New To Fish And Need Some Advice/help

[KittyKat]

Sounds like it. As far as I am aware, the API liquid kit tests for both ammonias in one.

The bacteria will not do anything, most likely, but good on you for using Stress Coat. Stress Coat is a dechlorinator, it's probably not a great idea to use it in conjunction with any other one.

If you add the water to the aquarium first, you need to treat *all* the water in the aquarium, not just the new water.

Please make sure to wait for one week of 0 ppm readings for ammonia and nitrite before adding new fish.

Snails should be ok at pH 7.5 or higher, no idea about frogs.

 

[JillianJaclyn]

Well my tank water stabilized so I got a few new fish for the tank on Tuesday night. I got a black and white balloon belly mollie, a black skirt tetra, a silver mollie, and a red phantom tetra (I think it was called). The silver mollie and the red tetra kept biting the bettas fins so I gave them to a friend with cory cats (didn't even know she had fish until a few days ago). The tank now has the betta, the black skirt tetra, the balloon belly, and the red platy. I was thinking about getting a cory cat to put in there. The people at the pet store said that if I keep it to about 1 gallon of water per inch of fish I should be good. I've been doing 40-50% water changes every 3-4 days still just to keep up with the ammonia. I am a little confused about the betta though. When I was looking online for suitable tankmates for bettas it said that bottom dwellers were good for bettas because bettas prefer to be at the top of the tank. My betta spends almost all of its time inside the roof of the pagoda ornament I have in the tank. He's almost never out. I haven't seen the platy every try to bite his fins and he's the only one that's been in there for more than a couple days and the betta has spent most of his time in the pagoda for at least a week. Is this something I should worry about? Or does he just have a different preference than most bettas? Anyway, thanks for all your help getting me to this point!

 

[KittyKat]

Not at all surprising that they were nipping: you got one each of three schooling species and are now planning to get another individual. Don't do that, it is not fair to the fish.

It's great that you got your water problems sorted, now lets talk a bit about stocking... Your research that bottom dwellers make good Betta companions is correct. Depending on the bottom area of the tank and your filtration (what is yours?), you should be able to have 6-10 dwarf of pygmy Corys (pick only one species, and yes, they are schooling fish). Corys will sift through sand, which is why it is better for them to have sand. The other thing to know is that they need specialised feeding (sinking wafers, meaty/omnivore variety) and need you to keep the bottom hygienic for them (which is not the same as absolutely sportless).

Now to the rest of the stocking.. From what I understand, you currently have these fish:
* 1 male Betta
* 1 platy (male or female?)
* 1 baloon molly (male or female?)
* 1 black skirt tetra
Correct?

Platys and mollies are social fish, so do best with their own kinds, but they can live on their own.. also sex those two because a male one will harass the female one (if you have one of each) and if the molly is a female, she's bound to be dropping fry for the next 3-9 months. Males have gonopodiums, females have anal fins.

All common tetras are schooling fish, which means that in the wild, they will live in groups of 100-5000+ individuals. When schooling fish are kept individually, they will exhibit odd behaviour like nipping other species, instead of showing off the other males and females of their own kind. For schooling fish, I recommend a group of at least 6, but groups of 12-15+ are better. So from my point of view, there are two options when it comes to the tetra:
1. give it to someone who already keeps others of its own kind
2. add another 5 of the same species (but I do not know if your tank will take these, especially alongside the Corys, which would make much better tank mates for the Betta and I also feel that the average 10 gallon tank does not take tetras that size very well)

 

[JillianJaclyn]

Not at all surprising that they were nipping: you got one each of three schooling species and are now planning to get another individual. Don't do that, it is not fair to the fish.

It's great that you got your water problems sorted, now lets talk a bit about stocking... Your research that bottom dwellers make good Betta companions is correct. Depending on the bottom area of the tank and your filtration (what is yours?), you should be able to have 6-10 dwarf of pygmy Corys (pick only one species, and yes, they are schooling fish). Corys will sift through sand, which is why it is better for them to have sand. The other thing to know is that they need specialised feeding (sinking wafers, meaty/omnivore variety) and need you to keep the bottom hygienic for them (which is not the same as absolutely sportless).

Now to the rest of the stocking.. From what I understand, you currently have these fish:
* 1 male Betta
* 1 platy (male or female?)
* 1 baloon molly (male or female?)
* 1 black skirt tetra
Correct?

Platys and mollies are social fish, so do best with their own kinds, but they can live on their own.. also sex those two because a male one will harass the female one (if you have one of each) and if the molly is a female, she's bound to be dropping fry for the next 3-9 months. Males have gonopodiums, females have anal fins.

All common tetras are schooling fish, which means that in the wild, they will live in groups of 100-5000+ individuals. When schooling fish are kept individually, they will exhibit odd behaviour like nipping other species, instead of showing off the other males and females of their own kind. For schooling fish, I recommend a group of at least 6, but groups of 12-15+ are better. So from my point of view, there are two options when it comes to the tetra:
1. give it to someone who already keeps others of its own kind
2. add another 5 of the same species (but I do not know if your tank will take these, especially alongside the Corys, which would make much better tank mates for the Betta and I also feel that the average 10 gallon tank does not take tetras that size very well)

I do have a betta, platy, balloon belly mollie, and black skirt tetra. Other than the betta I honestly don't know genders. I actually also got 5 ghost shrimp and 3 snails to help with the cleaning. My tank has gravel and dragon tears instead of sand. I'm very broke. I just have a Whisper 10 gallon filter right now. The other guys aren't bothering the betta. I was worried about overstocking the tank so I only got a few.

Unfortunately the ammonia went up again and got up to 4.0 ppm. After a water change yesterday (about 50-60%) it went down to 2.0 ppm. I will be doing another water change today. I also added ammolock and will be going back to every three day feedings instead of a little every day. I took out all but the bamboo of my remaining plants because they looked like they might be starting to die and I thought they might be the problem. I also cut some of the bamboo off because the leaves were broken and I thought that might be contributing as well.

I won't be adding more fish until I get the ammonia figured out again though.

 

[KittyKat]

It probably was all the new fish and shrimp (even though shrimp are very low bio-load). Next time you get any animals for the fishtank, you should aim to get only 1 (maybe 2) per week.

If your ammonia is at 2 ppm, you should be doing 99% water changes, right down to the substrate, and probably a second one immediately, to bring ammonia well under 0.25 ppm.

Bamboo? That sounds like a non-aquatic plant. But aquatic plants are actually good because they will use up some of the ammonia.