Help My New Tank!

[aloys]

I'm not completely new to fish tanks but am no expert either. I set up a nice 75 gallon tank on Friday night, and by saturday morning it was getting pretty cloudy so i figured a couple rocks i put in there were messing with the water, so i took them out and the water started to clear up right away. I was going to get a couple fish sunday but decided to wait another day in case anything the rocks were putting in the water would be gone. Sunday morning i also did a 20% water change to speed things up. I also did use water conditioner and some bacteria stuff.

So Yesterday (monday) i went to a local good fish store and bought 2 oscars and a jack dempsey that i wanted to keep in the tank a long time. I know they are not the best fish to use but they were cheap and i always heard that oscars were pretty hardy and could survive the cycling process fine. The fish all looked healthy and when i put them in the water they did not seem happy right away. They didnt explore and just hung out on the bottom of the tank. After about 5 hours, 2 of them seemed alright but one of them was just sitting on the bottom and not moving much. I did a 20% water change again and surprisingly it did seem to have a small effect on the fish. I went to bed and woke up this morning to 3 fish that were alive, but did not seem very happy, just floating around and not active at all. One was hanging out right at the top of the tank just floating, when i turned the lights on it moved back to the bottom, but overall not happy fish.

First thing, I recently moved and forgot my water testing stuff, so first thing after work today I'm going to find out if the ph is all out of wack from the rocks? Has anyone heard of this happening? I now understand that i probably never should have put them in there without testin the water, especially with the rocks giving off something bad.

So advice? Are the fish going to be ok? Should i take them out?

 

[tenohfive]

Forget the pH, its more likely to be ammonia. Do a 50% water change for now and get yourself a decent liquid drop based testing kit that'll test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH soon as you can.

Have you got a cycled tank you can home them in?

 

[Truck]

i think you should have left the water to cycle for 2 weeks fishless. 2 days. i bet the ammonia is causing it keep testing the water and act in those results

 

[minxfishy]

Yep as tenoh says, its more likely to be problems with the ammonia and also nitrIte, so you need a test kit preferably a liquid based kit, like API or Nutrafin that has test for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte, also ph, although I seriously doubt its the ph.

Now Oscars are know sulkers, so there inactiveness is not necessarily cause for concern (although that depends on the water results) and can sit on the bottom of the tank looking half dead when they are in a mood

Unfortunatley neither the O's or the JD are good fish for cycling, although hardy, they are both extreme poop machines, which will add extra waste load to the tank water, so you are going to be doing large 2/3x daily water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrIte as low as possible, preferably 0.25ppm or lower for the fishes safety. This you will be doing for up to 4/5 weeks before the cycling completes and all the bacteria have grown strong enough in your filter to cope with the bio load these fish are producing.

You will need to lightly feed to help this problem, I know O's will eat and eat, but you must not over feed them at this stage, once a day, a small amount to help with the cycle.