What Am I Doing Wrong?

Hello,

I feel like I`m struggling with the whole fish thing.

We bought a 15g tank kit for our 8yr old daughter. As per the pet stores instructions. We let the tank get established for a week. It actually ended up being three weeks before we got the fish. We purchased a dalmation, mickey mouse and what I believe is 2 types of platys? We were doing great for a few months. Of course once we took away feeing duties from our daughter we did great We developed some whitish worm in the rocks.

Within 2.5-3 mos plants started to wither and lose colour. I took a water sample into the pet store. They tested it and said I was doing great except for ph level, I had blueberries is what they said. So armed with a gravel cleaner, ph tester, and ph down I headed home to tackle this problem. Several water changes, daily gravel cleaning levels are still up.

I am suspecting too much gravel possibly? Will be removing some today.

Saddly this week the dalmation started sitting on the bottom early Monday am, by evening it was dead.

We have babiesw in the tank. First round by daughter came screaming upstairs that we had babies. Well there was actually only one loan survivor and looks like it was there for a good length of time. It was a nice bright orange colour already. The 2nd batch I spent a good 45mins trying to scoop up. Well my 8yr old watched to make sure I was saving them So we have the origional baby in a seperate small tank (goldfish bowl) waiting for it to grow. The other 17 babies are in the breeder tank in the tank.

Since the dalmation died. The two fish who are always side by side have taken to chasing the other. It hides in the plants away from them. At feeing they don`t bother each other but when there done there plain mean again.

What am I doing wrong?!

Also when can I put the loan baby in the tank? I was scared it would eat the babies. Yet be eatten by the big fish.

Here`s 2 more pics ....

ph level and baby fish (1st batch)

hi there and welcome

can you tell us a bit more about your tank like:
what temp your keeping the water at?
how often you are doing water changes?
what declohrine agent your using for your water?
how often and how are you cleaning filter sponge?

i am far from an expert but will try and help

Unless the pH was super high, like 8.5-9 or something, it shouldn't have been a real issue. The pH of the tap water out here is 7.8, and I have a bunch of fish that prefer a lower level, but since they have been in this pH for so long, they've adapted to it, no issues thus far.

The pH lowering stuff is going to do more harm than good, unfortunately. It can cause the fish to go into pH shock due to the sudden drop in pH levels.

The levels you should really be paying attention to instead, which are of main concern are ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate is also a common level to test, but most fish aren't harmed by it unless it reaches extreme levels that not even test kits can read.

Thanks for posting!
I'll have to go in and pick up a new kit to test those.


what temp your keeping the water at?
currently 22. Normaly it's 25. Store said don't go over 25 range. I thought too cold?

how often you are doing water changes?
every 3-4 days. Around 20%

what declohrine agent your using for your water
Nutrafin Aqua Plus

how often and how are you cleaning filter sponge?
once every 3-4 weeks. The last didn't seem that bad but changed anyways.

i would say water is to cold as needs to be around 27 degres and with the filter sponge dont change it but rinse it out weekly in water from the tank when you do a water change.you can keep the same sponge for months unless it breaks up.

dont be tempted to replace or clean the sponge in tap water hot or cold as this will wash away/kill bacteria which is needed to keep the water fish safe.

I knew about washing it but never thought aboout not using tap water.
Thank You !!!!

So glad I found this site

A good test kit to look into is the API Fresh Water Master Test Kit. It can test pH, ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite, very accurately. Avoid getting test trips, as they're pretty inaccurate. Ammonia and nitrite should always be 0, and nitrate should be at around 20, give or take depending on how much you do water changes and if you use live plants. If nitrite or ammonia are higher than 0, do a good water change, as both of them are very harmful to fish. pH, in my honest opinion, really doesn't matter to a majority of tank bred fish.

i have kept tropical for must be over 3 years now and this site helped me lots so time to pass my skills on!!!!

just try and keep it simple,if you try and get into all ph,nitrate,ammonia levels it can get very confusing.i have never used water testing kits and luckily have not have to many problems.

just knock the temp up a little,keep water changes as you do now,and clean filter weekly in the removed water and just remember not to over feed as thats another common mistake made by new keepers.

hope all goes well and problems fade away and if you dont want to get to into fish keeping dont look around on this site to much as you will get hooked!!

m00ms said:

just try and keep it simple,if you try and get into all ph,nitrate,ammonia levels it can get very confusing.i have never used water testing kits and luckily have not have to many problems.

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It's really not that confusing. pH isn't an issue as long as it's stable. nitrate and ammonia are always an issue if they're present in the tank for long periods of time. It's good to have a test kit, because then if you do have any issues, you can check the water perimeters for any simple fixes. Like if nitrate or ammonia is high, just do a water change. If you can't test that, it could end up a costly mistake. You may treat diseases that are not present in the tank, or buy things that you don't really need.

to a new comer levels can be confusing,was to me when i started!!

test kits can be very inacurate espicaly if they are old kits and nitrate can be of a level on tap water alone.

not looking to side step this thread away from orginal help needed so just hope my help can be of use.

OK so now that we figured all that out ....
Do the fish look ok?
Why are the two chasing off the one?

When can I move the baby back into the tank?

m00ms said:

to a new comer levels can be confusing,was to me when i started!!

test kits can be very inacurate espicaly if they are old kits and nitrate can be of a level on tap water alone.

not looking to side step this thread away from orginal help needed so just hope my help can be of use.

Click to expand...

Paper strip test kits are inaccurate. Liquid test tube kits are proven to be very accurate. The science and whatnot behind ammonia an nitrite and everything is a little confusing, yes, I don't even really understand it all myself. And you don't really need to understand it. You just need to know that it's bad.

but all that needs to be known is that ammonia and nitrite are both very harmful to fish. They both will kill them in very small doses, and should always be kept at 0. Ammonia will cause irreversible damage to fish over time in even the smallest amount, and both cause fish to be very stressed and prone to disease.

Can you get along with fish keeping without a test kit? Yes. Would I advise it? no. It's a small investment, it's very easy to test, and it's very good to have if you're noticing off behavior with your fish such as flashing and lethargy.

bellabean said:

OK so now that we figured all that out ....
Do the fish look ok?
Why are the two chasing off the one?

When can I move the baby back into the tank?

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Do you know the gender of the fish? male livebearers will be aggressive to each other if there aren't enough females among them.

The baby is safe to go back in the tank once you're certain the parents won't be able to eat them and it won't be sucked up by the filter intake.

onidrase said:

A good test kit to look into is the API Fresh Water Master Test Kit. It can test pH, ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite, very accurately. Avoid getting test trips, as they're pretty inaccurate. Ammonia and nitrite should always be 0, and nitrate should be at around 20, give or take depending on how much you do water changes and if you use live plants. If nitrite or ammonia are higher than 0, do a good water change, as both of them are very harmful to fish. pH, in my honest opinion, really doesn't matter to a majority of tank bred fish.

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The only caveat I would mention about that is that you have to follow the directions on the nitrate test to the letter and shake, shake, shake bottle #2 or else you get a false zero reading. The master kit also includes a high pH test.