Hello - Can You Help A Distraught 40 Year Old?

[Macko1968]

Hello everyone.

I freely admit I know next to nothing about keeping fish but the wife begged me for some fish for her birthday so I relented & got her a Biorb.

10 days ago, & following the Biorb instructions, we introduced our first fantail to the bowl. We stuck rigidly to the 3 - 4 pellets of food rule, the odd bit of blanched lettuce & some daphnia. Now, this little feller was a lovely little thing, seemed to like me & looked alert & happy. 3 days ago I found him sat at the bottom of the orb & covered in tiny white dots. I got some King British whitespot treatment & followed the instructions & did a water test which was perfect.

Very sadly, the little chap died on me about an hour ago & I'm actually really sad about it. Worse still, the wife is away on business & I'm going to have to tell her when she gets back.

So where did I go wrong? I understand Biorbs seem to be widely disliked but he seemed absolutely fine & I'm shocked at how quickly he declined. I would like to try again but not if I'm just going to end up in this position time & again.

I'd appreciate any pointers you guys can give me with regards to suitable tanks and care.

thanks

Mick

 

[xmurdererx]

hiya m8t soz for the loss but how big was your tank and when you got it were the any marks or wound on it

 

[Macko1968]

It was the 30 litre tank, my fish was about an inch long & he looked fine, no marks or wounds & very alert.

He came from a garden centre & not a proper aquatics centre, I suspect that may have been one mistake?

 

[Anguilla82]

If the water tests were all ok (i.e. nitrate nitrite ammonia) then i imaging that the fish was probably sick when you got it.
White spot can infect fish without actually giving them any trouble. When the fish gets stressed the white spot then kicks in.

Many goldfish these days, especially, fancy varities are very inbred, and their immune systems are not what they should be.

Sadly it just one of those things. i'd keep up the tank and the water changes, leave it without fish for a few weeks then try and introduce another.

just seen your latest post, the 30 litre isn't really large enough for fancy goldfish long term, the 60 would be better.

have you though about going tropical and having a heater and a few small fish in there.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi there and welcome to the forum

I'm so sorry that you'bve had such a terrible first experience of fishkeeping, unfortunately the biggest problem with the bi-orb's is that the information given with them (which is often repeated by the fish shops) is absolutely god awful. there's nothing wrong with bi-orb's in themselves, but you need to know a bit about them, understand their deficiencies and stock and maintain them appropriately. the instructions give downright rubbish information on how to set them up, how to care for fish and what fish are suitable for the tank meaning loads of people have problems when they've done exactly what the instructions told them to do.

anyway rant over, moving on from this point, we can get your bi-orb off the ground and into a lovely thriving fishtank, but there's some research and prep work to do before you rush out and buy another fish. so while it might be tempting to go and buy another similar fish and pretend nothing happened it's the worst thing you could do and you'd be likely to have the same situation again.

the first thing to learn about is the nitrogen cycle, this is just about the best kept secret in fishkeeping, when you buy a filter it's basically a bit of hardware, like a pc with no software installed, there's stuff you need to do to it before it's capable of processing the waste from the fish. we call this process 'cycling' the filter. now what the instructions and the fish shop often tell you to do is a 'fish in cycle' but they don't tell you what it is or explain teh process fully, we recommend a 'fishless cycle'. There is a link in my signature called 'whats cycling' have a read through it and it explains everything, then read the link 'fishless cycling' which explains how to avoid having to cycle the tank with fish in.

So thats your started for 10, have a read through those links then pop back with any questions you have and let us know if you want to do a fish-in cycle or a fishless cycle on the tank from now and we'll talk through some more options and eventually get on to sensible stocking choices for your little bio orb (goldfish get to over a foot long and are very messy, they are not suitable for this tank).

 

[Macko1968]

Folks, thank you so much for all this input - really appreciate your time.

I'm staggared at how simplistic the biorb instructions are compared to the links in your post, Miss Wiggle. It's testament to your guide that I can follow it & understand it.

The biorb came to us as a freebie but I'm going to go to my local aquatics centre & see about a normal 80 - 100 litre tank. I'll then start the fishless cycling process. If I get stuck I'll shout up.

thanks again

Mick

 

[Miss Wiggle]

excellent, I definately think that's the right choice for you and I look forward to hearing your progress.

couple of suggestions, keep a log of your fishless cycle, take water test rsults every day and note down what you've done, if you have any problems during the cycling phase it'll be immeasurably helpful for us to understand whats going on if you've got this. so if you can make a note that's something like the following each day

Day 1
12:00am tests Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, pH 7.5 - 5ppm ammonia added
12:00pm tests Ammonia 4, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, pH 7.5

Can easily be done in an excel spreadsheet

If you want some reassurance while you're cycling then pop the results up here every few days and we'll check in and make sure everythings going OK.

secondly, watch your pH while your cycling, the most common thing to go wrong when you cycle is a pH crash, the process of cycling drives the pH down and below 6.5 the bacteria that we want can't live so the cycle stalls. So if your pH starts to drop then pop a post up here and we'll let you know what to do. it can be a bit complicated and i'm aware the cycling process itself is a lot of info so i won't bombard you with it all at once. So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

thirdly, you can expect the cycling process to take around 4-6 weeks, so you've plenty of time before getting fish, use it wisely and make sure you research fish choices before buying any fish. When you're ready to start your research have a read of the link in my sig 'guide to stocking lists' which shows you how to work out which fish are compatible and suitable for your tank and how many fish your tank can support, and of course once you've worked out what you want feel free to post it here for a sanity check before you jump in.

once again i'm so sorry this was your first experience of fishkeeping, it's a wonderful hobby and not half as complicated as all this cycling stuff sounds, once you're off the ground it's plain sailing but getting there sometimes is a bit rocky!