Help... The Light In My Aquarium Hood Fried My Fish!

[JodeeGust]

Ok, I'm relatively new to this, so I pretty much have no clue what I'm doing. I have 2 Guppies (1 Tequila Sunrise and 1 Turquoise, both male) I put them in a 2 gallon tank with a lighted hood. I figured that the light would warm the water, so I decided not to buy a heater. Does anyone know what I can do to prevent them from frying?

I've tried increasing the amount of space between the bulb and the water line, but I have another idea that I haven't tried yet. My tank has a plastic lid that goes under the bulb and it appears to restrict ariflow to the bulb. I'm thinking of removing it so the bulb can get some air and cool itself. Does anyone think that will work?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

you say you've no clue what you're doing, so i don't mean to sound patrnising but i'll start from basics here.

what maks you think the hood is frying the fish? have you got a thermometer in the tank to measure the temp, what is the temp reading at? remember that while the light will heat the water it's not a steady constant heat, when the light is off at night (it should be on around 7 hrs a day) the water is gonna cool down. so instead of a steady temp, you'rs will be fluctuating. for fish, in nearly all cases, they don't like change. much better for levels and temp to be stable, so instead of it being the temp that fried them, possibly the fluctuating temp will cause problems.

however that being said, i doubt very much that the light is the problem here, does the tank have a filter? What did you do to set it up before adding fish, just fill it with water and get some fish that day?

do you have a water test kit, there's various chemical levels in the water which affect the fish, you need to be able to measure these to keep them corect.

Please have a read of the following link, it covers the most common problems with new set up's and is what i suspect has gone wring in your tank

http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/

 

[JodeeGust]

you say you've no clue what you're doing, so i don't mean to sound patrnising but i'll start from basics here.

what maks you think the hood is frying the fish? have you got a thermometer in the tank to measure the temp, what is the temp reading at? remember that while the light will heat the water it's not a steady constant heat, when the light is off at night (it should be on around 7 hrs a day) the water is gonna cool down. so instead of a steady temp, you'rs will be fluctuating. for fish, in nearly all cases, they don't like change. much better for levels and temp to be stable, so instead of it being the temp that fried them, possibly the fluctuating temp will cause problems.

however that being said, i doubt very much that the light is the problem here, does the tank have a filter? What did you do to set it up before adding fish, just fill it with water and get some fish that day?

do you have a water test kit, there's various chemical levels in the water which affect the fish, you need to be able to measure these to keep them corect.

Please have a read of the following link, it covers the most common problems with new set up's and is what i suspect has gone wring in your tank

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/[/URL]

No, I didn't just randomly go get fish. I got them a new tank because I had both of them in a 1 gallon small pet carrier. My tank does have a filter. It's a cheap under gravel one, but it works. I treated the water before putting the fish in. I put in the water conditioner and aquarium salt. Everything was fine and dandy until I turned the light on. Every time I turn the light on, the temp of the water goes up by 2 degrees every hour, so I can't have it on for 7 straight hours. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the bulb.

 

[ox5477]

aquarium salt? Forgive me for not being an expert on guppy's, but i thought they were 100% fresh with no salt needed. This could be an issue, how much salt are you adding? You do you have an hydrometer to measure the salinity?

For the bulb too, it's not suprising that water temp goes up like that. You have a very small tank and any medium to powerful wattage light will cause this. What wattage and size fixture are you using? How far have you raised it off the tank? You can remove the cover of the fixture as long as you have a glass or plexi cover for the tank. It's not good to leave a open light right above the water surface.

And too, Miss Wiggle is only trying to help so don't feel offended when she clearly states:

you say you've no clue what you're doing, so i don't mean to sound patrnising but i'll start from basics here.

We're all on TFF to help eachother, and the majority of people are beginning fish keeping or trying a new part of the hobby so we have to assume we're starting from scratch unless otherwise told.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree, salt has no place in a freshwater aquarium except for specific uses like particular brackish-loving species or for short-period medicinal purposes if you have expert information. It is definately not just a "generally good" sort of thing for FW tanks and can be quite harmful to many FW fish.

And ox is right! Getting Miss Wiggle to comment on your problem here is like, super-lucky, as she is one of the ones with lots of nice long-term experience!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[JodeeGust]

Well, the sign at PetSmart said that the fish needed aquarium salt. So, I purchased it and added the proper amount specified on the packaging. (Which was half a teaspoon, rounded.)

I got rid of the fish because I was obviously not doing very well. I switched to something I know... Bettas. So yeah, thanks for all of your help. Best wishes to all.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Thankyou guys.

Jodee I hope I haven't upset/offended you, and I also hope you're not put off from fishkeeping by this experience. Moving from keeping betta's to keeping tropicals requires v little extra work (some would argue it's easier but I wont go down that road for now) but it does require a little patience and research.

You need to prepare the filter before adding fish, this process is called cycling, if it isn't done then you'll run into considerable problems almost immediatley. In this new to the hobby forum probably 50%+ of the people who come on and post are having problems because the filter wasn't cycled before adding fish, so it makes sense for us that this is the first thing we check. By asking about how you prepared the tank and if you had a filter running that was all I wanted to establish. I generally don't use the term cycling when someone say's they are a beginner as they probably won't know what I mean, so I just ask a few pertinent questions which will let us know if the tank is cycled or not.

Another point to note is that larger tanks are actually a lot easier to look after than small ones. a 2 gallon tank is something that really only the most experienced aquarists will attempt to keep, the reason for this is, as you have discovered, with such a small volume of water the levels fluctuate much easier. As I said in my first post fluctuating levels are nearly always a bad thing, fish like stability. If you got something like a 20/30 gallon tank and cycled it before adding fish I'm sure you'd fnd keeping tropicals easy and reqarding. So please don't be put off from developing your interest in this hobby by one bad experience. I's just a case of needing to put in a little prep work before hand.

 

[JodeeGust]

Thankyou guys.

Jodee I hope I haven't upset/offended you, and I also hope you're not put off from fishkeeping by this experience. Moving from keeping betta's to keeping tropicals requires v little extra work (some would argue it's easier but I wont go down that road for now) but it does require a little patience and research.

You need to prepare the filter before adding fish, this process is called cycling, if it isn't done then you'll run into considerable problems almost immediatley. In this new to the hobby forum probably 50%+ of the people who come on and post are having problems because the filter wasn't cycled before adding fish, so it makes sense for us that this is the first thing we check. By asking about how you prepared the tank and if you had a filter running that was all I wanted to establish. I generally don't use the term cycling when someone say's they are a beginner as they probably won't know what I mean, so I just ask a few pertinent questions which will let us know if the tank is cycled or not.

Another point to note is that larger tanks are actually a lot easier to look after than small ones. a 2 gallon tank is something that really only the most experienced aquarists will attempt to keep, the reason for this is, as you have discovered, with such a small volume of water the levels fluctuate much easier. As I said in my first post fluctuating levels are nearly always a bad thing, fish like stability. If you got something like a 20/30 gallon tank and cycled it before adding fish I'm sure you'd fnd keeping tropicals easy and reqarding. So please don't be put off from developing your interest in this hobby by one bad experience. I's just a case of needing to put in a little prep work before hand.

Nah, you didn't offend me. I haven't completely given up on fishkeeping. I just switched to something I know a thing or two about so I'd be more successful. lol! The Guppies were cute, but I couldn't afford a huge tank. That was the only issue. I plan to try again after I get a better paying job. If I'm successful next time, I'm going to start breeding them.

The filter I have is an undergravel one that is pretty easy to use and clean. However, this tank is only temporary. I intend to get a much larger tank.

Thank you for your advice and I truly intend to take it! I appreciate everyone's input!

So far, my Betta is doing quite well. He's happy and spoiled rotten! lol! I made the mistake of putting a Ghost Shrimp in there with him... The poor thing didn't even last a day. I feel kinda bad for it, but eh, I learned a valuable lesson.

Do you know of any good cleaner fish that would be a tank mate for Bettas? I know Bettas are semi-agressive, but there has to be some kind of docile, cleaner fish out there that would be ok for me to put in the tank with him.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

betta's are very much individuals, some bettas are fine with some tankmates, some will not tolerate any and will just attack them.

tbh it sounds like yours is the latter and if that's the case then no there's nothing you can have in with it. sorry!

 

[JodeeGust]

betta's are very much individuals, some bettas are fine with some tankmates, some will not tolerate any and will just attack them.

tbh it sounds like yours is the latter and if that's the case then no there's nothing you can have in with it. sorry!

Well, that's slightly disheartening... But eh. He's worth it! lol! Thanks a bunch!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no problem, sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but such is life sometimes!

 

[eb2]

you say you've no clue what you're doing, so i don't mean to sound patrnising but i'll start from basics here.

what maks you think the hood is frying the fish? have you got a thermometer in the tank to measure the temp, what is the temp reading at? remember that while the light will heat the water it's not a steady constant heat, when the light is off at night (it should be on around 7 hrs a day) the water is gonna cool down. so instead of a steady temp, you'rs will be fluctuating. for fish, in nearly all cases, they don't like change. much better for levels and temp to be stable, so instead of it being the temp that fried them, possibly the fluctuating temp will cause problems.

however that being said, i doubt very much that the light is the problem here, does the tank have a filter? What did you do to set it up before adding fish, just fill it with water and get some fish that day?

do you have a water test kit, there's various chemical levels in the water which affect the fish, you need to be able to measure these to keep them corect.

Please have a read of the following link, it covers the most common problems with new set up's and is what i suspect has gone wring in your tank

<a href="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/" target="_blank">http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/</a>

No, I didn't just randomly go get fish. I got them a new tank because I had both of them in a 1 gallon small pet carrier. My tank does have a filter. It's a cheap under gravel one, but it works. I treated the water before putting the fish in. I put in the water conditioner and aquarium salt. Everything was fine and dandy until I turned the light on. Every time I turn the light on, the temp of the water goes up by 2 degrees every hour, so I can't have it on for 7 straight hours. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the bulb.

ok, I have an eclipse 3 with built in light that raised my temp about 2 degrees when it was on, and obviously I'd get a nightly drop in temp etc ...so I removed it. put in a heater, and got lamp that shines a few inches above the tank, my fish is happy