Designed By A 4 Year Old - 10 Gallon

[waterdrop]

Fish spend a lot of their energy working a compromise between defense and display(for the opposite sex) (all the while optimizing food gathering of course.) To complicate matters for us, they don't see colors in the same way we do. I suspect they see the lighter side of your tank as enhancing these needs somehow. Remind me again how long they've been in and when the most recent change to tank layout was(?) Fish can take a while to adjust to a change.

Cory pics look great. Is the larger one a different species?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

The rocks and fake plant were added on January 13th, the gravel changed on the 17th and the wood added on the 24th. All cory were sold as Julii.

 

[jmiller]

Tonight's readings before the 50% WC and gravel vac:
HR PH 7.9
ammonia .75+
nitrite 0
nitrate 10

Since my freshly prepared water shows a .25 ammonia reading I'm guessing the above reading is closer to .50

 

[waterdrop]

Its kind of hard to predict how long it will take given individual fish to settle in to a tank setting but your aquascape is still new enough that this process could well be still going on and the fish will settle into wider use of the tank later. Tank size plays a role too and you may be getting a bit of fear just based on it being a bit small for them. When you get your bigger tank you've been planning, you may have a chance to observe a difference in this regard.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

Well one of the new cory died. When I fed this morning I noticed that one of them was right underneath the heater and did move the entire time the rest of the tank was eating. And sure enough when I got home I found it. It hadn't been dead long because it still had most of it's color. Pulled my water sample and did a 75% WC and thorough gravel vac.

Tonight's readings:
HR PH 7.9
ammonia .75+
nitrite 0
nitrate 0 (?)

I had never seen a 0 nitrate reading so I did another test. New reading was at 10 ppm but sample was taken after the 75% WC. So I don't know if the first reading was accurate.

 

[OldMan47]

With a 0.75 ppm ammonia reading, you need to do a large immediate water change. Ammonia that high, especially when combined with a pH over 7.0, is a killer.

 

[Shelby]

All excellent points to take into consideration. I'm glad I posted the dimensions because, as much as I hate to admit, the height issue hadn't dawned on me. Being fairly short (5'-8") that could very well be a problem. I just measured my desk at work (29") and if I had a 22" tall tank on it the lip of the tank would touch my underarm. Not a very comfortable position to be in. I do see your point about working at substrate level though. The 10 & 5 1/2 are currently on a dresser and it's a little awkward to reach a few areas in the 10 sitting down and looking through the front.

I'm 5'7" and I have a 29g which is 17" tall and sits on a stand about waist high so it hits my armpit when I clean it. I've decided the best thing for me to do is take my shirt off and stand on a step stool! I'm glad no one comes to my door when I do this as things could be rather embarassing!!!

Just a suggestion for your 10g tank does your grocery store have one of those water machines that you can fill up jugs of water with? If so, maybe you could grab a gallon and test it. If it comes up with 0 amonia could you use that to do water changes with? My store sells it for 49 cents a gallon. Not sure if that is cheap or not. If you do small daily changes for awhile it may give your filter time to catch up with your tank?

 

[loraxchick]

All excellent points to take into consideration. I'm glad I posted the dimensions because, as much as I hate to admit, the height issue hadn't dawned on me. Being fairly short (5'-8") that could very well be a problem. I just measured my desk at work (29") and if I had a 22" tall tank on it the lip of the tank would touch my underarm. Not a very comfortable position to be in. I do see your point about working at substrate level though. The 10 & 5 1/2 are currently on a dresser and it's a little awkward to reach a few areas in the 10 sitting down and looking through the front.

I'm 5'7" and I have a 29g which is 17" tall and sits on a stand about waist high so it hits my armpit when I clean it. I've decided the best thing for me to do is take my shirt off and stand on a step stool! I'm glad no one comes to my door when I do this as things could be rather embarassing!!!

i have special "tank shirts" designated for this purpose. i always get soaked. and yes, that would be embarassing!
cheers

 

[jmiller]

With a 0.75 ppm ammonia reading, you need to do a large immediate water change. Ammonia that high, especially when combined with a pH over 7.0, is a killer.

That reading was right before a 75% WC. I'm on a three day a week WC schedule now Tues/Thur/Sat or Sun until my readings start getting consistent again. I've tested it before and my prepared water (tap water w/Prime) shows a little less than 0.25 ppm. I can't quite figure that one out.

 

[jmiller]

All excellent points to take into consideration. I'm glad I posted the dimensions because, as much as I hate to admit, the height issue hadn't dawned on me. Being fairly short (5'-8") that could very well be a problem. I just measured my desk at work (29") and if I had a 22" tall tank on it the lip of the tank would touch my underarm. Not a very comfortable position to be in. I do see your point about working at substrate level though. The 10 & 5 1/2 are currently on a dresser and it's a little awkward to reach a few areas in the 10 sitting down and looking through the front.

I'm 5'7" and I have a 29g which is 17" tall and sits on a stand about waist high so it hits my armpit when I clean it. I've decided the best thing for me to do is take my shirt off and stand on a step stool! I'm glad no one comes to my door when I do this as things could be rather embarassing!!!

Just a suggestion for your 10g tank does your grocery store have one of those water machines that you can fill up jugs of water with? If so, maybe you could grab a gallon and test it. If it comes up with 0 amonia could you use that to do water changes with? My store sells it for 49 cents a gallon. Not sure if that is cheap or not. If you do small daily changes for awhile it may give your filter time to catch up with your tank?

I think when it comes time I'll just make my stand a little shorter.
It sounds easier than trying to explain why I'm working on the tank shirtless.

 

[jmiller]

Did another ammonia reading and it was a little less than .50 so I did a 60% WC and brought it down to just a trace over 0 ppm. Just for reference this is what I consider just over 0, two pics with different lighting conditions, mostly yellow with just a tint of green.

Edit:
I also did a reading straight from the tap and it was just a little more yellow than the two above samples.

 

[waterdrop]

With all our yakking and your planning for future tanks, its easy to slip up a little on that fundamental fish-in cycling goal of finding the right percentage and frequency of water changes to not ever let those bad chemicals get above 0.25ppm! Its potentially a tricky task given the hectic days most of us have.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. Jeez John, your thread started getting a little racy there for us old guys. How did you rate? I guess they must like the back of your neck.

 

[jmiller]

Okay I went back and wrote down all the readings to try and get a pattern. Below is the date, reading and amount of WC.

1/24 1.0 75% This was the old AucaTech filter
1/25 .25 New filter added with 75% media from old filter
1/26 .50 50%
1/28 .25 50%
1/31 .25-.50 50% added 3 fish
2/2 .75 50%
2/4 .75 75%
2/5 .50 60%
2/6 .25-.50 60%

Here is a pic from last nights readings.

The first reading is on the left. I consider that to be .50 but the wife says it's closer to .25, the one on the right is after a 60% WC. According to this I should be doing daily 75% changes?


waterdrop, it's the hair. Women can't resist the spiky gray hair.

 

[jmiller]

Here is the reading from this morning:

Looks to me like >.025, even after the 60% WC for the last two nights. So I did another 60% WC and thorough gravel vac. The fish seem to react better to the 60%. Anything over that and they really get stressed.
I took another reading about an hour after and the sample looked better than it ever has. So I'll continue with the daily tests. I'm picking up more food than usual also so I'll be switching to once a day feedings instead of my normal two small ones in the morning and evening.




This mornings test was compliments of "Neon Girl", aka MacKenzie,

She was so excited to be involved in keeping her fish healthy.

 

[OldMan47]

It looks like neon girl has a good focus on her sample process. I am certain that her results are to be trusted and your large water change is warranted. Don't make her work over a surface that would be a problem for spills like that, the nearby bathroom sink would be a better lab location.