off using foam/sponge or ceramic media. Zeolite removes ammonia so your cycle doesn't become established.

Before you medicate though you need to be sure it was ich. From your description I'm not so sure. The white could have been fungus or collumnaris (sp?) google some images of ich to see if that was what it was.

 

[Tolak]

The plec needs more than pellets, it also needs more than a 10 gallon tank. The first stressor is moving the plec to a new home, your tank. The second is adding it to a tank that could contain a contagious disease. The third is medicating it. The fourth is keeping it in a tank that is about 1/3 what it needs to thrive.

Stress lowers a fish's immune response, making it more susceptible to diseases. Good chance you wasted your money on this fish. Nobody posting here made a single cent off of you purchasing this fish, or your purchase of any other aquatic related equipment. Your lfs on the other hand....

Think ahead a little before diving in head first with aquatics. One thing experienced aquarists will tell you is that aquatics teaches patience.