Keeping Tropical Fish

[mpward]

Hi All,

Im new to keeping Tropical Fish and I really didnt think it would be hard as it is. I got my tank at Christmas and learned just how hard it is to start off. I let my tank cycle for aboyt half a week and did all the water tests via my local pet shop and they were all ok. Added my first fish, i think were glo light tetras, they died the next day. Took them back to the pet shop with another water sample which passed again. Got some more tetras and they ended up dying the next day as well. I decided to start the cycle process again and this time tried another Fish shop. My first ones i got died yet again. I thought to myself im not going to give up and left it about half a week again and stocked up on fish. This time they really thrived and had them for about two weeks and gradually added more over time. Since the end of December to the start of last week eveything has been ok. Just recently i brought one tropical frog and all seemed ok, just recently though i seem to be getting one dead fish each morning for the past three days that i cant work out why. I did orginally think i had a 45 litre tank but have now realised that i have a 30 litre tank. This is what i have in it at the mo:

2 small catfish
1 loach
2 Clown Loach
4 Neon Tetra's (1 died)
2 Glo Lite Tetras (3 died over time))
1 Silver Shark
1 Male Guppy (3 died over time)
1 Tropical Frog
1 Shrimp (1 died or was eaten)
5 Zebra Dinos

Now i realise i have got a 30 litre tank and not a 45 litre, maybe i overstaocked a little and just recenly there hasnt been enough oxygen for all the fish. I did have one baby guppy fry as well but that died, i was so gutted.

Are the fish ive got compatible with one another? ive read about it on the net and they all seem to get on.

Are air stones any good???

Any advice would be greatefully received, I dont want to lose any more. How often should water changes be done and how much water should be taken out?

thanks.

Mat

 

[MikeO]

Hi Mat.


You need to be looking here:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

I suspect you are overstocked and your fish are dieing as a result of the tank not being cycled. If you are putting fish in straight away then you should read the part on fish-in cycling. Were you doing regular water changes?

What filtration do you have?

There are plenty of peeps on here who will help as I have found out, but to me it really does sound like you should stop, read all the articles on the above link and then start again.

 

[ian]

firstly welcome and hello, i'm sorry to be the barer of bad news, but you're massively overstocked. Sounds to me that you cycled your tank with all the fish that died.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/277264-beginners-resource-center/

^^give that a read.
right, lets have a look at th fish, the clown loach, silver shark will get very big, these fish will need rehoming. Zebra danios need a lot of swimming space, so looking at your stocking they're not gonna be getting it, i would re home these. The shrimp is fine, as are the guppy and tetras. I can't comment on the frog because i know nothing about them, but i bet thats where your other shrimp went. What loach is it? What catfish are they?

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum MPWard.
I am afraid that you are indeed overstocked. You have enough things in your tank to fill a 30 gallon tank, not a 30 litre one. Some things that I am not reading about here is how much and how often you are changing your tank's water. I am also not reading about the present levels of ammonia and nitrites in the tank water. I would return as much of your tank's inhabitants as you can in order to get the stocking quite low. Where you are right now is likely at the very beginning of cycling your tank. You have a very heavy fish load in the tank and that means that you are generating high levels of ammonia poison in the water. That ammonia will eventually be processed by the bacteria that grow in your filter into nitrites and may be further processed by other bacteria into nitrates. If you can get the filter mature enough to have both processes happen, you get to remove the nitrates with a weekly water change of well over 50% with a stock level as high as you have.
Your present priorities are to reduce the biological load in your tank by returning at least half of your fish and get a test kit such as the API master freshwater test kit. You need to be able to measure your ammonia and nitrite levels at least daily until you get through the real cycle of your filter. If either chemical shows more than 0.25 ppm, you will need to do a large water change, using a dechlorinator, to get the level back below that value. Once you get to the point that the ammonia and nitrites stay at zero without you taking any action, you can guide your water changes by how quickly your nitrates rise by 20 ppm. When the nitrates are 20 ppm above the tap water value, it is time to do a water change. My guess is that you will be doing at least a 50% weekly water change in order to control nitrates with a stocking anywhere near your present level.

 

[Wills]

Oh dear.... you have had a rough start and Im afraid its not over yet.

The reason your fish have been dieing is because to fully cycle a filter means to grow a colony of bacteria within it. This bacteria eats the ammonia that is produced in the tank by your fishes poop but this takes time and until the bacteria is developed and so the ammonia lingers in the water and basically poisons the fish. So the bacteria grows and starts to convert the ammonia into nitrite which is still a toxin and will probably be pretty high in your tank right now but bacteria grows and will change the poisonous nitrite into quite harmless nitrate. So the cycle goes like this - fish poop - ammonia - nitrite - nitrate.

If you had found us when you first got your tank we would have advised you to do a fishless cycle which is where you add pure bottled ammonia to the tank for a number of weeks to replace the fish poo and that means that you can be 100% sure that no fish will die when you do eventually add them as there will be no poisons in the tank they live in.

However you are in whats called a fish in cycle so what I would do now is get your own water test kit and try to work out what your ammonia and nitrite levels are like. Also start doing daily water changes of around 50% and this should significantly help.

Now more problems Im afraid your fish list is a bit worrying you have some fish in there with the potential to grow to a foot long, you also have some very vague names as well so not sure what they are...

2 small catfish - Need a bit more info on these, are they cory catfish? Just because they are small now they might not stay that way
1 loach - Again need more info
2 Clown Loach - These can get upto 16 inches, it take a long time for them to grow but they need a much much much bigger tank than a 10g now
4 Neon Tetra's (1 died) okay for the tank, but a bit fragile and you might loose a few more till the tank is done
2 Glo Lite Tetras (3 died over time) - same as above but a bit hardier
1 Silver Shark - Again this one gets to about a foot long is very active and needs a massive tank, they are also a shoaling fish so they will be pretty stressed right now.
1 Male Guppy (3 died over time) - Same as the tetras
1 Tropical Frog - Same as the tetras
1 Shrimp (1 died or was eaten) - Same as the tetras
5 Zebra Dinos - Same as the tetras, but quite a bit hardier than the rest.

However you also have far to many fish for your tank even if its a 45liter tank. Idealy in that size tank you want to choose between one of your schooling fish so thats your tetras and danio and mix them with some kind of feature fish like guppies for example. OR you need to get a bigger tank, if you got something around the 125 liter mark you would be able to keep most of your fish like the tetras etc but even then you would still need to rehome your clowns and silver sharks.

Looking at your stocking what I would try and do is something like

For the 30 liter

3 Male guppies - that way you dont get over run with babies
6 Glowlight Tetras

or if it is the 45 liter

3 Male guppies
10 Glowlight Tetras or 5 Glowlights and 5 Neons - I would go for the bigger school as it is much more natural and their behavior will be more interesting for you to watch.

I know it all looks bad but they are all classic mistakes that we have all made at some point. I know I have. One of the main issues with this hobby is fish shop owners that dont know that much but act like they do when realistically they are just trying to make money, for example if they dont tell you about the full cycling process they have a few weeks where all that will happen is you put fish in - they die - you buy more fish and bacteria products see what I mean?

If you dont know what the fish like the small catfish are try taking a pic of them and we might be able to ID them for you. Also what are the measurements of the tank? Does it have a brand name? What does it look like we might be able to work out just how big the tank is by that way.

Hope thats helped somewhat

Wills

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with the others above. Welcome to the TFF beginners section! You are in the right place!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mpward]

Thanks for all the quick replies, ive not gone about keeping fish in a hurry, tried to do as much research as i could first, apart from the bad start i had, all my fish have been happy and well for nearly two months, ive brought books and got advice of a lot of people who keep fish and ive got a water testing kit as well.

I agree i have overstocked, i think when u first come into this hobby, its just very exciting seeing all the different types of fish and its easily to get carried away.

I was begiining to think maybe my Tropical Frog is the culprit, but he/she seems to get on ok with the other fish and i feed him bloodworm that he eats ok, i think he may have been the culprit who ate my cherry shrimp as i think the other one has been eaten now as well.

I think its a dwarf frog that i have.

These are the catfish i have, Cory's:

http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/cory-aen.htm

And this is the loach id forgotton the name of, an algae eater:

http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/algeater.htm

Ive got a mini master test kit, i`ll do some more tests and let you know what they are.

thanks again.

Mat

 

[Wills]

Ah good point about the frog actually, there are a few commonly traded species and only one is suitable to mix with fish the other will eat fish. Cant remember how to tell the two apart though..... maybe ask in the critters section?

 

[mpward]

Hi All,

I found out the make of my tank, its a UFO 350 corner tank, just a starter tank.

I changed 10/15% of the water last night and the fish seemed a lot happier and swam more in the middle instead of the top, this morning they seem to be at the top again gasping for air which cant be good.

I really cant understand it as they have all been settled for about two months, my problems seem to have started since i got my dwarf frog, could he be the culprit?

I woke up to another dead shrimp today and the fish have been feeding well until today, dont seem as hungry.

Here are my water tests i did:

PH - 7-7.5
NH3/NH4 - 7.3
N02 - 1.6
N03 - 50

do i need to change anymore water today as i really dont want to lose any more fish. Like i said everything has been fine for two months without any deaths and just recently, since i got the frog, ive been waking up to one death each day.

HELP!!!

thanks.

Mat

 

[mpward]

Ive changed 10% of the water again and they seem happy again and have stopped gasping for air at the top and are back in the middle of the tank, something has deffinatly spiked in my tank.

Mat

 

[Wills]

When the fish die have you found every body? As their rotting bodies will pollute the water very fast, small fish rot down really quick but the ammonia is left in the water for quite some time.

But actually just realised what your results are and your water is at a lethal level for everything, you need to do much larger water changes than you are currently doing at least 50% I still reccomend that you rehome the fish I mentioned before because the heavy stock is not going to help you get through this.

If you dont mind me asking where are you from if someone here lives near you they might be able to get some mature filter media to you and solve your problems pretty much over night.

With regards to the frog I will try and find you an ID thing for between african clawed frogs and african dwarf frogs both look similar when young but the clawed frogs will eat fish and shrimp.

Wills

 

[Harlequins]

I agree with wills,your water stats are bad.

NH3 ammonia- 7.3
NO2 nitrite 1.6

These are lethal amounts,i would perhaps do at least 75% w/c to try and get the levels down..

 

[mpward]

thanks for the replies.

Ive been moving the dead fish as i find them, one of the cory cat fish is getting quite big and the algae eater, i may take them back to the pet shop, altough i`ll miss them (

Just seems strange to only have started happening since i got my dwarf frog.

The fish are back in the middle of the tank after another water change (about 20%, done abour 40% in all today).

I live in Manchester.

Thanks.

Mat

 

[Harlequins]

I would advise testing your stats again for ammonia & nitrite if either is over 0.25ppm then do another large water change,the high toxicity will continue killing the fish if not kept below this.

40% w/c may still not to enough to get it down to a safe level...
Good luck

 

[mpward]

Hi,

I left it a while and all seemed ok but then after about 3 hours they were back at the top of the tank again, either that or they were hungry. To be on the safe side ive done a 50% change today, done a lot of small changes today and thats the biggest ive done. I`ll leave it until tomorrow now and then do another water test and let you know.

thanks for your help.

Mat