New To This And I Think My Fish Know It

[azzman]

Iv had my 3ft tank for only 2 days, Iv got a silver shark about 2.5 inches long, a whitish gourami about the same size,
and 5 neons. The silver shark spends the whole time with its nose on the front glass and sometimes appears quite frantic,
the gourami spends the whole time in the same corner and only darts out now and then only to return to its hiding whole.
Is this normal behaviour?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes, you've put fish in without cycling the tank, the levels of ammonia and nitrite will be sky high and teh fish are upset because the water is toxic to them.

have a read of the link in my sig 'what's cycling?' which should explain it all to you and help you work out what to do to keep your fish alive

 

[azzman]

yes, you've put fish in without cycling the tank, the levels of ammonia and nitrite will be sky high and teh fish are upset because the water is toxic to them.

have a read of the link in my sig 'what's cycling?' which should explain it all to you and help you work out what to do to keep your fish alive

i was given a product called "prime" and "nitrivec" and a ph neutraliser and given strict instructions on how much to use, the aquarium i brought my fish said i could introduce the fish straight away?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah unfortunately those products are rubbish

complete waste of money and just a marketing gimmick.

tiem for lesson no#1 of fishkeeping. you can't always trust the fish shop. they are a business at the end of the day, there to make money, they sell you useless products then sell you more fish when your first ones die. sadly this is true of altogether too many fish shops. however you have luckily found the right place to ask fro advice, remember we are here giving up our own time to advise you for free, we have nothing to gain from giving out bad advice unlike the lfs (local fish shop).

the theory behind prime and other products like it is that they contain the bacteria needed to cycle your filter instattaneously. nice idea unfortunately not many companies have got it right, for starters a lot of them use completely the wrong species of bacteria, secondly the bacteria have no food source and thirdly during delivery to the shop they are often exposed to extremes of temperature. By the time it's been sat on the shelf in the fish shop for a couple of months then you take it home it's completely useless. There are however a couple of products that seem to have got it right, Soll Bactinettes in the UK, and Bio Spira in the US, both use the correct bacteria and should be kept refrigerated through their life. If you can find either of these from an lfs that keeps them refrigerated then you stand a good chance of getting the bacteria you need into your tank to sort out your water quality.

I would put money on a water test now showing sky high levels of ammonia in your tank, which is really toxic to the fish, if you've no test kit get the lfs to test it for you, if there's ammonia there then you know the products haven't worked and that I'm right.

 

[azzman]

so these fish are now my crash test dummies and i shouldnt expect them to live much longer?
i guess ill just have to study up and start again.

thanks for the advice,
aaron.

 

[DevUK]

yes, you've put fish in without cycling the tank, the levels of ammonia and nitrite will be sky high and teh fish are upset because the water is toxic to them.

have a read of the link in my sig 'what's cycling?' which should explain it all to you and help you work out what to do to keep your fish alive

i was given a product called "prime" and "nitrivec" and a ph neutraliser and given strict instructions on how much to use, the aquarium i brought my fish said i could introduce the fish straight away?

Not really the case. Most aquarium "start" products claim to get things up and running straight away, but its simply not the case. Theres a good thread on the subject here. There are a few products that actually are good, but they aren't always easy to get hold of (see the thread).

The PH Neutraliser doesn't sound useful either, unless your tap water has a high PH value. Adjusting your PH with chemicals etc can be quite difficult and may cause problems in the long run. You need to read up on this

Essentially you need bacteria in your filter to process the waste that your fish produce when they poop/pee (or whatever!). Take a read of this link about the nitrogen cycle. With a brand new filter and a brand new tank you won't have any of this bacteria on the filter sponge yet. It takes time (several weeks) for the bacteria to colonise the filter sponge and grow (cycling). At the moment your fish will be producing waste which will build up in the water and become dangerous for them.

Nitrivec claims to provide this bacteria, but I personally don't believe it. I was sold something similar when I first started and to be honest its a bit "old school". I now do a fishless cycle, which means I set up my tank completely, except for fish. I then run the tank for several weeks adding food each day. The food decomposes causing the waste and gradually the bacteria grows on the filter and can process this waste. I'm just starting a similar process using bottled Ammonia (see the fishless cycling sticky thread).

You are now in the situation where you need to be keeping a close eye on your fish, and be doing water changes regulalry. You need to get yourself some test kits. Right now, testing for Ammonia is probably the most important thing but you can get "master" test kits which test 4 of the main things that as a fish keeper you need to check regularly. Read Miss Wiggle's link

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not nescessarily, you have a few possible courses of action. but yes you definately need to study up, read some of the links in my sig and the one's in the beginners resource centre (pinned at the top of this page) which will help you.

options are

1 - return the fish to the shop and do a fishless cycle (also considering your silver shark needs to be in a group of 6 and will get to 12" long kit's probably advisable to return him, unless your tank is in the region of 125gals, 6'x2'x2')
2 - keep the fish and do daily 20% water changes, you may loose some but you may not
3 - get hold of either bactinettes or bio spira which should get the tank cycled within a couple of days

 

[azzman]

the gravel and filter and ornaments were out of an established tank, will this help my cause?

 

[DevUK]

Certainly will! If the previous tank was cycled of course It may well be the case that you'll be fine provided the filter is powerful enough you your setup, and that it didn't sit out of the old tank for very long before going into the new tank, and that the new tank's water was dechlorinated! Whew, long sentence

 

[fmervin]

Hi azzman, I used Soll bactinettes for my 65L tank and it really worked great. I can thoroughly recommend it. Of course my lfs told me to have my tank running for 2 days before I could add fish. Even so, after adding 3 fish after 2 days the ammonia levels are still 0 after a month. One bottle treats around 100L of water so you will need to add accordingly taking into account your tank capacity.

Just make sure you either pop the capsules into the filter (after chucking away the ammonia solution) straight away or keep it in the fridge. It needs to be stored between 4 - 8C. I did not do this and my bottle was left at room temperature for around 8 hours. I guess that is why my nitrites have always been between 0.3 and 0.4. But 0 ammonia always. I'm thoroughly impressed by this product and would definitely recommend it.

P.S: Before anyone asks, I do not work for them Just a happy customer

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

so these fish are now my crash test dummies and i shouldnt expect them to live much longer?

Really depends on how hardy the individual fish are, and how hard you are willing to work to keep them alive.

My mother bought a tank without knowing any of this stuff...followed the LFS instructions, and added too many fish too fast. Some of them died, but I managed to save others.

1. Buy a liquid test kit. Liquid tests are more accurate than paper strips. You want to keep the Ammonia and Nitrite levels below .25 ppm. This may require two water changes a day (I was doing 2 20%-30% water changes daily). You may have to do some larger ones at first to drop those ammonia and nitrite levels to a safer range.

2. Do not overfeed your fish. Feed them very lightly while your tank is cycling...the less they eat the less waste they will produce. Plus uneaten food will sink to the bottom of the tank and produce more Ammonia as it decomposes! Also don't forget to gravel vac at least once per week to help remove food particles and fish waste.

3. Do not forget to use water conditioner to remove chlorine and chlorimides (sp?). Chlorine will kill the bacteria colony you are trying to grow. Try to get the temp of your replacement water to as close to the tank temp as possible to avoid shocking the fish.

 

[azzman]

hi all, iv just brought a master test kit and have tested everything,
not exactly sure what it all means but heres the results.

ammonia - 0.50 ppm
nitrite - 0.25 ppm
nitrate - 5.0 ppm
ph - 7.2

is all this in the ball park?

tests were done before daily 20% water change.

thanks,
aaron.

 

[poopsydrew]

hi all, iv just brought a master test kit and have tested everything,
not exactly sure what it all means but heres the results.

ammonia - 0.50 ppm
nitrite - 0.25 ppm
nitrate - 5.0 ppm
ph - 7.2

is all this in the ball park?

tests were done before daily 20% water change.

thanks,
aaron.

No...did you read the link in miss wiggles about cycling? Your Ammonia and you NitrIte need to Always be at 0. Nitrate is ok in small doses but around 40ppm time for a water change. I would continue to do water changes until your levels drop to zero.

Drew

 

[azzman]

Its day 5 and ive kept the ammonia and nitrite to between 0 - 0.25%, fish are still swimming so i think itll be sweet.
thanks everybody for your help.

aaron.

 

[Amunet]

Got to correct you Miss Wiggle on just one tiny detail you said.......
You're thinking Prime is one of those bacteria in a bottle products when all it is is a tap water conditioner that detoxifies ammonia and nitrites along with dechlorinating.
Just had to correct that bit of info..... heh

GL azzman.. I hope your fish are gonna be ok!