Feeding.

[Beefy]

Hi folkes great forum here, glad I found it
My boss gave me a fish tank with all the hardware, got it all set up and finally got some fish yesterday. The tanks a 30" don't know how many gallons it holds.
I bought 5 neons, a plec and 2 black moores.
For the plec I bought a feeding supplement in pellet form as it's a clean fresh tank with no algae as yet. But instead of the Plec eating the suplpement, the black moores ate it and the plec ate the tropical fish food. Now then apart from my concern at the fish overeating, is it normal for the Plec to eat the fish food and will the supplement do any harm to the moores? Also will my Plec be getting enough to eat?
Should I maybe feed the Plec at a diffent time to the other fish. I really don't know what to do. I've always wanted to keep a small fish tank, but am concerned I may kill my fish off very quickly.
Your help and advice wil be greatly appreciated.

Yours
Beefy.

 

[Alien Anna]

Oh dear Where do we start?

I don't want to sound horribly negative and critical when you've just taken your fish steps into the fascinating world of fish keeping, but I really wish you'd found us the day before, not the day after. However, I will try to help because joining this forum suggests you really want to do it right.

The first thing you need to know about is cycling your tank. Without this knowledge, you may well lose all your fish so please follow the link in my sig and study my article. It will tell you everything you need to know and should help save your fish that are currently in mortal danger

You have about a 20 gallon tank. The general rule-of-thumb is one inch of fish length (not including tails) per gallon of water. This is a potential problem because a plec, if its a common plec, can easily grow to 20" long alone. As you've discovered, it eats everything in sight and is very messy. It will need a 55-75 gallon aquarium eventually and I would strongly advise you to take it back to the shop. There are dwarf varieties available, once your tank is properly cycled.

Black moors can not only grow very large and are very messy, greedy fish, they are also cold water fish and will not do well in a tropical tank. You should not mix tropical and cold water fish as neither will do well and the black moors will probably eat your neons. Black moors are a kind of goldfish and like all goldfish they need 5-10 gallons each and heavy duty filtration. Goldfish are not beginner fish, despite their popularity with beginners.

So basically, you have to decide if you want tropical fish or cold water fish. Given the size of your tank, I'd suggest a tropical tank would be more interesting, so return the black moors to the shop and maybe swap them with some more tropical fish. However, since your tank is not cycled, you have several options

1. Return all the fish to the shop and use Fishless Cycling techniques (see links in my article). This would be the option I'd recommend as your combination of fish is so unsuitable anyway. You can get a credit note to buy some more tropical fish in a couple of weeks when your tank is cycled

2. Cycle the tank with the black moors, having taken the tropical fish back to the shop (the pleco because it's unsuitable for your tank and the neons for their own safety). If the black moors survive you can swap them for tropicals at that point, or just keep cold water fish.

3. Cycle the tank with black moors, neons and a pleco. The black moors may suffer in the warm water and not survive cycling, the neons may be eaten or not survive cycling and the pleco is not likely to survive cycling and may make the whole ammonia situation worse. I personally believe this would be the worst option and will probably leave you with horrendous algae and dead fish.

In the meantime, you need to cut back feeding to an absolute bare minimum if those fish are to survive long enough to go back to the shop. You should feed one pinch of food per day, no more, with at least one day of fasting per week. Fish being cold water creatures require far less food than an equivalent-sized mammal and too much food will kill them, as you are already aware.

You also need to change 10-15% of the water every day, or twice a day if the ammonia level is high. Don't forget to use dechlorinator.

 

[Beefy]

Hi Anne!
Thanks for the reply. I'm going to take all my fish back to the shop and do the fishless recycling method before getting new ones. I want to do this right!
Your right about the black moors their bloody greedy things constantly scavaging for food. They haven't had a go at the neons yet and I'm not going to give them the chance either.
Thanks again for your constructive critisism. It's helped a lot.


Beefy.

 

[Alien Anna]

Hi Anne!
Thanks for the reply. I'm going to take all my fish back to the shop and do the fishless recycling method before getting new ones. I want to do this right!
Your right about the black moors their bloody greedy things constantly scavaging for food. They haven't had a go at the neons yet and I'm not going to give them the chance either.
Thanks again for your constructive critisism. It's helped a lot.


Beefy.

Beefy,
I'm so relieved you took my advice the way it was meant - I just hate to see newbies losing all their fish and getting discouraged. This is a great hobby but its a complicated hobby, and difficult to get right.

I'm sure you've made the right decision and once you've got your tank prepared and cycled properly it will be great fun to work out how you're going to stock it. Good luck with the fish shop tomorrow - if they give you any trouble, stand in the middle of the shop with the fish and refuse to budge until they take them back.

 

[Eelzor]

Yes, I had to do it the hard way for me. Continuingly getting fish and them dying over and over again. This was about 7 years ago. I was a child, and the internet was not really known with me. Until 7 years later I decided to look about it on the web and found this forum. Now my tank is being cyclyed and is about half-way there! Glad to see AA has helped you (beefy) with taking care of the fish!

 

[Beefy]

Shop refused to take them back
They won't be getting my business again that's for sure

Yup Eelzor these forums are much better then live chatting IMHO.


Beefy.

 

[Juggernaut22988]

Just separate the goldfish from the tropicals

Goldfish dont like warm water and will eat tropicals when they get big
Moors get really big!

Try selling the moors

 

[Eelzor]

Shop refused to take them back 
They won't be getting my business again that's for sure 

Yup Eelzor these forums are much better then live chatting IMHO.


Beefy.

ohno!, Not good to hear that! Bad shop. Well, in this emergency, I reccommend to buy an instant cycling product that protects the fish quite well. Well it worked for me when I ran into the same accident as you did.

Edit.s: As for the moores and tropical being together, you must remove the moores or the tropical fish. Somehow, or just let them die. I really wouldn't like to be in the position that you are in now.

HTH

 

[Beefy]

Edit.s: As for the moores and tropical being together, you must remove the moores or the tropical fish. Somehow, or just let them die. I really wouldn't like to be in the position that you are in now.

Yeah! I thought about letting them die too! But that's not fare really. I know someone who used to have goldfish. Maybe he would like to take them off my hands. I really like the neons and don't want them to get gobbled up Also I think I'd better look out for the quick cycling stuff too.
I'm in a bit of a dillema but will deffinitely learn from it.

Beefy.

 

[Alien Anna]

Sorry to hear the shop refused to take them back, but they did sound like idiots. Get on the phone and ring round until you find a shop that will take your fish - I'd be very surprised if you couldn't find someone to help you out. The bonus will be that that way you may find out where the good shops are (see, if they were sensible businessmen they'd realise that if they helped you out, you'd likely come back, and given the addictive nature of the hobby... )

Another thing you could do is donate the black moors to someone with a pond. As around and see if there are any pond owners in your vacinity.

The pleco will be OK for a while (assuming he survives cycling) as he's only a baby.

Don't forget: the other LFS are idiots and you should never darken their door again!

 

[Eelzor]

Another thing you could do is donate the black moors to someone with a pond. As around and see if there are any pond owners in your vacinity.

Better not to put black moores in ponds as they are one of the more weaker breeds of goldfish and are more likely to die. Like aa said, try putting the moores in someone elses coldwater tank or in a shop to hold on to them for a while.

 

[platypus]

Hi Beefy,

Sorry you're having such a bad experience with your new fish . It's cool that you're really determined to do the right thing though, nice one . As AA says, you may find another shop that will take your fish back - I managed to find one that has let me take back loads of fish that I didn't even buy from there, so it definitely can be done.

If this doesn't work, something else that might help would be if you could get hold of some media from someone else's tank. Anything, like gravel, or a filter sponge, or even water, will contain the beneficial bacteria you need to get your tank cycled. If your lfs won't accept the fish back, the least they can do is give you a bag of gravel or some sponges. That's if you trust them not to be disease ridden that is!

Good luck and keep us posted how it all goes - hopefully this story will have a happy ending

 

[platypus]

Just found this website which lists two aquarium stockists in Southport - hope it helps!

 

[Alien Anna]

Re. the black moors, I suppose the weather is getting rather too cold to acclimatise indoor fish to outside ponds anyway, so that probably wasn't a good suggestion. However, pond shops (try your local garden centre) have indoor ponds and might be able to take your fish, is you can't find a decent LFS.

I think the shop you got them from are disgusting - fancy not even telling you that you'd got cold and tropical water fish together! And not telling you the adult size of the common pleco! I'm really appalled.

Don't even get me started on the lack of cycling advice - even traditional methods don't involve stuffing a tank full of fish to start with (traditionally you start with a couple of danios or something like that).

Anyway, I just hope this unfortunate experience doesn't put you off. You like your neons so that's a place to start. Not the best of fish to attempt to cycle with but if you have just the neons in the tank and nothing else, you may get away with it.

 

[Juggernaut22988]

Give the moors to a friend