twin54
Fish Fanatic
Hi,
This is a sad first post I know but I need to know if I did the righ thing as I'm very concerned for the well being of my fish >.<
To start I got a 20 gal tank for my 29th bday on feb 24th. I set up the tank and was verry happy with it and did not have any fish at all for a week. After the first week went I got 3 white cloud minnows (love them so much) and was going to wait untill the entire cycle was done before adding any fish at all.
The problem Starts because my fiance thought I would really love to have the rest of my fish as the second part of my b-day gift so she knew what fish I wanted and how many I wanted in my tank and while I was at work went to the LFS and bought 6 more white coulds (damn pet store gave her 4 males and 2 females totaly messing up the ratio I wanted of 3F/1M) and she got 12 Blue neon tetras (LFS again messed up marked them as neon tetras but they compleetly lack the red of a neon and are just silver with a blue stripe). Thus I came home to the suprise and could not be mad or angry as this was a suprise/gift but inside I knew my fish would suffer due to this
So what I did was keep a close eye out on the amonia and I was able with daily water changes (sometimes 2 small changes in a day) to keep the amonia levels at a acceptable level but I knew it needed and was going to peek out so didnt do any drastic water changes all of them were small 10- 15%.
Then at the beginign of this week my nightmare happened! I came home from work and all of my tetras were loosing there bopyancy capability....like they were going belly up and jerking to get back on there belly. So I panicked and took out 50% of the tanks water and then added tap water but I used chlorine & chloramine remover in the watter but im sure I added the water in before the remover took affect. The problem was I either waited longer for it to take effect and watch fish suffer/ or die, Or I added it right away and stressed them out and hope for the best
I went with the lesser of 2 evils and am happy to say none of them passed away and came back to life in about 20 mins!
My main problem now is that its been about 6 days now and the nitrite levels are still at about 2ppm and I am doing daily water changes of about 20% to make sure the fish dont pass away due to it. My nitrate levels have started to come up in the past 4 day from 0 to 10 and the amonia is at 0 so I know the cycle is starting to come to its end but my fear is that I may have messed it up or killed off bacteria with the mass water change...
Did I do the right thing and about how long do you think it will take for the nitrite to go down?
***Let this post be a lesson to anyone that was thinking of getting some one fish as a gift! If you want to give them fish either A) go with them to a LFS or B) get them a gift card so they can get what they want when there tank can handle it!***
This is a sad first post I know but I need to know if I did the righ thing as I'm very concerned for the well being of my fish >.<
To start I got a 20 gal tank for my 29th bday on feb 24th. I set up the tank and was verry happy with it and did not have any fish at all for a week. After the first week went I got 3 white cloud minnows (love them so much) and was going to wait untill the entire cycle was done before adding any fish at all.
The problem Starts because my fiance thought I would really love to have the rest of my fish as the second part of my b-day gift so she knew what fish I wanted and how many I wanted in my tank and while I was at work went to the LFS and bought 6 more white coulds (damn pet store gave her 4 males and 2 females totaly messing up the ratio I wanted of 3F/1M) and she got 12 Blue neon tetras (LFS again messed up marked them as neon tetras but they compleetly lack the red of a neon and are just silver with a blue stripe). Thus I came home to the suprise and could not be mad or angry as this was a suprise/gift but inside I knew my fish would suffer due to this
So what I did was keep a close eye out on the amonia and I was able with daily water changes (sometimes 2 small changes in a day) to keep the amonia levels at a acceptable level but I knew it needed and was going to peek out so didnt do any drastic water changes all of them were small 10- 15%.
Then at the beginign of this week my nightmare happened! I came home from work and all of my tetras were loosing there bopyancy capability....like they were going belly up and jerking to get back on there belly. So I panicked and took out 50% of the tanks water and then added tap water but I used chlorine & chloramine remover in the watter but im sure I added the water in before the remover took affect. The problem was I either waited longer for it to take effect and watch fish suffer/ or die, Or I added it right away and stressed them out and hope for the best
I went with the lesser of 2 evils and am happy to say none of them passed away and came back to life in about 20 mins!
My main problem now is that its been about 6 days now and the nitrite levels are still at about 2ppm and I am doing daily water changes of about 20% to make sure the fish dont pass away due to it. My nitrate levels have started to come up in the past 4 day from 0 to 10 and the amonia is at 0 so I know the cycle is starting to come to its end but my fear is that I may have messed it up or killed off bacteria with the mass water change...
Did I do the right thing and about how long do you think it will take for the nitrite to go down?
***Let this post be a lesson to anyone that was thinking of getting some one fish as a gift! If you want to give them fish either A) go with them to a LFS or B) get them a gift card so they can get what they want when there tank can handle it!***
)
)
time to do a slightly bigger water change!
