Water Problems

[backtotropical]

Hi Centric Oregon,

Without pushing advice down your throat, Miss Wiggle has given you some very sound advice there. I would read it carefully and learn as much from it as you can.

You tank is overstocked and you do have incompatible fish. Just because you aren't experiencing any problems (yet) doesn't mean everything is fine, as it certainly isn't. Your cloudy water is just one tell-tale sign that it's not fine.

Anyway, welcome to TFF and i hope we can help you get your tank back on track.

Cheers

BTT

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i usually just clean them under the tap, well the shower because its more powerfull and gets the gunge bits of lol.you know, i think i might actually clean the sponges a bit to much, i usually clean them so that there really clean but thats just gonna cause a bacteria bloom again isn't it?

there's another problem, if you read the link i posted earlier it explains about the beneficial bacteria in your filter, by cleaning the sponges under the shower you're basically killing the bacteria and starting the cycle all over again every time you clean the filter.

you should only ever rinse sponges gently in water removed from the tank.

this is all detailed in the links i gave earlier if you'd like to have a read.

 

[Scotty001]

wht is the make of the filter by the looks of it, it isnt going to be Man OR Woman enough to cope with the demand needed with that stock list. (we all know the ladies Generally put more effort into cleaning duties and us men do). ;-)

For this size tank and stock you are best going for an external filter that will process the tank atleist 10x per hour. (we all know the ladies Generally put more effort into the cleaning duties and us men do) enough to

EDIT - As miss wiggle has said cleaning the filter sponges out under the shower will kill almost all the beneficial bacteria which will start the cycle again in the tnk which will case the cloudy bacteria bloom your seeing. she has also gien some good advise about your stock, all may seem good now but it can turn at the blink of an eye and you will have mayhem in your tank,

 

[Miss Wiggle]

sorry if i came across a bit snappy before. just we get a lot of people who come on here, ask for advice, then when we don't tell them what they want to hear just make excuses, insult us, tell us we are wrong then leave again. I get kind of sick of it from time to time a I'm sure you can understand! Occasionally if I'm having a bad day I'll snap at someone when they seem to do it, but I shouldn't, should hold my tongue in case I scare off someone who needs and wants our help.

Honestly, if you want our help we're here and will do everything we can to get you on track

 

[CentricOregon]

wht is the make of the filter by the looks of it, it isnt going to be Man OR Woman enough to cope with the demand needed with that stock list. (we all know the ladies Generally put more effort into cleaning duties and us men do). ;-)

For this size tank and stock you are best going for an external filter that will process the tank atleist 10x per hour. (we all know the ladies Generally put more effort into the cleaning duties and us men do) enough to

EDIT - As miss wiggle has said cleaning the filter sponges out under the shower will kill almost all the beneficial bacteria which will start the cycle again in the tnk which will case the cloudy bacteria bloom your seeing. she has also gien some good advise about your stock, all may seem good now but it can turn at the blink of an eye and you will have mayhem in your tank,

yeah i realize my mistakes with the media cleaning now, how long would you say before my tank starts mayhem? alot of these are great fish and i hate to see them go, i already gave up alot of my fish to get it to this stable level. i am planning to get a bigger tank asap and will sort everything out once i do but for now i'm stuck. i already tried to sell the clown knife but it's hard to re-home him as he needs a big tank.

sorry if i came across a bit snappy before. just we get a lot of people who come on here, ask for advice, then when we don't tell them what they want to hear just make excuses, insult us, tell us we are wrong then leave again. I get kind of sick of it from time to time a I'm sure you can understand! Occasionally if I'm having a bad day I'll snap at someone when they seem to do it, but I shouldn't, should hold my tongue in case I scare off someone who needs and wants our help.

Honestly, if you want our help we're here and will do everything we can to get you on track

i am honestly grateful for yours and evrybody's opinion as i seriously do need help and i realize that. how much fish would i have to re-home? or what ones even?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

impossible to say, you have a lot of volatile aggressive fish in there, it's just gonna take one of them to blow their fuse and you'll have a bloodbath in there. could be tonight, could be fine for another few years. seriously can't give any indication so you should work to re-home some fish asap.

try listing the big fish on aquarist classified, it's basically free ad's for fish and fish related stuff. sure you'll find someone who wants him on there. Don't expect much/any money for him though, really if someone takes him off your hands they are doing you a favour not the other way around. If you start trying to sell him for a decent price then you're highly unlikley to find him a decent home.

to start you off with your decisions here's the fish that need a bigger home and should be re-homed asap

clown knifefish - 10"
black ghost knifefish - 18"
kissing pink - 12"
clown loach x2 - 24"
common plec - 24"

you've then got two main groups of fish, you can't keep all of them but first you shoudl decide between these two groups

african cichlids

bumblebee malawi - 3"
yellow lab malawi x3 - 12"
yellow peacock - 4"
rusty malawi - 4"

american cichlids
jack dempsey x2 - 12"
daemon eartheater x2 - 12"
green severum - 6"
gold severum - 6"
parrot cichlid x2 - 20"

you've then a group of catfish and similar which you may/may not be able to keep depending on which of the above fish you keep.

red tail black shark - 8"
cory x5 - 10"
bristlenose plec x3 - 18"
whiptail plec x3 - 6"
upside down cat - 6"

hope that helps you start to make some decisions

 

[Scotty001]

non one can tell when the mayhem will begin, on a slightly different species but along the same lines i had a pair of kribs, they got on great from the start, had several spawnings and then 1 day out of the blue the male started attacking the female and harrasing her non stop, she was pinned in a corner and couldnt move as if she did he wuld go full pelt at her,

everything was fine one night then the next mornign bang i had mahem. i expect the same will happen with yourself, and there is no way of telling when, u may just wake up to a tank of carnage. chichids are an aggressive species

 

[CentricOregon]

non one can tell when the mayhem will begin, on a slightly different species but along the same lines i had a pair of kribs, they got on great from the start, had several spawnings and then 1 day out of the blue the male started attacking the female and harrasing her non stop, she was pinned in a corner and couldnt move as if she did he wuld go full pelt at her,

everything was fine one night then the next mornign bang i had mahem. i expect the same will happen with yourself, and there is no way of telling when, u may just wake up to a tank of carnage. chichids are an aggressive species

yeah true, i wanna get rid of the rusty cichlid but i cant't take them to the lfs as i bought them from there and they had trouble selling them before, will probs also get rid of the pink and 2 of the yellow labs so they cant breed again. also which of my fish are most likely to take an eye out? cos i used to have a keyhole but handed it to the lfs cos somebody took its eye out over night. i heard black ghosts are bad for doing that?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

could have been just about any of your fish which took anothers eye out. you've a lot of aggressive fish in there. the knife is a possibility, but also the JD's, eartheaters, red tail shark and probably the malawi's would be capable of it. even the kissing gourami's or the parrot could if pushed.

 

[CentricOregon]

could have been just about any of your fish which took anothers eye out. you've a lot of aggressive fish in there. the knife is a possibility, but also the JD's, eartheaters, red tail shark and probably the malawi's would be capable of it. even the kissing gourami's or the parrot could if pushed.

yeah i suppose so, well i'll make a start and next time i'm heading down the town centre i'll take the rusty, 2 yellow labs and the pink with me and hand them in

 

[Miss Wiggle]

good stuff, that's certainly a start. the other africans will also need to go too. there's two main reasons for not keeping the different types of cichlids together really. firstly the pH requirements of the fish are different, they need different water conditiosn and as such if you're keeping one of them happily, then the others won't be and vica versa.

secondly african and north american cichlids have different ways of demonstrating aggression (aside from beting the hell out of each other of course) so if for example one of your africans is feeling annoyed with another fish, they will send off warning signals to it so it can back down without need for a full on fight. if the other fish is an african cichlid too then it will understand the signals and generally back off, if it's a north american cichlid then it won't understand, will carry on doing what it's doing then a fight can break out. like a language barrier basically. so one of the best things you could do is to get all the africans out of the equation asap so even though the remaining fish are crowded, they can at least communicate with each other.

 

[CentricOregon]

good stuff, that's certainly a start. the other africans will also need to go too. there's two main reasons for not keeping the different types of cichlids together really. firstly the pH requirements of the fish are different, they need different water conditiosn and as such if you're keeping one of them happily, then the others won't be and vica versa.

secondly african and north american cichlids have different ways of demonstrating aggression (aside from beting the hell out of each other of course) so if for example one of your africans is feeling annoyed with another fish, they will send off warning signals to it so it can back down without need for a full on fight. if the other fish is an african cichlid too then it will understand the signals and generally back off, if it's a north american cichlid then it won't understand, will carry on doing what it's doing then a fight can break out. like a language barrier basically. so one of the best things you could do is to get all the africans out of the equation asap so even though the remaining fish are crowded, they can at least communicate with each other.

ah right, i never knew that. wouldn't it be ok even to keep the bumblebee and 1 yellow lab? or just the bumblebee? just the bumblebee is classic and round here you don't find fish like these alot. this is the only bumblebee i've ever came across and he's just the best, he's so funny to watch and keeps himself to himself

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if you want to keep the africans that's fine, but you then need to get rid of nearly all the other fish in the tank and have a dedicated african set up.

mixing african and american cichlids does not work long term i'm afraid. you need to choose one or the other. or of course set up two tanks!!

 

[CentricOregon]

if you want to keep the africans that's fine, but you then need to get rid of nearly all the other fish in the tank and have a dedicated african set up.

mixing african and american cichlids does not work long term i'm afraid. you need to choose one or the other. or of course set up two tanks!!

i was wanting to have 2 tanks but due to having no job it prooves to be difficult lol

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup, I can sympathise, but bottom line is, if you can't afford to look after an animal properly then you shouldn't have it.

so while it's nice that you'd like to give it a proper home and have a tank of it's own, if you can't afford it then it's worth nothing. doesn't make the situation any better for the fish if you want him to have a better tank does it?