I have had my tank for some time now, but 2 months ago my 5 year old niece thought the fish were tired of drinking water and dumped a big thing of koolaid powder into the tank. While 40 gallons of strawberry kiwi sounds like fun to a 5 year old, the fish didnt like it too much, we were outside when this happened, her uh oh as she dumped the powder in got me running as I thought she was hurt, but all I saw was my filter making quick work of mixing the powder in. I did a 70% water change right then, and then 20% every 24 hours for a couple weeks, along with lots of charcoal. I still lost pretty much half my fish. The survivors are in my sig.
The water is no longer red, although looking back it did look pretty neat, and all levels are where they should be.
All my plants died so I replaced them with plastic ones, and they look good, always green, and no upkeep.
I am afraid to add more fish though, but nothing has died since the first week after this happened, and all the fish appear healthy. Should I wait longer? How long?
I lost 2 Blue Rams, and I really like them, but it always seemed like they never got enough food as the serpea's would eat most everything mid tank and the rams were near the bottom, and the sinking pellets would get eaten up by the loaches. Sometimes I felt like with the loaches I might have been crowding the Rams too.
Providing the water is safe, is 2 rams too much for my tank? I have lots of hiding spots and caves.
I also want some more color, would love something that stays small that I could have a school of like 20 of them. But I dont think that would be possible.
But I was thinking about just adding 10 more cardnals, and then 3 or 4 more serpea's.
But I dont know, I want something that will keep the tank clean too, lol.
I dont know if the shrimp count towards the 1 inch of fish per gallon, I generally dont count them, and I cound my loaches as 1 inch even though they are 3" long.
I overfilter by double, and really love a full tank and befor this problem happened I had pretty much double of each fish in my sig. And everyone was happy. But now I dont trust myself as much.
For whats its worth my niece felt really bad, and started crying when she found out the fish were dieing. She has her own 5 gallon tank now, with 5 neons and 5 ghost shrimp, and she takes beter care of her tank then anyone else I know. So at least she learned her lesson and doesnt put anything in her tank without asking, and she makes sure no one gets close to her tank.
But sorry for the long post, sometimes I just start blabbering.
The water is no longer red, although looking back it did look pretty neat, and all levels are where they should be.
All my plants died so I replaced them with plastic ones, and they look good, always green, and no upkeep.
I am afraid to add more fish though, but nothing has died since the first week after this happened, and all the fish appear healthy. Should I wait longer? How long?
I lost 2 Blue Rams, and I really like them, but it always seemed like they never got enough food as the serpea's would eat most everything mid tank and the rams were near the bottom, and the sinking pellets would get eaten up by the loaches. Sometimes I felt like with the loaches I might have been crowding the Rams too.
Providing the water is safe, is 2 rams too much for my tank? I have lots of hiding spots and caves.
I also want some more color, would love something that stays small that I could have a school of like 20 of them. But I dont think that would be possible.
But I was thinking about just adding 10 more cardnals, and then 3 or 4 more serpea's.
But I dont know, I want something that will keep the tank clean too, lol.
I dont know if the shrimp count towards the 1 inch of fish per gallon, I generally dont count them, and I cound my loaches as 1 inch even though they are 3" long.
I overfilter by double, and really love a full tank and befor this problem happened I had pretty much double of each fish in my sig. And everyone was happy. But now I dont trust myself as much.
For whats its worth my niece felt really bad, and started crying when she found out the fish were dieing. She has her own 5 gallon tank now, with 5 neons and 5 ghost shrimp, and she takes beter care of her tank then anyone else I know. So at least she learned her lesson and doesnt put anything in her tank without asking, and she makes sure no one gets close to her tank.
But sorry for the long post, sometimes I just start blabbering.
