A Few Questions......

[lynnathon]

Hello, we are new to the keeping of fish and are having a few teething problems. The history (you don't have to read all this!) We bought a "Sea Monkey" kit for my daughter for her birthday in Feb, not many hatched and she wanted them to have a bigger home. We went to the local Aquarium shop to get a small tank - it was only a 12l one but big enough for tiny brine shrimp. She spotted the glass shrimp that were being sold as live food @5p each. With the sad demise of the brine shrimp we got £1 worth of shrimp figuring that most would die and they were 5p. She was happy she had saved them from being eaten!

Anyway to cut a very long story short (phew) the water in the shrimp tank went mad with ammonia and nitrites so we bought a bigger tank. Fell in love with the idea of a 200l tank with a cabinet spent too much money on kitting it out for the 5 shrimp that were left (25p worth of shrimp) LOL

On to the problem......

The tank cycled for 2 weeks with the shrimp in it and then we bought 8 Glowlight Tetra, 1 died 3 days later not sure what did it. We put it down to stress until one of the others now has white spot. I have taken out the shrimp and put them in a 35l quarantine tank. I have raised the main tank temp slowly up to 28degrees at the moment ( I am going to take it all the way up to 30degrees over the weekend). I have added salt (aquarium salt). by Sunday there will be 2tsp per UK gallon in the tank. Hoping that will be ok for the tetra - they went mad when the first lot went in got all friendly and stated spawning ) There I was watching for stress and getting worried that they were darting in and out of the plants till I noticed the eggs when they went upside down, phew!

I have turned the light off to lower their stress levels.

My question is - am I doing the right thing?

Second question is about a home rigged CO2 thing. It only seems to bubble when I put the bottle in hot water. Am I doing something wrong, I have used bread making yeast is that right? plus sugar and I started it with warm water. Any advice would be great with making co2.

Thanks so much for your time

Lynn

 

[BigC]

Hi Lynn,
I wouldn't bother too much with the CO2 at the moment seeing as you are new to all this. Sucessful fishkeeping is all about keeping the water stable and within certain boundaries. Without going into a chemistry lesson, Get youself a small freshwater chemistry lab test kit. (CO2 has an effect on water chemistry and will drop the pH if too much is delivered hence if it is taken off line then the pH will rise and be buffered to a certain level acording to your source waters capabilities). These sudden swings will have an effect on the fish in some form or another.
Test your water stats using the test kit and report back.
For whitespot I would raise the water temp as you are doing and treat with Protozin (as directed by the mfg)
Regards
BigC

 

[lynnathon]

Hi Lynn,
I wouldn't bother too much with the CO2 at the moment seeing as you are new to all this. Sucessful fishkeeping is all about keeping the water stable and within certain boundaries. Without going into a chemistry lesson, Get youself a small freshwater chemistry lab test kit. (CO2 has an effect on water chemistry and will drop the pH if too much is delivered hence if it is taken off line then the pH will rise and be buffered to a certain level acording to your source waters capabilities). These sudden swings will have an effect on the fish in some form or another.
Test your water stats using the test kit and report back.
For whitespot I would raise the water temp as you are doing and treat with Protozin (as directed by the mfg)
Regards
BigC

Results...

GH 180

KH 240

Nitrate 40

Nitrite 0

Ammonia 0

pH 8.2

 

[Faythee]

I'm sorry, but.....LOL....that is a funny way to get into fishkeeping

 

[rabbut]

water quality doesn't appear to be the issue here

I'd do as recomended, and use protozin rather than salt with heat to treat, bit more reliable IMO

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I agree that you may want to hold off on the CO2 for now until you feel more confident in everything else, but to answer your question.

The reason that you get many more bubbles when you put the bottle in hot water is the same reason bread dough rises when you put it in a warm oven. Yeast works faster when it's warmer... It should still produce CO2 at room temp, but at a slower rate. This is why DIY reactors are not exactly known for their reliability, but are much safer for beginners b/c it's nearly impossible to overdose a tank using yeast to produce CO2.

 

[lynnathon]

I agree that you may want to hold off on the CO2 for now until you feel more confident in everything else, but to answer your question.

The reason that you get many more bubbles when you put the bottle in hot water is the same reason bread dough rises when you put it in a warm oven. Yeast works faster when it's warmer... It should still produce CO2 at room temp, but at a slower rate. This is why DIY reactors are not exactly known for their reliability, but are much safer for beginners b/c it's nearly impossible to overdose a tank using yeast to produce CO2.

Thanks guys.

Yes we didn't intend to get as involved in fish keeping! Now completley hooked, trouble is we will need a bigger house to fit all the tanks!

The tetras have been spawning again - they seem to like the warmer water!

Lynn