I'm Newish And Need Some Help!

[Spishkey]

Good afternoon all!

About few weeks back i aquired a 180L jewel aquarium complete with 4 platys and 6 corydoras.

I have added a few plants and some more fish over the past few weeks.

1. The corydoras seem to be 1 female and 5 males, the female is laying eggs every 4 days or so! i have managed to hatch a few, but once the fry are a week old they seem to die? whats going wrong? also would it be an idea to perhaps get rid of some males as they seem to bug her constantly?

2. My platys have also just given birth, i have saved 7 fry (the rest were eaten it seems!) these are in with the corydora fry. is this safe? are microworms a good first food? or are red mozzie worms better?

3. i have been told the temp of my tank should be around the 22 degree mark but i cannot get it any lower than 29 degrees. there is no heater in the tank, no heating in the room, tank away from sunlight and the tanks lights are only on for around 8 hours a day. is this high temp dangerous?

4. i bought 4 neons last week, found two dead and one missing, could one of the other fish be eating them or is it just bad luck?

5. Algae! the green and brown kind is growing in the tank, how can i keep this at bay? i have a young plec and snails in the tank also good oxygen, but still it seems to be growing fast and covering my plants water nitrate and nitrite levels ph hardness etc are all as they should be according to my test strips!

6. what is the best way to clean my aquarium wood? it is covered in algae? or should i leave it?


sorry for all the questions(!) but i hope someone may be able to help a little!

 

[Spishkey]

bump for some help

 

[rabbut]

What are your water stats for ammonia and nitrite. Unless you added mature media that you forgot to tell us about, this tank isn't cycled and this will explain the fry deaths and neon losses.

Whiteworms are a good first food, but can polute the water quickly. Even on a cycled tank, when raising fry you need to be doing 50% daily waterchanges untill they are about a month old, then you can cut back to 50% weekly

Brown algea is feeding of the silicates being leached by the new silicone. There isn't anything you can do to reduce it, just keep scrubbing it off, and it will go away after a few months

What type of pleco do you have? Many will outgrow your tank

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Colin_T]

Keep the group together because female cories produce too many eggs for one male to fertilise. They normally breed in groups consisting of 2 or 3 males for every female.
If the baby cories are dieing within the first week they are probably starving. The other thing is water quality. If they are being moved to a new tank then they could be having problems with ammonia in the water.
Having the fry in a smaller volume of water can help them get to the food easier. Doing daily water changes on the rearing container can help prevent water quality issues.

Platy and corydoras fry should be fine together.
Microworms and newly hatched brineshrimp are the best foods for platy & cory fry. Don't use the red bloodworms until they are a month or so old.

29C is fine for most fish. If you live in a warm climate, Central/South America, tropical Australia or Asia then the water will always be warmer and you probably won't need a heater. Alternatively the thermometer is faulty and reading incorrectly. 24-26C is closer to the ideal temp for most tropical fish.

The neons might have died from a bacterial infection and then been eaten. Big loaches will eat small fish like neon tetras.

If the algae covers everything in a sheet or film then it is probably blue green algae (Cyanobacter bacteria). This grows from excess nutrients and low oxygen and poor water movement. Do daily partial water changes and gravel cleans and cut back on the feeding.

Driftwood can be taken out and hosed off.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Spishkey and welcome to TFF!

Rabbut, I was thinking about spishkey's water stats and cycling and it occurred to me that perhaps this tank was acquired used as a mature tank with fish and everything. Spishkey, let us know and if that's the case then it may be that you have a mature cycled filter, which will change what advice we need to give you.

If its not an old filter with healthy mature media, then you may be in what we call a "fish-in" cycle and will need to perform frequent water changes. Good water change technique can be described by most of our members if this is needed. If you are in a "fish-in" cycle it will be more urgent that you obtain a liquid-based test kit to figure out your situation. Unfortunately the test strips are not worth the paper they are printed on.

In either case, you will need to learn about the Nitrogen Cycle if that is not an area you have studied before. You can look at the top of this forum (New to the Hobby) and click on the Beginner Resource Center and then the Cycling Resource Center links. I suggest you start with articles by AlienAnna and by Miss Wiggle. Then when you have time you can continue reading the other pinned articles and also if you have time, it helps a lot to follow the threads of other beginners here as they ask questions and receive advice.

Colin and rabbut are very experienced, so you are already in good hands. Let us know more details about whether the equipment is new and ask more questions.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[backtotropical]

Heres a little diagram which will help you in understanding the Nitrogen Cycle.

 

[Spishkey]

morning!


yes i aquired the aquarium with a matured filter etc, it was basically just moved from one place to another with everything intact, minus a bit of water which we topped up with conditioned tap water. Hence why we put the fish straight back in after moving them.


oh and i should perhaps add the people i got it from had not had it very long either.

 

[Spishkey]

bump!

 

[rabbut]

If the past owners didn't have it long either, we could still do with Water stats before we can advise further

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Spishkey]

ok hope i type this right!

NO3 (mg/l) - betweeb 0 and 10
NO2 (mg/l) - 0

GH- >4 - >7

KH - 6

PH - 7,2



these are the results from a 'test trip' i did this morning (the ones with the thin bit of card you dip in the water, then compare the colours to the chart on the box) they are the JBL easytest 5 in 1 strips.


hope those numbers make sense to you! i only understand the PH one could anyone tell me in plain english what the no2/3 GH and KH is?

 

[Colin_T]

NO2 is nitrite
NO3 is nitrate
NH3 is ammonia, found in water with a PH above 7.0
NH4 is ammonium, found in water with a PH below 7.0

Fish food and waste break down in water releasing ammonia or ammonium into it. The good filter bacteria eat the ammonia/ ammonium and convert it into nitrite. More good filter bacteria eat the nitrite and convert it into nitrate. You get rid of nitrates by doing regular partial water changes and gravel cleans, and by growing plants in the tank. You can also use denitrating filters and chemicals to absorb the nitrate from the water.
It takes about 4 weeks (at 24C) for the good bacteria to build up in sufficient numbers to keep the ammonia and nitrite down to 0. During that time you can get high levels of ammonia/ ammonium or nitrite in the water and this will stress or kill the fish.
If you keep the feeding down to a bare minimum during this time then the levels won't go as high and this means there is less stress on the fish.
The alkaline the water (PH above 7.0) the more toxic the ammonia is. If you can keep the PH around 7.0 then it will help too. A PH of 7.2 is fine so just try to keep it there.

GH = general hardness and is the amount of dissolved minerals in the water. It can be anything but usually consists of calcium, magnesium & sodium.
The higher the GH the harder the water is. Soft water like rain or distilled water has no GH.
A GH between 4 & 7 is pretty soft. 1degree of GH = about 18ppm of hardness. Therefore a GH of 4 is about 72ppm, a GH of 7 = 126ppm.
Your water is quite soft having about 100ppm of general hardness.
You can increase the GH by adding mineral salts like Epsom salts or rift lake salts (from the petshop). I wouldn't worry too much about it personally unless you want to keep certain African Rift Lake Cichlids, (primarily Tanganyikans).

KH = carbonate hardness and is the amount of carbonates and bicarbonates that are dissolved in the water. The KH helps to keep the PH stabile. The acids produced by the fish food and waste gets neutralised by the carbonates and bicarbonates in the water. When these run out the PH can drop very rapidly (almost overnight).
Having a KH of about 6-10 is ideal. You can increase the KH by using sodium bicarbonate, commonly sold as baking soda. This is different stuff to baking powder, which usually contains other ingredients as well.

 

[rabbut]

I don't trust those results. The GH reading isn't theoretically possible, as it should be equal to, or higher than KH, and the kit surgests that it isn't. I have also known strips to give fasle lows...

I'd recomend you take a sample to your LFS and ask them to test it with a liquid drop test for you, asking them to write the results down for you in numbers Them saying "it's fine" often loosly translates as "it isn't"

The results, if belivable, are good though you want ammonia and nitrite to be zero at all times, and nitrate to be steadily rising, preferable no higher than 40ppm above the tap water reading

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Spishkey]

oh wow thank you for explaining that in an easy way for me. now i understand those numbers and letters at last!!

 

[Spishkey]

hi rabbut - i put the 4 - 7 as the colour was kinda of inbetween the two so im guessing its around the 5 or 6 mark? i had the choice of either 4 or 7 (no inbetween on the strip graph) so i put both

i have a local(ish) pet shop so shall nip in there and see about the liquid drop stuff! can you recommend a good one i can use at home instead of the strips if they are not so good? (they came with the equipment!)

many many thanks everybody for your help so far. i love this forum!

 

[rabbut]

I use Tetratest, but they are more expencive. They are also the only ones available to me in my area

API are the most recomended on here, though I don't use them and never have.

Any other brand after that, most are about the same

HTH
Rabbut