Newbie's In Trouble

[samnchrisyates]

Hi everyone,
 
My wife has discovered the amazing world of fish keeping (if that's the right terminology). She started about 2 months ago and although she loves spending time watching her little fish family, she also seems to spend an enormous amount of time fretting about the water state and the water cycling. She has lost a few fish, which is partly our fault for not researching about setting up a fish tank and partly the pet shops fault for not explaining to do a water cycle.
 
After a month, my wife decided to get a larger tank. She found one on a buying and selling site. It had been used so when we got the new tank, we washed it with clean water. The tank was filled and when full the water was tested. We waited 2 days, checked the water again and then placed our fish in.
 
Our molly was showing signs of being pregnant. She had grown very large and then 2 days ago we could see her birth canal emerging (I can only describe it as a bubble coming out of her bum?). We also noticed that she had swelled up more and her scales had started to bulge out. My wife researched this and came to the conclusion it was dropsy. We swapped the molly in to the smaller tank which was housing our tiger barbs as we felt the molly may be better segregated. This morning there were 2 fry but unfortunately our molly had died. The fry seem to be ok so far. 
 
One of our tiger barbs now has a red face, all over the mouth to the gills.
 
I understand that we are still very new to this but I feel that we are putting far too much effort into looking after the fish. We do regular partial water changes and keep testing the water almost every couple of days.
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Kind REgards
 
Sam and Chris Yates

 

[dvlopez2010]

I am also new to fish keeping. I did my home work and found a few less known things that are not mentioned much.
 

• Cloudy water is common in new aquariums, it is bacteria blooms. they clear up on thier own after the bacteria becomes established
• Adding a half dose of aquarium salt to a fresh water tank will help prevent parasitic infections
• it is good to cycle a tank for a few days before adding fish, i cycled mine for a week...
• clip on filters are not good for any aquarium.
• Never change all filter media at one time, stagger changes to alow good bacteria to seed
• Add fish three at a time and allow a week before adding additional fish to allow the tank to adjust.
• Most importantly, research the fish you want. know and understand thier needs and compatability before you buy them.

I hope that helps, took me a week to find all of those pointers for starting a tank.

 

[Blondielovesfish]

I'm sorry but the pointer above about cycling a tank for a few days is wrong, leaving a tank full of water with everything running only makes sure that the equipment is working correctly, other then that, it is a waste of time.
If you want to fishless cycle, you need to add a source of ammonia for the cycle to start. The details of fishless cycling are in my signature under cycling.
Another few incorrect pointers are the ones about filters that clip on are not good for any aquarium, this is incorrect because HOB filters are great for smaller tanks and, as long as you have the correct filter size for your tank, they are fine.
The other one is about adding the fish. If you are fish in cycling then that us partially correct, except you need to wait longer before adding more fish, you can only add fish once the ammonia and nitrite have been showing 0 for several days.
Apart from that I think the rest of the pointers are good!

Your tank aren't cycled so you're almost guranteed to get some problems.

What are you water readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH?

What fish do you have?

What size is the tank?

Because your tank is uncycled, you will need to put in a lot more effort than you have been but, once the cycle is finished you can sit back and enjoy your aquarium with only partial water changes every week.