Courting Disaster...

[bluetrane2028]

Hello all,

Yesterday, I took posession of a 29 gallon tank, along with a dozen or so Convict Cichlids that had been neglected badly.

The previous owner had NEVER done a water change, never changed the filter media (over a 3 month period of time), and only fed the fish a TON of food, once a week.

There was a LOT of debris in the substrate, I filled a 15 gallon bucket with totally black water as I disassembled the tank.

Now for the problem.

I was given the lot of it for free, and I had to act fast or else I wasn't going to get the setup (it's all very new and nice).

The tank has been set up again at my house, but only about 5 percent of the water is original, and the filter media was not able to be re-used (obviousy). The tap water is not that great at my house, it reeks of chlorine (although I did use Tetra AquaSafe or whatever it's called...). The only possible good fortune for these fish is that I managed to keep the gravel wet (I had no choice but to leave it in the tank, along with about an inch of water... so far no leaks). However, I'm fairly certain the cycle is absolutely blown, as I lost one fish overnight already. It seems that I'm now going to pay for the mistake of another by watching these fascinating Convicts die one by one. I need to pick up a testing kit on my way home from work (where I am now) to see just how bad the quality of the water still is. I just want a little advice in maybe speeding up the cycle in the new tank.

I also know that a dozen convicts in a 29 gallon is probably (definitely) too many, but that's a problem for another time.

I have never kept Convicts before (I hear they breed like rabbits), but I'm already guessing they're pretty hardy... I just hope they're hardy enough to deal with this one (hopefully last) transgression against them. I feel like by rescuing them I may have sealed their fate.

Any thoughts would be welcome.


My avatar is a Jaguar Cichlid that was also part of this mess. I didn't have enough space to keep it and a large Wolf fish as well. It's a shame too, the Jaguar looked awesome....

 

[Gatorbait]

I would have dumped 100% of the water as it doesn't contain much beneficial bacteria anyways and with it being black like that... JMO and maybe for future use if you run into somthing like this again.

I think your best bet may be to go to the lfs and see if you can borrow some of their filter material for a couple weeks to throw in there until yours gets established. I would also try to do daily wc's of at least 15-20%.

Good luck to you. Cichlids like convicts are very hardy fish but they did go through a lot before you got to them. If they weren't hardy though, they'd be dead by now so you can probably achieve success.

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

I would just seed some media. Go to a good pet store, and pick up some foam media. Look for a nice clean tank with healthy fish. Ask if they could squeeze the foam cartridge in the tank you choose into a bag. Place the media you bought into the bag and let it sit for a good half hour. take it out and use it. This has never failed for me.

 

[bluetrane2028]

The "media squeeze" sounds like a really good idea! I can do this with media from one of my established tanks, too! On another positive note, I haven't lost more fish, and it's been about 32 hours since I've had it set up. The tank looks really clear and clean, which of course doesn't mean anything, but it makes me feel better. I will continue with water changes and keep you all posted.

 

[shroob]

Cons are super hardy fish, some people use them to cycle tanks (not recommended but some do), so I should think they will be ok.

If you have another tank, you can take some media from that one and put it in the new tanks filter, that way its sort of an instant cycle.

Another problem though will be the number of cons you have, if it hasn't happened already expect a pair to form (more likely numerous pairs). In a 29g they will procede to kill of other pairs until you are only left with 1 pair, try and start rehoming as many fish as possible until you are down to a pair. Though be warned if you find it hard to rehome the fish, it may not be wise to have a pair, as these will produce LARGE amounts of new cons.

 

[ox5477]

I agree with the daily water changes. Botu all you can do until the media is seeded either through borrowing some or waiting on the new media.

Def look into getting a bigger tank, or numerous similarly sized tanks (3 or 4 if possible). If your lfs will take them, try to take all but maybe 2 to the lfs as the point made numerous times that before you know it, pairs will form and they will start killing eachother (cons are prob the most prolific breeders out of NW cichlids and become super aggressive once eggs are layed).

This is a hard situation as you were trying to do the right thing, but if you can't give the fish exactly what they need, you may still have to make some tough decisions.

 

[Tobigara]

you been given good advice by the others so i can't really comment on that...but i just wanted to to tell you that i think you did a good thing by taking those cons and working to give them a chance. ::tips hat::

 

[bluetrane2028]

Thanks for the encouragement about taking these little guys on. I feel I should give the whole story. The person who decided he did not want his fish anymore had a 55 gallon and a 29 gallon. The 55 had the convicts in it, and the 29 had one 10" wolf fish and one 6" jaguar (see avatar). The guy for whatever reason wanted to hold onto the 55 gallon tank, but knowing that I was trying to do the right thing he gave me the 29, as a complete setup. I could only take one or the other set of fish, and being as I did not want to have to get feeder fish all the time, and also do not have an extra tank to keep feeders in, I decided to trade (more like give away) the wolf and the jaguar to the LFS (the 29 was too small for them anyways). The guy there was under the impression that the Convicts would get along okay in my 29, if he would have told me otherwise I would have given him the extras and been done with it right then and there (gotta love under informed LFS workers... and this was an aquarium specific store!). Aargh, I'm torn... on one hand, they're schooling right now and it looks REALLY cool, but on the other I know that once they get bigger (most are 1 inch or a little less), the utopia will be shattered with bloodshed. My apartment is at its capacity right now, and my 10 gallon is still in my parents house... they want it outta there too, in short I can't get a 55 or higher or even another 29.

I'll try to re-home the convicts among my friends, some of which have more space.

Thanks again for the advice and encouragement, hopefully my next topics will be a little more cheerful!

 

[bluetrane2028]

UPDATE:

I think they're out of the woods now. I didn't lose all the beneficial bacteria in the substrate when I moved the tank, which has caused the cycle to get on exceedingly fast. Through the whole ordeal, I only lost 2 fish, both in the first day due to stress and damage when being netted. I dropped off six convicts at the LFS today, and kept the remaining six for myself. Six may still be too much for a 29, but I wanted to try to keep the best looking fish out of the original fourteen, and I think I've accomplished that so far. Due to the overbreeding of Cons, I was only able to get 5 dollars in trade for them, which I spent on a background for my 5.5gal, and a small part for one of my filters.

Thanks again for the advice and help... I'm pretty knowledgeable about keeping a tank going well, but this zero prep time emergency tank moving thing was a totally new experience.