Disasterous

[LionessN3cubs]

well...I got a BIG cleaning done. Not as much as I'd have liked to but I had to cut it short because the baby started waking up from his nap. I emptied out about 90% of the water while vaccing, left JUST enough for the fish to stay in but they all stayed to whichever side I wasn't working in. I added buckets 3 more times so I could vac more before finally filling it all back up. I even "cleaned" the sponge filter...really I just lifted it out in a bowl and then set it in the bucket I was using to vac with so that it stayed wet.

I THINK the tank looks better. What really needs to happen is for me to completely take the whole setup apart and rinse the gravel but...thats for another day.

Hopefully my cycle is okay. I guess if not I'll be reading the pinned article on fish in cycling.

 

[waterdrop]

yeah Lioness, ever heard of a thing called cycling?

 

[LionessN3cubs]

lmfao Bite me water!


Well on a positive note....cleaning up the tank the day before yesterday ...no matter how badly it went....fixed my nitrite problem apparently. Before then, I'd been showing nitrite of at least .25 every other day. Did water tests this morning and am at 0 again. I think MW was right in that I was showing nitrite because there was too much gunk in the tank so now that I got a bit of it out of there, my Nbacs are able to keep up again.

Im going to be doing water changes every other day for awhile so I can keep vaccing...its still a mess and man can these fish leave out the waste. I was watching the fishies last night for about 20 minutes and my female platy ALONE let go of 3 huge long strands just in those 20 minutes. So...hope its okay to do the water changes that often cuz thats what needs to be done for awhile ugh. I had to veto my idea of removing the fish so I could freely vac becuase I have a heavily pregnant platy and think being moved might stress her out.

I also decided to be a big fat meany and not set up a fry tank...I just wont be able to keep up with all the babies. I called around to all the petshops and none of them are willing to take fry. Nature will have to decide for the fry. I have one in there still from the first batch that is getting bigger...hope like heck its a female so that this male has someone to split the attention with since he cares NOTHING for the blue female platy in the tank.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

wow brilliant Lioness, glad that the water change has fixed things however stressful it was!!

no problem to keep up regular cleans to get back on top of things..... and yes platty's sure can poop!!!

thats not mean at all, it's a dilemma a lot of fishkeepers have to make, for me there's nothing cruel about leaving it to natural selection. It's all I've ever done with livebearers.

 

[Corleone]

Even trying to save fry, livebearers just put out too many. I make my platy fry face the tank overnight before I save them. I usually don't get any survivors.