New Tank, And Worried About The Fish

[wilts newbie]

I have just set up my first tank.It is an aqua one, 27 litre. I have put in 2 ornaments and 2 small plastic plants. I put my first fish in yesterday( 2 Black Phantoms and 2 zebra Danios) The 2 zebras and 1 of the phantoms seem to be doing ok, but the other phantom seems to be struggling. Found her in one of the ornaments upside down. Thought that maybe she was dead so netted her to remove her and she came alive and swam down to the bottom of the tank but does seem to struggle. Can anyone help please.

 

[rebrn]

I have just set up my first tank.It is an aqua one, 27 litre. I have put in 2 ornaments and 2 small plastic plants. I put my first fish in yesterday( 2 Black Phantoms and 2 zebra Danios) The 2 zebras and 1 of the phantoms seem to be doing ok, but the other phantom seems to be struggling. Found her in one of the ornaments upside down. Thought that maybe she was dead so netted her to remove her and she came alive and swam down to the bottom of the tank but does seem to struggle. Can anyone help please.

Hi and welcome to the Fourm,
I am new to fish my self so I probably won't be able to tell you much but the basics I learned from this fourm. The first thing I would ask is did you cycle you tank? If you don't know how to answer that then I would say you did not cycle your tank, which means you are now in a "Fish in Cycle". My first suggestion would be to read the "Beginners Resource Center" under new to the hobby. It is basically fish keeping 101. It has a lot of great information. I would definately recommend reading the Fish-In Cycle article, since that is most likely where you are right now. You should be able to find answers to all or most of your questions. My second suggestion would be to obtain a good liquid test kit. I use API and it has been fine for me. However, a lot of people recommend the Salifert test kits. If you live in the US they are almost double the price of the API kits, however, I have discoverd that they around the same price in the UK. But you definately want a liquid test kit that tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and PH (both regular and high range), these are the minimum basic tests you will need. I know that the API kit has all of them. The other option is to see if you can take the fish back to the LFS, and do a fishless cycle (info is also under the Beginners Resource Center) Hope this helps Good Luck

 

[fatheadminnow]

Agreed^

You are in a fish-in cycle. Read what rebrn said, in the beginners section. There you will find plenty of stuff on cycling a tank.

-FHM