New To Tropical Fish

[stuuk1]

Hi, Ive just registered and this is indeed my first post! And there will be many more to come, trust me!

My tank has been set up now for around a month and a half. Its all happened very quickly and I somehow have managed to have around 16 fish in the tank... these include:

Mollies
Catfish Loachers
Polkadot Loacher
Neons
Glass catfish
A Shark
Xray (something..)
And a few others....

I have a 48ltr tank (a little small I know, but im looking to get a 200+ltr soon).

Now for my problem!

I have recently had 2 fish die (mollies) One was pegnant and produced 4 fry, which are now in a separate area within the tank to keep them safe, I feed them 3 times a day with crushed flakes.

The mother of these I found dead the next day. I checked the body for anything and couldnt see anything wrong (these are the first fish I have ever owned so not sure what I was looking for). Around 4 days later, I found another Molly dead for no reason. Again I check the body, nothing i could see wrong... I checked for redness, anything inflamed, raised scales. And now a snail has died! Whats going on?!

I did a large water change, I'd say it was around 90%. I cleaned down all the sides within the tank and then re-filled the tank using tapsafe to manufacturers instructions (as I usually do).

I have now noticed that the white molly has produced some black random spots on its body (I think its female) and the black molly (I think this one is Male and he pesters her alot..) has got some white spots on him in random places!

Ive read up abit on white spots and read a thread about adding table salt to the water to attack Ick. But as for the black spots on the white molly, ive read up and seems as tho its Ich. Im very confused!

Sorry about all the writing, I hope someone can shed some light on this! Thank you in advance guys!

 

[Inchworm]

Hi stuuk1

Welcome to the forum!

Before anyone tries to diagnose the spots on your fish, let me ask you if you know anything about "cycling" a tank and testing for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If not, I'll move your thread over to the Your New Freshwater Tank section here. You'll get help with that issue and more.

 

[tom130691]

do you no about cycling ? or own a test kit?
also your shark and glass catfish need tanks a hell of a lot bigger!
deal with this asap (my tank is 64litres and mine is overstocked you can see my fish in my sig)

inchworm beat me to it i was going to find the link she sent
she is also much wiser than me listen too her

 

[spectrum]

Hi, and welcome to the forum (Always wanted to be the one to say that )

I don't pretend to be an expert in fish keeping, but if I was in your position I would go and get some general fish medicine that treats lots of things (Something like Myxazin, dunno whether you can get it though) and dose your tank with it. The white spots on the black molly sounds like white spot, (Ich/Ick there are many names) are they like little sugar granules, that means Ich? Not sure about the black spots though.

I would say that is a pretty over stocked tank however, and you will want to be looking to get a 200l+ tank sooner rather than later, if you can of course, if not you might want to consider giving away/ selling a few fish (If I were you I would keep the Neons, X-ray's (Presumably tetra) and maybe the Polkadot loach, for now of course). The mollies, loaches (depends on species), glass catfish and the 'Shark' (Identification would be good ) Will all get too big for that tank. While they may be able to survive, they will not be happy, this could be what caused the death of the mollies. Crushed flake is the right thing for the fry though .

If you are new to the hobby the main advice I can give is, research, research and more research (Websites, books, this forum).
Research EVERY fish you think you will want to get and don't always listen to everything the fish shops tell you as they are often wrong/misleading. Common sense plays a large part in fish keeping as well.
Do you know about the Nitrate cycle? If not then go research, it is one of the most important things about fish keeping.

I'm sorry if what I have just written is a string of incoherent gibberish But I really hope it helps get you and your fish on your way in this wonderful hobby.



Edit* Rats, just spotted i'm not the first to reply

 

[stuuk1]

Wow, fast replies! I know about the tank size, where we got the shark from, didnt inform us very well and said it wouldnt grow much bigger than a few inches. I saw another one in another fish show and could see how wrong they were! Just need to save a little more and the 200ltr will be mine and the 48ltr will become a quarentine tank!

I did read up on the cycling of the tanks. I had the tank set up for a good two weeks before I introduced any fish. I just put flakes in to the water to establish the filter (as I was told to). Once I put fish in the tank they were fine up until now. At first I did have an 'algae boom' which I had to do a large water change as I then had fish in there which were clearly unhappy!

I do own a tester, but its just a dip strip kit that give colours. Are there any digital test kits that give precise readings? Ive had a look for one but not having any luck.

May I also ask where the majority of poeple here are from? Im in the Uk down south in Kent

Thanks guys!

 

[tom130691]

i do not no of any digital testers but i use api master test kit highly aproved on this forum

what were your readings amonia and nitrite have to be less than 0.25ppm and nitrate idealy below 40ppm

 

[stuuk1]

The test kit I have is a Tetra Test 6in1.

Its one that you match up the colours to the back of the bottle to the 'safe' or 'change water'. So I cant give you a reading if you see what I mean. Its why im after another kit.

On the colours is does have:

NO3 (mg/l) which came out as 10
and
NO2 (mg/l) which came out as 1

Both of these say that they are 'ok'
Do those seem ok to you?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi stuuk1

I'm not familiar with that test kit so I'll send a message to one of our moderators on the New Tank section. He can probably give you better advice and will move your thread if he thinks it will benefit you.

 

[stuuk1]

Spctrum, sorry I completely missed your post! Your advice is great apart from selling the loaches and the shark, the shark is my favourite! I shall get a tank asap as I cant get rid of him....! Ha! I was talked in to getting fish by my girlfriend, I was dead against it! But she managed to talk me round and im so glad she did.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum stuuk1.
I will be moving your thread to the area where we deal mostly with cycling problems. It seems to me that you are in the middle of a fish-in cycle and are not getting the help that you need from your LFS. There is a person who is a regular in that area that can quickly get you back on track. The nitrite reading that you have, if you trust it, is far too high for the fish to live in good health. Although I find mollies exceedingly easy to raise and breed, my tap water has a nice high pH and high mineral content which means a water change sets things up perfectly for them. Mollies can be sensitive to poor water chemistry and you are seeing some of the results of that. Please do not hesitate to do as many large water changes, 50% or more, as it takes to get your nitrites less than you can detect.
We also recommend a liquid type test kit as being more reliable than the strip type tests but they can abe a bit expensive when you are first starting out and need to buy just everything. I use the API master kit but other brands also work just fine.

 

[stuuk1]

Sounds great, just before we move... Thanks everyone that helped so far!

 

[spectrum]

I have the Nutra fin Mini master test kit by Hagen. I think its great for beginners and people like me (NO money )
It cost me 26 UK pounds at the local fish store and it has ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH tests in.

 

[waterdrop]

Looks like you are beginning to catch some good advice and maybe we can get you unstuck, stuuk one!

Welcome to the beginners section. The advice up there from OM47 seems to cover the most urgent priorities of doing as many large water changes (with good technique (using conditioner and rough temperature matching)) as you can which also seeking a good liquid-reagent based test kit. Many of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit or the Nutrafin Mini-master Test Kit, or there are individual kits by Salifert that are even better but the main thing is just to get some better liquid tests involved and to be learning the things you need to do in a Fish-In Cycling Situation.

~~waterdrop~~