Has This Happened To Anyone Before?

[mikelamb]

Hi Everyone!

My first post so just like to say what a fantastic forum you have.
Anyway, just got our first fish in our juwel 120l aquarium. I have started with 5 Molly's and 1 Pleco.
Got up this morning and was missing 1 Molly! I could not see him anywhere and eventually took the lid off and found him wedged down between the heater inside the filter housing! What a shame.
Anyway got some tweezers to remove him and low and behold his tale flapped! Managed to get him out and so far he is swimming around in good spirit.
I have made a lid for the filter housing out of an old takeaway lid! The tank is second hand so I don't know if they usually come with a top on the housing?
Just wondering has anyone any advice on this as I don't want to lose fish this way.

Thanks,

Mike.

 

[rabbut]

You've done what I'd have done to prevent fish jumping into the filter, covered it I assume this is a Juwel tank, yes? If so, a cover should have come with it

At this point tough, you are more likely to loose fish due to the cycle. Lots of water changes are headed your way unless you can off-load the fish you have, as you are doing what's known as a fish-in cycle Also, Pleco's aren't really suited to new tanks, so expect to loose him Do you have your own test kit?

If you haven't already, take a look at This Thread for guidance on how to fish-in cycle correctly. Thankfully, you don't have too many fish for the water volume, so your cycle should be less work than most people's (a lot of LFS's allow people to fully stock a new tank ) but it will be hard work all the same. If you can get shot of the fish you have (or move them to the other tank, since you mentioned having a second?) that will make life easier for you, as you'll be able to follow the fishless cycle precedure instead. If you do have two tanks, you'll be able to move about 1/3 of the filter media in your existing tank across to this new one to do what's known as a "filter clone", speeding you your cycle

All the best
Rabbut