Greetings, From Kieva.

[Kieva]

   I originally joined this site for an emergency fish thread, but as the fish seemed to get better over the hours time I wrote everything that was going on, and I accidentally reversed a page and deleted a huge text full of information, I decided not to post it.
 
   Now? I think it would be nice anyways to stick to a friendly forum about fish, incase I have any future problems.
 
   I have WAY too many baby Cichlids, but the thing is, we originally got the tank for TWO common goldfish, and it's 55gal, but it's not like we could leave the man with fish out of water, so we took them with us, now they're breeding like crazy. I just got done seperating all but two males from the fish tank, and now I'm just waiting to see if they live or not.
  The males I took out, I plan on selling I think all but one of them, the one? I named him buttmunch, because he kept biting my hand while I was putting fake plants in, after threatening to smack him and he still kept on biting me, I was already done so I just took my hand out of there. (Don't worry, I wouldn't purposefully harm a fish!... Unless it was something about to kill me or my pets!) So, I have now named him Munch, Munch and I have a love hate relationship. 
 
   I have two dogs, a cat, two momma cows, and two calves, and not to mention a horse... Did I mention we have way too many fish?
 
    In our fish tank? About 15 to 20 full-ish grown African South Cichlids, two now WHITE (seemingly male) common goldfish)that were originally about an inch long) a bit bigger than my hand, and two algea eaters, not to mention about 100-150 babies, maybe 200? I keep telling people, any one need fish?! But they don't want them. xD 
   The African Cichlids, two of them look somewhat like parrots, and then we have a bunch of Black Convicts, then about 4 small white females, and one big white male that seems to be mated to a guess what? Black Convict! 
Does anyone know how often these gals of mine mate?
   I'll see if I can take more pictures, but today has been a long day, so I'll just put one down of the first couple that had babies(I think!) Patroklos and Christy. (Patroklos is the big white one, which I kept in the tank with them, and Christy is the one in the picture, a black convict).
Thank you all for your time in reading this! C:
 

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[Kieva]

Sorry, have I done something wrong, or is just no one replying to this? xD I'm fine if no one replies to this, but if I've done something wrong, then please tell me.

 

[DrRob]

No, you did nothing wrong, I suspect that, like me, people didn't see the post as it got buried in a flurry of new stuff. Happens occasionally in busy periods, so sorry about that. Welcome to the forum.
 
Goldfish tend to lose colour as they age, it's fairly normal. They're also very big, messy fish that like cooler water than what it would appear in the rest of your tank. Not sure where in the USA you are, but generally they're better off in ponds in the long term as they do like lots of space.
 
Convicts are central american in origin by the way, not African, and they breed like crazy. So easily that it's difficult to offload the fry on anyone as they don't particularly want 500 aggressive cichlids either. Generally there are some places out there that will take them though, but don't expect to get much in return for them.
 
Parrots are a bit of an enigma as to their origin, but I tend to have them down as either central or South American.

 

[Kieva]

   Alright, thank you! I just wanted to make sure, also, yes, we originally got our goldfish for a science fair experiment, then wanted to get a bigger tank, so we got a 55gal and ended up with a bunch of those gals. I thought the guy had said South African, but he may have said South American. 
We don't really... Have a pond, our two goldfish do seem fine though, if I can manage to sell all but a few of the cichlids, then I might just get a new fish.
    I seperated all but two of the males(I think!) from the females and put them in a 10gallon, I know it's a bit cruel, but it's all I could do! I do plan on selling most of them... I want to do it on my own, but my parents are a bit.... worried, alot worried, about people knowing where we live because all the crazies out there. I don't know where to sell them though, other than craigs list, and my parents found some guy that buys fish, but they're too busy to give me the info on the guy so I can look him up on the internet. By busy, I mean busy, not just too busy blahblah, they have a good excuse I think, so I'm not mad at them for that. 
  I have a horses water trough, but we live down south so it gets really hot sometimes, then bam, gets cold again, so it might kill them- and they're my little babies! (Well, BIG) 
 
   I gave the females the run of the 55gal, except two males, the two goldfish, and the algae eaters, we NEED to clean it out today or tomorrow(And even scrub the walls, the water is bad(yellow) and the walls have algae because the moms won't let the algae eaters clean the walls, but I'm scared it will suck up the babies, but my parents don't care, they just want it clean.
    I know my parents are going to insist using the sifter that connects to the sink, so all I can do is put a net under the sink and home it catches the babies. I would do a better more time consuming way, to keep the babies safe, but once again, I'm sure my parents want to get it done fast and efficiently. 
   The fish tank started to smell, because we had forgotten to clean it, but then I thought I might kill the babies if I do clean it. So after a bunch of procrastination I'm getting it done, and if my plan works, I'll try to do a water change/cleaning every week to keep it clean. I've learned my lesson I think, and now I'll try to keep the fish happy and clean until I sell them, even after that, the ones I still have I'll try to keep happy and clean. 
  Now, just imagine, this all started with seven goldfish, and the cause of the new tank, two. XD

 

[Baccus]

If your worried about doing water changes with fry in the tank the best way I can suggest is to use a syphon hose with a fish net or fine guage mesh over the end of the hose in the tank and syphon into a bucket that can then be double checked for any fry that got past these precautions.
Then when adding new water you can use a bucket that you have already added declorinator too and add it to the tank gradually so not to disturb the substrate to much. Just make sure the new water is not a totally different temp to the tank water other wise you can send your fish into shock.
I often use an old bath tub for excess fish, this too can get really cold or hot depending on where it is positioned in the yard. So if possible put some shade over one end of the horse trough or move it to where it will get half sun half shade. In winter I have even put a large heater in the bath tub. The heater kept around it nice and warm for the fish but did not heat the entire tub. This would work better if you could put a sheet of glass over the trough to help trap in the heat generated by the heater.

 

[Kieva]

If your worried about doing water changes with fry in the tank the best way I can suggest is to use a syphon hose with a fish net or fine guage mesh over the end of the hose in the tank and syphon into a bucket that can then be double checked for any fry that got past these precautions.
Then when adding new water you can use a bucket that you have already added declorinator too and add it to the tank gradually so not to disturb the substrate to much. Just make sure the new water is not a totally different temp to the tank water other wise you can send your fish into shock.
I often use an old bath tub for excess fish, this too can get really cold or hot depending on where it is positioned in the yard. So if possible put some shade over one end of the horse trough or move it to where it will get half sun half shade. In winter I have even put a large heater in the bath tub. The heater kept around it nice and warm for the fish but did not heat the entire tub. This would work better if you could put a sheet of glass over the trough to help trap in the heat generated by the heater.

Thank you! But I have nothing in the trough right now, I mean the tank in my living room, we have a gravel cleaner that hooks up to the sink, so I'll put a net over the focet and then dump the babies caught in the net into a seperate little plastic container until I clean out the whole tank. c:
    Unless I'm misreading, which I might be!

 

[fluttermoth]

I would also advise, if at all possible, that you don't clean the tank too much, or change too much of the water in one go.
 
If the tank hasn't been cleaned for a long time, it may have a thing called 'old tank syndrome', where the fish have got used to the 'bad' water and adding too much fresh, clean water at once might kill them.
 
Start off by changing only about 20% of the water, then another 20% the next day, and so on for a week or so, then you should be able to do a better clean out. Make sure you don't clean your filter too much; just get rid of the loose dirt, with some old tank water; don't overclean it, or put it under the tap, or all the good bacteria will die.

 

[Kieva]

I would also advise, if at all possible, that you don't clean the tank too much, or change too much of the water in one go.
 
If the tank hasn't been cleaned for a long time, it may have a thing called 'old tank syndrome', where the fish have got used to the 'bad' water and adding too much fresh, clean water at once might kill them.
 
Start off by changing only about 20% of the water, then another 20% the next day, and so on for a week or so, then you should be able to do a better clean out. Make sure you don't clean your filter too much; just get rid of the loose dirt, with some old tank water; don't overclean it, or put it under the tap, or all the good bacteria will die.

Thank you, but we decided to do something different, I didn't see your message in enough time, but we lost two babies, but we replaced about 50% of the water, scrubbed the walls, and took almost all of the decorations out and cleaned them, also cleaned the filter, no adult fish died either. So everything is well, I put back in some of the decor, but no actual rocks in there now, except one. Everything is fine now, and it seems my parents ideas were better. ;P But we all learn from our mistakes, and now that we got most of the males out of the tank, we can have a better, more fresh restart. The goldfish are out an about now, and no longer swimming in circles. c:
 
Woohoo for gimp editing, I could help the reflections much, sorry. :C So I smudged some of it out. c: I really just tried to lazily smudge it out, excuse the horrible... smudging!

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[fluttermoth]

Can I just ask how you cleaned out your filter?

 

[Kieva]

Can I just ask how you cleaned out your filter?

Well, I do it in the bathtub, with just water, my mom does it in the kitchen sink. We scrub it and get all the crap out, in which i just hose it out, we take out the filters and put in new ones, and sometimes hose out the carbon filter. c:

 

[Livewire88]

How do you play kinect facing the fish tank? lol

 

[Kieva]

How do you play kinect facing the fish tank? lol

Lol! We don't use it much, well, we haven't ever used it on a game yet, but in the future I'm sure we will. It's just there for now. c:

 

[Livewire88]

Can I just ask how you cleaned out your filter?

Well, I do it in the bathtub, with just water, my mom does it in the kitchen sink. We scrub it and get all the crap out, in which i just hose it out, we take out the filters and put in new ones, and sometimes hose out the carbon filter. c:

 
O dear, so if you are using tap water to clean your filters the chlorine in the tap water will kill off the beneficial bacteria that is there to process the fish waste!! This means everytime you clean your filter with tap water your filter will take weeks or months to build up the beneficial bacteria again 

 and in the mean time your fish will be swimming in toxic water filled with Ammonia and or Nitrite, not good. 
 
When ever you clean any aquarium filter you should use water taken from the tank so that the filter bacteria is not killed off. If you have a test kit you need to check the Ammonia and NitrIte levels every day and do huge water changes to keep the ammonia and NitrIte levels as low as possible, you will have to do this for some weeks till your filter has cycled and is able to process your fish waste.
 
I hope you are prepared to do this. 

 

[Kieva]

 

Can I just ask how you cleaned out your filter?

Well, I do it in the bathtub, with just water, my mom does it in the kitchen sink. We scrub it and get all the crap out, in which i just hose it out, we take out the filters and put in new ones, and sometimes hose out the carbon filter. c:

 
O dear, so if you are using tap water to clean your filters the chlorine in the tap water will kill off the beneficial bacteria that is there to process the fish waste!! This means everytime you clean your filter with tap water your filter will take weeks or months to build up the beneficial bacteria again 

 and in the mean time your fish will be swimming in toxic water filled with Ammonia and or Nitrite, not good. 
 
When ever you clean any aquarium filter you should use water taken from the tank so that the filter bacteria is not killed off. If you have a test kit you need to check the Ammonia and NitrIte levels every day and do huge water changes to keep the ammonia and NitrIte levels as low as possible, you will have to do this for some weeks till your filter has cycled and is able to process your fish waste.
 
I hope you are prepared to do this. 

We have done this many times before, and they don't die, some died, but that was because of that one dead fish stuck in the rocks, our water is different than city water, we can use it as aquarium water, they've lived in it for quite a while now, and the goldfish, for a few years. Once again, our water is not city water. c:

 

[Livewire88]

Ok, I am sure your water contains a certain amount of Chlorine, this is what kills of the Bacteria because it is put in your drinking water to kill off bacteria that you don't want to be swallowing. 
 
I fear that what ever advice you are given you wont follow, therefore the health of your fish will be effected.