Advice Needed

[baz_78]

Ok - I started another thread about a fish loss yesterday but wanted to get more general advice now so started another!

I tested my water last night (with the Interpet Easy Test) and the results were:

Ph - Seemed to be off the scale, the water went very light blue (dark blue on scale was 9.0 alkaline)
Ammonia - 0.0mg/l
Nitrite - 0.25mg/l
Nitrate - 50mg/l

Sorry, I don't know the ppm conversions...

My tank is a 15G (UK),has a few plants and is populated with the following fish...

1x Honey Gourami
7x Zebra Danio
6x Tetra (not sure of species all under 2cm)
3x Bronze Cory's
3x Algae eaters (not sure of species)

What do you advise to get all my water stats back to normal? I did a 40-50% change yesterday. My normal water change routine is a weekend 30-40% change and more recently a mid week 20% change. Is this too much?

Any advice appreciated!

 

[Asmp41]

Ok - I started another thread about a fish loss yesterday but wanted to get more general advice now so started another!

I tested my water last night (with the Interpet Easy Test) and the results were:

Ph - Seemed to be off the scale, the water went very light blue (dark blue on scale was 9.0 alkaline)
Ammonia - 0.0mg/l
Nitrite - 0.25mg/l
Nitrate - 50mg/l

Sorry, I don't know the ppm conversions...

My tank is a 15G (UK),has a few plants and is populated with the following fish...

1x Honey Gourami
7x Zebra Danio
6x Tetra (not sure of species all under 2cm)
3x Bronze Cory's
3x Algae eaters (not sure of species)

What do you advise to get all my water stats back to normal? I did a 40-50% change yesterday. My normal water change routine is a weekend 30-40% change and more recently a mid week 20% change. Is this too much?

Any advice appreciated!

Hi
I am in no position to give you advice only can speculate with you.
The Ph in the London area is usually high because the water is so hard.
The lfs will be also so I would not worry too much unless fish like Discus etc that are very prone to bad water conditions .
The tetra's are they blue and red ? Neons or Cardinals ?
Your other results seem fine.
I would change 25% weekly and if the Nitrites spike feed less.
I hope it helps just to talk to someone and perhaps others may even put me right if I am wrong.
Good luck.

 

[leafs]

Your fish loss is most likely because of nitrite. Keep doing the water changes until the nitrite level is 0. I wouldn't worry about doing too many water changes because you want to keep the nitrite as low as possible until you can get it down to 0. Once it's down to 0, you can get back to weekly water changes. How long has the tank been running for?

 

[baz_78]

Your fish loss is most likely because of nitrite. Keep doing the water changes until the nitrite level is 0. I wouldn't worry about doing too many water changes because you want to keep the nitrite as low as possible until you can get it down to 0. Once it's down to 0, you can get back to weekly water changes. How long has the tank been running for?

The tanks been running for around 4 months now. What would you recommend in terms of water changes? eg 10% daily or more?

I also think I'm slightly overstocked even though I bought all fish in mind of how they'd grow. I think I had a mix of getting my calculations wrong and being misinformed by my lfs on how much the tank could reasonably hold!! They told me the tank would be fine with around 30 fish (tetra/danio/cory sized) which I now think would be way too much...

 

[leafs]

I think 10% daily would be ok. I do believe your slightly overstocked and I don't think that the Danios should be in a 15 gallon. Maybe Wolf can advise you on the Danios. They need quite a bit of swimming room. Your lfs is definately wrong in their stocking advise. You might also want to try and identify what kind of algae eaters you have. Some can get pretty big such as most Pleco's.

 

[baz_78]

I think 10% daily would be ok. I do believe your slightly overstocked and I don't think that the Danios should be in a 15 gallon. Maybe Wolf can advise you on the Danios. They need quite a bit of swimming room. Your lfs is definately wrong in their stocking advise. You might also want to try and identify what kind of algae eaters you have. Some can get pretty big such as most Pleco's.

Thanks for the advice. The Zebra Danios all seem happy at the minute - always zooming round the top section of my tank.

I don't think the algea eaters will get big as I was purposely choosing fish that didn't get too large - everything I went for had a max size of 3-4cms. Only the Gourami had a slightly larger size.

Although with their bad advice previously, I'm now researching the fish I have. I know I should have done this before buying - in my defence I only came across this site a week or 2 ago which has been of great help and interest.

 

[leafs]

Research is very important when it comes to fish keeping. I rarely rely on advise from lfs. I knew nothing about this hobby until I found this site. You can learn a lot from this forum. Good luck.

 

[baz_78]

Research is very important when it comes to fish keeping. I rarely rely on advise from lfs. I knew nothing about this hobby until I found this site. You can learn a lot from this forum. Good luck.

I know that now!!! ) Thanks for the help - I'm glad to take advise from those that have more experience, I want all my fish to lead long & happy lives...

After having done a bit more research on the Honey Gourami's, I think my remaining one (I'm sure is male too) may have been bullying the one that died (possible female)... Could have been a territorial argument or just bullying from what I've read.

 

[PeterM]

Third time in as many threads linking to this utility..

http/www.helpthefish.org/modules.php?name=tanktool

You can check whether your water is ok there. Also, mg/l is exactly the same as parts per million

*edit* your water isnt too bad really, I dont think it will have been bad enough to cause the death of a fish. Youre probably right about the bullying being the cause. Stress kills fish fairly quickly, they cant take it.

 

[baz_78]

your water isnt too bad really, I dont think it will have been bad enough to cause the death of a fish. Youre probably right about the bullying being the cause. Stress kills fish fairly quickly, they cant take it.

The strange thing is now, I've noticed a big change in the behaviour of my remaining honey gourami - when it used to be very active and parade around the tank, it now hides in my plants a lot of the time or around one corner of the tank...

Why would it be doing this now?