Hi Everyone I am new to keeping tropical fish so when I purchased my Orca MT50 I asked for the guy in the fish shop to set it all up minus water so I could fill it up and use it. I filled it two weeks ago added stress coat and some form of biological additive and let it sit to get to temperature and be ready to add fish. I noticed the tank was a little cloudy but thought nothing of it and purchased 4 mollies 2 gold and 2 black two days ago. One was found dead today the other three look miserable and are hanging around the bottom of the tank. The water is now very cloudy and murky and has a fuzz on the top of the water - I just had a look at the water which is coming out of the filter outlet and it is also cloudy and now I don't know what to do - do I put the fish in a bucket and take all the water out and start again?? or what please help I don't want my fish to die!
Help Scummy Gross New Tank
- Thread starter Jmhirvine
- Start date
Ok, this should actually be pretty simple to deal with.
Basically, in a tank you have an "invisible" eco-system of special bacteria that consume the waste the fish produce and keep the tank clean for fish. This is actually the main use of the filter - living in the filter is like a palace for the bacteria. However, this special (and vital!) eco-system takes between a month and two months to create. If there are not enough bacteria (i.e. if your eco-system isn't strong enough yet), the fish get exposed to waste chemicals from their wee, poo and un-eaten (and thus decaying) food. All this rotting matter (the poo and food) also cause bacteria blooms which make the water go cloudy, and it is also very common to see excess algae as the algae love some of the chemicals produced by the wee, poo and un-eaten food.
If fish get exposed to these chemicals (namely ammonia and nitrite) the same thing happens to them as would happen to us if we literally lived in a toilet - they get sick and sometimes die.
There are two ways to create your eco-system - a fish-less cycle that uses products to minic fish waste and grow the bacteria or a fish in cycle that uses fish to produce waste to grow the bacteria.
What sounds like has happened is you did not have enough bacteria to make a proper eco-system, which has lead to cloudy water and sick fish. These bacterial starter products honestly tend to be a waste of money but a lot of people get told to buy them by money-hungering shops. The only sure-fire way to get that essential eco-system is to grow it yourself.
To complicate matters a little, water sometimes goes cloudy before fish are added because there are some bacteria in the water that eat off other things in the tank.
So, what do you need to do?
1) Buy a liquid testing kit for ammonia and nitrite. You need to know how dangerous the water is for them. The best way to make the water safe is to test your water daily and do big water changes if you see any ammonia or nitrite. Your aim is always to keep ammonia and nitrite at undetectable levels. Don't worry about the bacteria - it's be scientifically proven that you can do lots of large water changes to keep the waste chemicals down and still grow a good eco-system.
2) Wait until all your fish are well, none have died for a few weeks AND you have regular zero readings for ammonia and nitrite before adding new fish. When you add new fish, only do it a few at a time and always research new fish independently of your fish shop before adding them. Shops are very good at cramming fish like mollys into tiny tanks or telling you that that cute plec you like will only get to a few inches long (when in fact it could grow to be two FEET long).
There you go, job done. Almost!
Two more things:
1) READ THIS. Seriously, it's amazing. Almost every question you could have will be answered here and there is a much more full description of the fish-in cycle (which is what you are experiencing) there.
2) Why do you get mis-lead or under-informed by shops? A lot of people ask me this - if all this stuff about bacteria and ammonia and cycles is true, why don't they get told by the shop? Many reasons, here are a few:
- The shop is run be people who genuinelly don't know.
- The staff are not trained well
- The staff are trained wel but don't really care or forget things
- The staff know their stuff but are bound by company policy not to mention certain things for profit reasons
- The shop will get more profit by getting you to buy fish soon and having a few fish die than telling you to come back in two months with a cycled tank
Good luck and remember, we can help you with almost anything fish related or we can at least point you in the right direction!
Welcome to the forum JMHIrvine.
You have arrived at the beginning of a fish-in cycle and are not managing it like a fish-in cycle. That is why you have lost fish. Do an immediate 75% or larger water change using temperature matched dechlorinated water. If your fish look much better after that,as they should, do another one each day until you get a test kit to guide you in your water changes. As Assaye said, you should read up on a fish-in cycle and buy a liquid type test kit. There is a link in my signature area to the fish-in cycle thread.
You have arrived at the beginning of a fish-in cycle and are not managing it like a fish-in cycle. That is why you have lost fish. Do an immediate 75% or larger water change using temperature matched dechlorinated water. If your fish look much better after that,as they should, do another one each day until you get a test kit to guide you in your water changes. As Assaye said, you should read up on a fish-in cycle and buy a liquid type test kit. There is a link in my signature area to the fish-in cycle thread.
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
I agree with the good advice up there from Assaye and OM47, that's the direction to be going. WD
Welcome to TFF!
Welcome to TFF!
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