My Tanking Habits!

[Kat7302]

Hey all

I've just started with Tropical Fish and I read through the detailed descriptions on here of water changes etc etc and I appear to be doing almost everything wrong!!!

Once the tank was set up, I added 3 breeds of neons (4 of each) and they started dying (I believed the 'your tank will be ready in 3 days if you add this...!) I obviously waited until the dying stopped before adding more and finally, it seemed to settle with 7 of the neons left. I never bought testing kits etc so have never checked the water!!! I put Bogwood in and live plants.

I added (over a period of a month) 2 Dalmation Mollies, 2 Gourami, 2 Tiger Barbs, 2 Sailfin Mollies, 2 Peppered Corys, 2 Bronze Corys and 4 algea eater thingys!!!

1 of the Gourami died and both Tigers did too which was kind of odd but since then, everything calmed down. I noticed a snail in there one day and someone told me to remove it because they breed quickly (I assume it came in from the aquatic plants I bought) so I did but then noticed 3 more a few days later. I went to the fish shop (Not chips!) and they recommended I buy a little fella who apparently will kill/eat them. I can't say I've seen him do much of that and I pulled another snail out yesterday and 2 baby ones this morning whilst doing a tank change. Any ideas on this???

Whilst looking in there a couple of days ago, I spotted a few small little things and on closer inspection, realised they were babies!!! God knows how I've achieved this with my less than amateur work but I rushed out to buy an incubation float (after reading I needed one online!) and I'm pretty sure I have 4 little Mollies! yeeey! There were only 3 but I spotted another this morning doing a water change....I would have thought she would have them all at once or is it that she's had lots and the other fish have eaten them? Either way, this little bloke survived in the wild before I found him so hats off to him!!

Lastly....my wonderful method of water change!!!

I've been winging it to be honest! I do approx a 20-30% water change about every 7-10 days. This basically involves me getting a big jug and removing jugfuls of water into a washing up bowl then scurrying to the kitchen to empty the bowl! I repeat this until I think I've removed enough then take the filter out, give the pads a wash under the tap (hangs head in shame!) and pop it all back in. I then refill the jug with tap water (again, the head hangs!) and toddle back and for until its full enough again! Then I add approx 4 capfuls of the stuff you put in with a water change to dechlorinate and thats pretty much it! I haven't been killing off the fish and the fact one of them has bred made me think they must be happy at least!!!

I did buy new foam pads for the Fluval 3 plus filter and changed them this morning before reading on here so although I rinsed them in tank water, I did replace both at the same time. I didn't replace the material one that goes between them though. Now I'm worried I've removed all the bacteria!!! ARGH!

One other thing I wanted to ask about was changing the tank around. I did read the other thread with the great manual for water changes so will be making changes but would I have to remove all the fish before taking the tank down low and altering stuff? I don't think I put enough gravel in originally as my plants dont have much depth to root in and they're not lasting very long so ideally, I'd like to take the tank back to the beginning and add gravel and new plants but I'm worried that I'll do it wrong!!

Thanks in advance for any help

Kat

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Oh dear Kat! sounds very much like how I ran my first tank so don't worry your not the only one to make these mistakes. Your certainly doing the right things by finding out what to do now and we'll give you all the help you need to get your tank running smoothly.

firstly it sounds like you've read the links on cycling, so you know you need to get a test kit as a priority, getting water tests will help to asses what damage has been done to your bacteria and what state of health your tank and filter is in right now. so that should be your first thing to do and post the results here we'll work out what to do.

while your at the lfs getting a test kit, also pick up a gravel vac so you can do your water changes properly.

do you know what fish you were sold to eat your snails? post a pic and we'll ID him if you don't know what he's called. Also how big is the tank?

unfortunately the mollies breeding isn't a sign that things are great, they'd breed in a puddle

you can change the tank around either with fish in or out depending on how big a change you want to make. i'd worry about making sure your water is ok and you've got a reasonable amount of fis first and we'll get onto that later!

 

[jimboberdy]

how big is your tank kat???

 

[Kat7302]

Oh dear Kat! sounds very much like how I ran my first tank so don't worry your not the only one to make these mistakes. Your certainly doing the right things by finding out what to do now and we'll give you all the help you need to get your tank running smoothly.

firstly it sounds like you've read the links on cycling, so you know you need to get a test kit as a priority, getting water tests will help to asses what damage has been done to your bacteria and what state of health your tank and filter is in right now. so that should be your first thing to do and post the results here we'll work out what to do.

while your at the lfs getting a test kit, also pick up a gravel vac so you can do your water changes properly.

do you know what fish you were sold to eat your snails? post a pic and we'll ID him if you don't know what he's called. Also how big is the tank?

unfortunately the mollies breeding isn't a sign that things are great, they'd breed in a puddle

you can change the tank around either with fish in or out depending on how big a change you want to make. i'd worry about making sure your water is ok and you've got a reasonable amount of fis first and we'll get onto that later!

Hey there

Thanks for the reply

Firstly, I'm not 100% that the fry are Mollies...I think they are but one of the Mollies and one of the Corys were both bloated. The Cory went really big and then one day, it wasn't but I read that they lay eggs and I haven't seen any although one website said that they lay them in the gravel and I suppose that could explain why I keep finding the odd one! To me though, they look a bit like Mollies around the mouth although they're only about 5mm-1cm in length so who know's!!

I can't remember the name of the snail eater!!! I just did a Google on snail eaters and one site brought up a few names...after googling images for a while I think its a Botia/loach. Its a light grey colour with a stripe down the back and it has the hanging off bits by the mouth which are present in the other pictures of Botia's I saw!...oooh, a bit more googling and I think he may be a Skunk Botia!!

I have a Fluval 3 filter and I cleaned it out this morning...the yellow thing has gone up now which I had never even noticed before..its only from reading on here that I realised it even did that!!!

I have loads of kids as well as animals and my youngest is home ill today so I will pick up the test kit tomorrow along with the gravel cleaner! I do think I need to add more gravel so that my plants can root better but wasn't sure how to do it with fish in there but as you suggest, if I do a water test first and everything is okay then you can talk me through that next!!

SHould I pick anything up from the shop just in case the water levels aren't right? I have the standard aquaplus which you add with water changes but thats it. I don't drive so can't just nip back up to the shop after testing so wondered if it wouldl be better to buy stuff in advance..I've no doubt I'll need it again!

My tank is 126L or approx 27.72G (according to an online converter I just tried!!)

When you say a reasonable amount of fish....should you have a certain amount for a tank size? I assumed that overcrowding wasn't good but that's as far as my knowledge goes really!!

Thanks

how big is your tank kat???

126 Litres. The water always seems to have a green tinge to it although its clear. I'm assuming this is normal from the plants?!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well if you have a bit of money to spend it's good to have some general medications in the house, just like you'd keep some paracetamol and plasters in the cupboard for your kids.

try and pick up pimafix, melafix and king british ws3 which between them cover you for a lot of standard illness's and for healing wounds, get some more gravel too if you feel you need it.

get 2 buckets as well, mark one as clean adn one as dirty. these are fishkeeping buckets not to be used for washing the car or anythign else, clean one is for water or anything going into teh tank, dirty is for water coming out of it. helps to stop any cross contamination or putting anything bad back into your tank once it's been removed.

yup there's a general guideline of 1" of fish per us gallon of water, about a zillion exceptions to the rule but it's a good place to get a rough idea. google your fish and find out what the maximum adult size is, add them all together and if you have an appropriate number of fish it'll reach around 27. have a read of the link in my sig 'how to work out stocking lists' which should tell you how to choose fish that are compatible and appropriate for your tank size.

 

[-germ-]

Yeah i was similarly struggling when i started....
I'd advise, although others may disagree that you should get some SeaChem prime
Use this as your dechlorinator, it'll detoxify all the things commonly associated with cycling tanks as well as being a really good value dechlorinator and being overdosable in the event of emergencies. Also doesn't effect your tank cycle(although may provide you with some strange readings when you test the water).
You are going to have a very busy (and probably stressful) few weeks if you choose to cycle the tank with the fish in....

 

[vinylman]

Kat, PLEASE don't change the filter sponges until they're almost falling apart - they really do last for ages. When you do a water change, rinse one sponge out (as you now know, in old tank water), then next time rinse the other one. By changing sponges, you're losing the bacteria every tank needs to 'live'. Spend some time here reading the different pinned threads. Don't be afraid to ask questions; the only silly question is one that isn't asked.

 

[dthoffsett]

Sounds like Miss Wiggle and the others are giving you good advice, just thought I'd add that when you buy a test kit, make sure you get the liquid kind, NOT test strips. The strips aren't accurate. You'll want your kit to come with tests for Ammonia, NitrIte, NitrAte, and PH. Many of them come with tests for KH & GH as well. API is a good brand.