Help A Newbie Please.

[nam9684]

This is my first time ever owning a aquarium. I had a few fish in my 10gal tank for about 2 weeks and they caught some sort of infection and all died. The infection was some sort small little flakes or dots stuck to their body and their scale peel a bit. What can I do to prevent this? I have a penqiun marineland biowheel filter. I used tap water to fill up the tank and Prime was added immediately and was left alone for 48 hours before the fish were added. And also during those 2 weeks that my fishes were alive a lot of bubbles develop on the surface, if I closed my lid overnight...in the morning almost the entire surface would be covered with bubbles. What could I to keep my fish alive and to get rid of the bubbles?

I talked to an employee at petsmart and he told me to drain the tank and start over. So the tank has been drain since 5-16-06 and i'll probably add more fish this saturday or sunday. As of today there are a few bubbles forming on the surface of water. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[SiriusStarr]

You have to add some kind of good bacteria, like "Cycle" or one that I cant quite recall the name of (its name is all over this forum, if you look for it)

As for the disease, it was probably Ich. Ich is a parasite that is always present in the water, but cant attack fish until they have no slime coat. When fish get really stressed, a lot of times they'll shed their slime coats, which is when the Ich attacks. There are many different kinds of Ich cure out there

 

[oneponygirl]

Ich is actually a parasite but yes it can strike when fish are stressed (just went through this myself). That and the fact that the tank was so new probably combined to attribute to their deaths. Did you do water tests to check your water quality when your fish were dying (or just because your tank was new)? Have you researched fishless and fish cycling to determine which you will do? I honestly don't know anything about Prime so I can't comment on that. As for the bubbles, have you tried treating your water before adding it to the tank. I know when I first am putting water in buckets for my tank and then add my dechlor it will foam for a while and it has to sit for all the bubbles to go away. You'll want to do it this way once you have fish anyway because you'll want to make sure it's treated before the fish are exposed to it and to make sure it's stable in temp.

 

[SiriusStarr]

Ich is actually a parasite

Crap, yes, I knew that... I was just replying to a good bacteria thread and for some reason wrote that word instead, lol. *goes to edit my first post*

 

[Miss Wiggle]

treat the tap water with dechlorinator, research cycling before you put anything in the tank, most people will tell you to do a fishless cycle, but it's for you to research and decide whats best, stop listening to the advice of people in petsmart!

 

[Dubby]

nam9684:

Getting the water chemistry correct is very important in this hobby. Please read the pinned articles on cycling. This will help you get started.

Julie - 1 husband, 1 son, 1 baby on the way, 1 dog, 3 cats, 29g w/ 3 pygmy corys and 1 dwarf gourami, 10g with 1 fantail goldfish, and 6 male bettas in 3g, 2g and 1g tanks.

Nothing to do with this thread.... I like the way you have described your extended family, esp the bit about the 1 husband