ammonia levels ...

[lonelyneon]

as seen here...

 

[cation]

Maybe your tetra should move in with your sister's tetras until you get your water issue sorted out. Otherwise, the combined stressors might be too much for it.

 

[lonelyneon]

well that tetra seems to be holding out fine and his tail is growing back and everything looks ok but the levelsrefuse to go down. I change the water everyday. I stopped feeding them as much and did it every other 2 or 3 days. I bought stress zhym and that is in the water and hopefully doing its job. I dont get it. Why wont it just be nice and go down???

 

[lonelyneon]

Not as if things werent bad enough now the water is foggy and it wont go away and my white skirt tetra is swimming on its sides most of the time. Lately it likes to stay but the water filter... what is this??

 

[khs666]

lonelyneon

The pinned post by Alien Anna talks all about cycling new tanks. However, in summary a tank works by converting Ammonia (waste) into NitrItes and then into NitrAtes by bacterial reaction. These bacteria aren't there when you start so after a few days so there is nothing to eat the ammonia - which builds up and up. Ammonia is poisonous to fish. After a while (2wks ish in my case) the bacteria kick in and you start to get NitrItes. Which is also poisonous to fish (but not as bad as ammonia). This lasts 3-4 wks with fish (again in my case) until eventually you get Ammonia at 0, NitrItes at 0 and NitrAtes at a reasonable level (<20).

You need to continue to water change every day (25% if possible) on both tanks. And I'm afraid you may lose more fish. It's not your fault - it's the fault of irresponsible lfs' that sell fish along with tanks.

Keep going, and don't let it put you off keeping fish.

 

[Adrinal]

Hey, did you read a book on fish keeping? Really, you need to get a noob book before more fish!
Its not hard to keep fish but there are some things that have to be done or well you kill things!

1) get the book
2) understand and reread till you get it. post here for clarification on what the book says or help choosing a specific method (lots of choices in some spots)
3) make yourself a list a plan... dont do it all in your head at first... make notes from the book and follow it.

1) you need to know how to prepare water! read up on this!!!
I've knoticed tons of folks getting this wrong and it is a huge killer!!!
2) any filteration is fine... but you should understand how yours works so you can maintain it.
3) heat... make sure the heat is stable at the tem you need for the fish you are going to get... if not sure make it 76F and watch it every day for a while so u are sure it is staying there
4) lights... for fish only pretty much doesn't matter... only it is good to put them on a timmer so they are consistiant and not too long so the algea doesn't come in.
5) precycling the tank and how many fish and how fast. FISH STORES ARE NOT AN EXAMPLE OF LONG TERM CARE. no more than a pound is an example of a place to put dogs... 15 years in a 2x2 box would not make for a happy puppy. Also fish stores have HUGE amounts of water inter connected... their 10gallon tank has thousands of gallons running through it!!!! 5-6 very small very small fish is enough and you shouldnt put them all in at once!

ok enough... go get book or search over the web... make notes!!!!! especially on the points up above.
Take your time.. a few months setting up and you will have years of pure enjoyment!

 

[petitericeball]

i lost 2 dwarf gouramis one female and 1 male or 2 males i think... i lost both of them because i didint know of the "cycle" thing and both of them died(i didnt have enough time to cycle my tank because i got my fish before i started reading these forums... so im using this aquasafe stuff and this ammonia chloramine lowerer (and hard metals)
only thing i have left from my original stock about 2 months ago is a pleco and he/shes getting really really big... i never knew they could grow that fast.. dont worry we all make mistakes so theres always a new day (unless you die which is unlikely)
its not your fault no offence but id think youd know not to put 15 fish in at the same time... but oh well whats dun is dun hope your other fish'll be okay (no offence just some constructive criticism hope you didnt take it the wrong way...)
another way to get your ammonia down is i got this little bottle of chloramine and ammonia uhh well it pretty much puts them down and i have a water conditioner and that takes out the hard metals chlorine and another chloramine lowerer (iots called aquasafe) if you havent gotten any of this stuff yet..

 

[lonelyneon]

i've got it all aquasafe and stress zyhm unless there is something else that will work... the stress zyhm is still in its first stages. I change the water everyday but they refuse to budge. the three I have left are still hanging in there and my tank plant is growing faster by the second. it does have black spots on it however. the tank is cloudy and that wont go away either and i feed them about every 2 days if that. yea...

 

[sinistral]

I wonder how long ammonia readings can remain falsely elevated after using Ammo-lock. If you have access to somebody else's test kit you might try using that to double-check your ammonia readings. Also, I think it's very important to get a test kit for nitrites and pH...

 

[Auslander]

I had 2 Golden Gourami, and they can be pretty mean fish. In the end, one of them wouldnt come out of his hiding place, because as soon as he did, the other one would attack him. I woke up one morning to find that my Beta had no fins at all. In the end I took the Gourami back to the shop. If you ask me, this rule applies to all Gourami. I now have 2 Robin Gourmai, and although they are not quite as bad as the Goldens, they can still be aggressive. Its a shame because I really like Gourami. BTW, Gourami and Beta will usually fight each other if they are of a similar size.....they both come from the same Genus.

 

[lonelyneon]

well mine isnt so mean to the others anymore and in fact the white skirt tetra's back fin is all grown back... the levels.. -.-' yeah that... but they are holding steady...

 

[lonelyneon]

HAPPYNESS!! For the first time in forever my ammonia test showed a light green color and i cant find the color chart right now but I kno that it is MUCH lower than before... unfourtunatly I think my sisters tank is slipping but the ammonia spike is inevitable right?? However I have somewhat of a right to do a dance -dances-