Am I Overfeeding My Fish?

[dbanner]

Yes bmonki you are correct. Anything over 0 is harmful to fish and will cause stress leading to not eating in some cases and will also be slowly killing the fish. Large daily water changes are key in this situation (90% changes a day)
until levels are reading 0.0

Having said that, even when the readings are down to the magic 0, you will probably find that the Gar in particular will still be picky but all you will have to do is offer pellets daily until he takes them.

I'm not sure if I asked earlier in the thread and I apologise in advance if I have but, what size is your tank? I'm only asking as most Gar fish get quite big...

 

[slimeneo]

Well, I wouldn't trust everything your LFS says. You need to keep ammonia levels (and nitrite) 0 ppm. Like others have said, it is harmful to fish if they are anything but 0. It affects their gills and ultimately may be lethal or damage their gills permanently.

 

[pbase5583]

If i do a 90% water change my fish will be stuck to the bottom of the tank and stress them out pretty bad, and i tried water changes for a course of 3 weeks, nothing changed. Then i go to my LFS and at least now its working. and im pretty sure everyone knows that any amount of ammonia is toxic.

 

[bmonki]

sorry for trying to help.

btw, obviously you wouldnt remove as much water to have them stick to the bottom... you take it down to just above the fish swimming by the bottom so they can swim upright... which in my tank is roughly 90-92%.

you need to be doing these water changes daily, until both nitrites and ammonia are 0.0ppm, maybe twice a day. i've just completed a fish in cycle and had to do this myself. its a pain but if you dont want ur fish to die you really have little other option.

 

[pbase5583]

the ammonia is at .25 ppm and nitrites are there now high, no water changes but thanks for the advice,


now next question which i will take advice on

i want to get rid of all my fish and do a cichlid or discus tank

of course this will be when the water is perfect.

if i was to do a discus
could i keep the black ghost knife fish?
what would i have to do to switch to these fish?
any advice?

if i was to do a cichlid tank

could i keep the gar?
i will keep the tiretrack eel but
DO i need to re cycle?
what would i have to change?
i have sand substrate would i need to change it?
would i have to get rid of java moss?

 

[Staxx]

youve just completely ignored the advice which has been given. yet you ask questions for more advice?


you want to get rid of all your fish..


but keep the eel, gar and knifefish?

you need to sort out your current stock before you think about getting more fish. how big is your tank?

 

[pbase5583]

i have a 65 gallon tank. I want to do cichlids or discus when the water is perfect. but if i do cichlids could i keep the gar(i know ican for the eel) but if i do discus(could i keep the bgk)

and i was going to use that advice before and then i went to the fish store today for a water test and the water is doing better.

 

[bmonki]

i hate to disagree with your lfs... (actually thats a lie - most lfs have little to no idea about water quality it seems) but let me tell you what happened in my tank... for about 10 weeks i was battling high ammonia levels, doing daily massive water changes, obsessing over testing water... then the ammonoia was fine as i started using prime to soak it up... next thing i know my nitrite was 0.25 and two fish died within an hour of each other.

you say you arent going to do more water changes (even tho this is standard weekly maintenance)... well you will be getting rid of your fish then, cause with high nitrite they will all die eventually. poor fish

 

[dbanner]

As bmonki said, it can take weeks or even months of huge daily water changes to get your water levels to the be where they need to be. I think I can speak for near enough everyone here when I say it can be a pain but its a requirement if your serious about fishkeeping and your fish' health.

Also as others on this thread have said, most lfs haven't got a clue what they are talking about and the only time I would ever take thier advice is if the member of staff I was speaking to was a member of a fish forum such as this one. All they are usually interested in is making a sale any way they can. The sad truth of it is they are out to make money.

To answer your other question, Personally going by what you've said to us all I wouldn't consider getting discus, not until you have perfect water stats for a few months running anyway. They are very fragile to water conditions/changes in water stats and with your readings up till now, sorry to say but it's a disaster waiting to happen. If you do get your stats perfect then you COULD keep a group of say 5 or 6. Personally I wouldnt keep anything with them. They do well in planted tanks and need higher temps than a lot of other fish. I believe around 28 degrees although not 100% on this as iv not kept them myself.

If you were to keep cichlids then it all depends on what cichlids your talking about. African? Central American? South American? Bare in mind you shouldnt mix American and African as they require different water. Your tank isn't big enough for the bigger cichlids like oscars, buttikoferi, jaguars and so on... An African set up would be good with a dark sand substrate and rocks.

It all depends what kind of cichlids you get to answer you question on if you can keep your Gar or not... But please be sure to make sure you water levels are reading 0 for ammonia and nitrites for a couple of weeks at least until you add to or change your stock

 

[pbase5583]

oh i know that i just put rocks in. and i will not i mean WILL NOT put any fish in until perfect water quality. and then i have a question. alot of people said overstock the tank a little bit to make sure they arent aggresive to each other. but how would i do that because people say do not add more than 3-4 fish a week. thats minimum of 1 1/2 months of stocking. how would i go about this without causing same ammonia problem i had with my tank the first time

 

[Staxx]

make sure the tank is cycled to handle high amount of ammonia say 5ppm. then add all the fish you want at once.

if the tank is cycled properly you can fully stock a tank all in one go i believe. my filter was established before. i added almost 40 fish to my tank in the space of 3 weeks before the filter broke and i had a crash.

ive not kept cichlids yet but i read you need to over filter at something like 5x volume an hour or more. you need to overstock to cut aggression to a minimum.

 

[pbase5583]

did it break because of that

 

[Staxx]

did it break because of that

no the seal on the external broke so i just got a new filter and transfered the media over.


what filter have you got on your tank?

 

[pbase5583]

i have an aquaclear 70 gallon filter which i think it does 300 gallons per hour, if i get another aquaclear but for a 50 gallon would that be enough for the cichlids?
and also i started a new topic in cichlids. its called cichlid help. could we continue the conversation in that forum

 

[Staxx]

i answered in other thread.