MontyJ
New Member
Hello,
Introducing myself here. My daughter and I are new tank owners. We suffered the same fate as many before us. We went to the pet store Friday and bought the tank and accessories. Pet store person said add water, put in the de-chlorinating drops, turn the heater on and let it warm up for 24 hours. Saturday evening we were back at the pet store. The same person that sold us the tank happily sold us 2 neon tetras, one white skirt? Tetra, 2 glofish, a guppy, and a dalmation colored molly. She never said a word about bacteria or cycling or anything. Of course, we took the fish home, acclimated them to the tank, released them, and watched every single one of them die. It was very heartbreaking for my 10 year-old daughter. The neons were dead within 2 hours. The other tetra, the molly and the glofish were dead by morning and the guppy succumbed later that day.
After the first three “ceremonial flushings” (her term, not mine) I took the rest of the dead to the pet store and …how to put this politely…questioned their demise. At that point the clerk said “Oh, you just started your tank the other day. Well, it’s common for fish to die in a new tank.” She then tried to sell me some stuff in a bottle to “fix” my tank. I declined in such a manner as to convince her to refund my money for the dead fish. I was totally furious.
I must admit, it’s mostly my fault. I’m an expert gardener and run my own website and forum on the subject. I see so many people kill plants through lack of knowledge that I should have known to seek expert help when starting the aquarium up.
To make a long story short, I called my sister who used to have many, many tanks ranging from 10 to 75 gallons. When I told her what I did, I got a brief scolding for not calling her first…totally deserved. She then told me about cycling the tank.
Now don’t fault her, she has been out of fish keeping for a number of years, but she told me to turn the heater off, buy a few feeder goldfish and put them into the tank. She told me about testing the water and changing it and so forth. After finding this site, and doing some lurking/reading, I called her and asked her about fishless cycling. She had not heard of it, but again, she has been out of the hobby for a long time. She thinks it’s a great idea though.
This isn’t getting any shorter…typical for me…anyway, we have 8 small goldfish in the tank. That’s two fewer than we put in…more ceremonial burials at sea. So my question is, if all the goldfish die, can we just continue with fishless cycling?
BTW, our tank is a 29 long.
Introducing myself here. My daughter and I are new tank owners. We suffered the same fate as many before us. We went to the pet store Friday and bought the tank and accessories. Pet store person said add water, put in the de-chlorinating drops, turn the heater on and let it warm up for 24 hours. Saturday evening we were back at the pet store. The same person that sold us the tank happily sold us 2 neon tetras, one white skirt? Tetra, 2 glofish, a guppy, and a dalmation colored molly. She never said a word about bacteria or cycling or anything. Of course, we took the fish home, acclimated them to the tank, released them, and watched every single one of them die. It was very heartbreaking for my 10 year-old daughter. The neons were dead within 2 hours. The other tetra, the molly and the glofish were dead by morning and the guppy succumbed later that day.
After the first three “ceremonial flushings” (her term, not mine) I took the rest of the dead to the pet store and …how to put this politely…questioned their demise. At that point the clerk said “Oh, you just started your tank the other day. Well, it’s common for fish to die in a new tank.” She then tried to sell me some stuff in a bottle to “fix” my tank. I declined in such a manner as to convince her to refund my money for the dead fish. I was totally furious.
I must admit, it’s mostly my fault. I’m an expert gardener and run my own website and forum on the subject. I see so many people kill plants through lack of knowledge that I should have known to seek expert help when starting the aquarium up.
To make a long story short, I called my sister who used to have many, many tanks ranging from 10 to 75 gallons. When I told her what I did, I got a brief scolding for not calling her first…totally deserved. She then told me about cycling the tank.
Now don’t fault her, she has been out of fish keeping for a number of years, but she told me to turn the heater off, buy a few feeder goldfish and put them into the tank. She told me about testing the water and changing it and so forth. After finding this site, and doing some lurking/reading, I called her and asked her about fishless cycling. She had not heard of it, but again, she has been out of the hobby for a long time. She thinks it’s a great idea though.
This isn’t getting any shorter…typical for me…anyway, we have 8 small goldfish in the tank. That’s two fewer than we put in…more ceremonial burials at sea. So my question is, if all the goldfish die, can we just continue with fishless cycling?
BTW, our tank is a 29 long.
