Help! I Think I Have A Bad Problem.

[henryfg]

Hi everyone. I am looking for some help here, I have got into quite an odd situation here.

So, it started with my girlfriend buying me a small aquarium for christmas. The tank is 30x30x35cm and holds 31 litres of water. Now, she wanted to give me the tank with plants and fish in it, so she held onto it for a while and followed the advice of the people at the local fish shop. This is where the problems begin. She was told to fill the tank with dechlorinated water and leave the tank running with the filter etc. for a week before buying fish. They also gave her a bag of gravel from the shop tank (UGF by the looks of things) and a bottle of water from a tank in the shop as well to seed the filter. During this week she planted the tank. After the week had elapsed she went back and bought 6 red-eye tetras and 1 otto (again, on the advice of the people in the lfs) to put in the tank, then gave me the tank, fish and all, as a (late) christmas present. She also told me that after 2 weeks (again, local fish shop advice) I could add more fish. So, after 2 weeks I went to the shop, told the clerk the situation with my tank size, age, filtration type and current inhabitants and asked what fish I could add, then left the shop with a p[air of dwarf gourami (male and female), very pleased with myself.

The first fish went in Jan 2nd, the filter was turned on 1 week before that. The gouramis went in on the 16th.

Now, I am not a particularly tech-savvy person, and I don't use the internet very much at all and simply trusted that the people at the fish shop (by the way, it turns out that the entire body of adivce came from 2 different people) were giving good advice to me and my girlfriend. After browsing the internet a bit I discovered that, in fact, I was in big trouble.


Here are my problems. 1) it seems that the tank has not had long enought to properly cycle. However, the fish are behaving perfectly fine, the oto (apparently a fragile species) is still alive after nearly a month. Haven't got test equipment but as soon as I get a chance I will, that will be Saturday.

2) The red-eye tetra, despite what the guy in the fish shop said, will grow too big for my tank. They are currently 1 inch long but I am sure will grow faster than I think.

3) the tank is probably overstocked, and if not now it WILL be when everything grows to full size. This will put a lot of straibn on the filter and lead to bad water quality.

SO, what do I do? The complicating factor is the my girlfriend will almost certainly be very upset if she thinks that she did something wrong, or (and perhaps more importanlty) is she feels like she bought me an inadequate tank for christmas. SO, ideal solution would be to keep the small tank that she got me and to stock it properly. Ideally (now this is probably a long shot) I would find a species that is similar enough to the red-eyes to replace them so that she wouldn't notice (she is only in town once a month now, she is at uni, so she doesn't see them a lot). As for the gouramis hopefully they can stay, but I do not want to be cruel to fish (despite the fact I may already have, unwittingly).

If I DO have to ditch fish, where do I take them? Back to the shop? What can I keep in the tank and what has to go? What can I put in instead?

Thanks in advance for helping, I'm ina real pickle here.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there Henry and Welcome to TFF!

Its somewhat unusual but I do believe you've correctly diagnosed all your problems yourself! Good job! (not that it helps the situation much, lol)

You are doing the correct thing to be seeking a good test kit. (Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit.) Post up your tap and tank results once you've figured out how to do the tests correctly. Hopefully we will find that you have more or less fish-in cycled the tank without really monitoring it much.

I have no immediate insights into creative solutions for the overstocking problem that will still have a good chance of keeping your girlfriend happy, but there are lots of great members here and I'm sure we'll get creative ideas.

The important thing is that you've indeed stumbled on the real thing: a really wonderful serious hobbyist site (in my opinion) with information that will be very good if you allow time for all the various bits to flow in from the members. We have members who are quite good with stocking, so I'm sure some of those will be along to analyze the current situation and suggest things.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Assaye]

1) it seems that the tank has not had long enought to properly cycle. However, the fish are behaving perfectly fine, the oto (apparently a fragile species) is still alive after nearly a month. Haven't got test equipment but as soon as I get a chance I will, that will be Saturday.

Bingo. In order to sustain life, the eco-system in the tank (or more accurately, the filter) needs to be comprised of two species of very important bacteria. You might be lucky and fins that when you test your water, this cycle (i.e. the growing of the bacteria) has already happened since you had the tank or you may find that it is still going on, and you have detectable readings for ammonia and nitrite. If the latter is the case, you'll need to take evasive action. Sorting the problem is as simple as testing the water daily for ammonia and nitrite and doing large water changes as necessary to get the levels to ZERO on both tests. While you are doing this the tank will continue to cycle and you should find everything calming down after a couple of weeks.

Well done for working out the problem. Hopefully the fish will not have been hurt too much but I am afraid you should expect a few untimely casualties.

2) The red-eye tetra, despite what the guy in the fish shop said, will grow too big for my tank. They are currently 1 inch long but I am sure will grow faster than I think.

This is also true. These guys need rather larger tanks - ideally 60+ litres - and are very active. A better kind of tetra would be green neon tetra, platinum tetra or ember tetra. Even the platinums may get too large. You want fish that stay under an inch.

3) the tank is probably overstocked, and if not now it WILL be when everything grows to full size. This will put a lot of straibn on the filter and lead to bad water quality.

Correct. The oto needs some friends and with the large tetras, the two gourami and 4+ otos, you'll be WAY overstocked. I would suggest keeping the otos, getting some smaller tetra and getting rid of the gouramis totally. If you would like some gouramis, a species like sparkling gourami would be great! That would give you (say):

6 x ember tetra
4 x otos
1 x sparkling gourami

Which would be pretty much perfect!

SO, what do I do? The complicating factor is the my girlfriend will almost certainly be very upset if she thinks that she did something wrong, or (and perhaps more importanlty) is she feels like she bought me an inadequate tank for christmas. SO, ideal solution would be to keep the small tank that she got me and to stock it properly. Ideally (now this is probably a long shot) I would find a species that is similar enough to the red-eyes to replace them so that she wouldn't notice (she is only in town once a month now, she is at uni, so she doesn't see them a lot). As for the gouramis hopefully they can stay, but I do not want to be cruel to fish (despite the fact I may already have, unwittingly).

I can appreciate this. My friends got me a 15 litre tank for my birthday and I ended up with 5 neon tetra . . . now I only use the 14 litre tank as a hospital tank. My friends are a little miffed but I explained why it wasn't suitable for keeping the fish I wanted and they understood. I guess you just have to be delicate about it. If she notices you've swapped the fish without telling her she may feel reall bad as she'll assume you didn't like them. I guess it would be easier to tell her that the shop mislead her.

If I DO have to ditch fish, where do I take them? Back to the shop? What can I keep in the tank and what has to go? What can I put in instead?

The shop may take them back, or you could try local classified adds or the classified section on here. I'm sure someone can provide a home!

Check out our Beginners' Resource Centre

 

[Curiosity101]

In this instance I would say honesty is the best policy. Tell her everything you now know. And make sure it is clearly worded so that the fish shop is the bad guy that mislead you both. And that she had no way of knowing. And also explain that it is a VERY common occurance that fish shop employees are simply employees that work in a fish shop. Not hobbyists who have specifically gone to work in a fish shop.

Good news...there really are a decent number of aquatic life (so not just fish), that you could house in that size of tank. I'm sure once you start showing your girlfriend the different types you could have (aswell as suggesting she pick something from the list) she'll be happy enough.

Bad news...only the otto is suitable for that tank long term. And really it should have a buddy or two.

 

[henryfg]

Thanks for the advice so quick! I definitely feel like I can deal with this a bit better than I did! I have never had fish before, but I always wanted to (the input behind the present, clearly) and then when I started reading a bit of stuff online I totally freaked out! I thought I was going to get home and find all my fish floating on top of the tank.

So, like I said, I think I know what to do now.

FIrst step is dealing with the cycling. 2 questions here. Firstly, is there any chance that the tank and filter are fully colonised, yet I can still detect ammonia and nitrite? Perhaps die to over stocking or the bacteria being unable to cope with the waste output. Is this realistic or would my tank have to be completely stuffed for this to happen? I have a filter that hangs on the back of the tank, it's a 250l/h model and has a sponge about the size of a pack of playing cards (but as thick as a pack and a half) for biological filtration. I have a friend with an established tank, perhaps stealing some of his filter media and chucking it in the tank would help?

And secondly, how large is a large water change? And will doing this every day stress my fish out? Considering they may be already stressed due to (potential) ammonia and nitrite build up, could this be fatal?


The next thing I need to sort out is my stocking. Again, a few more questions (and this might be a good time to mention, I'm sorry for the barrage of questions, but at least you can all feel good knowing how much you're helping me out here! Thanks again). So firstly, the tetra, and more specifically finding some small enough for the tank. Thank you for the reccomendations, much appreciated since I'm still new at this and I don't know that much! After talking to a friend and doing a (small) bit of research I found a couple of other potentials, I thought I could run these by you ghuys, who obviously know what you're talking about. FIrstly the lemon tetra. Apparently, it grows to a small size, and also has a good enough resemblance to the red-eye tetra I was initially given. Perhaps this is a possibility? Then other things I have heard are black neons, black/red phantoms and glowlights. Any thoughts? ANd finally, neons would be a bad idea right? I hear they're super-fragile, and need a very well matured tank... cardinals?

And Curiosity101, I think you're pretty much on the money with the types and list idea there. SO what sort of stuff would be on that list that we can look at together?


One more time, thanks to everyone that replied! This forum has been pretty great, I think maybe I should stick around and end my naivity!

 

[Curiosity101]

Yes there is a possibility your filter could currently be being overloaded, in which case you would still have ammonia and nitrite present in the water. But I dont think that will be happening.
If you could get your friend to squeeze out their filter media into a bag you could use that to help seed your filter. The best thing would be a sample of their actual filter media though.

As for larger water changes, this is normally meaning somewhere between 50-80%, but basically it's whatever is neccesary to get levels to what they need to be.
With fish in cyling you aim to keep ammonia and nitrites below 0.25ppm.
And it's a myth that water changes are stressful in a bad way. Yes it's true that if you don't change any water for a very long time, then the water in the tank will be very different to that in your tap, and so a large water changes could cause various types of shock to the fish. But in a normal, well maintained tank, 50+% changes really shouldn't be an issue and it's better that than having high levels of ammonia and nitrites.
Just a second note, often large water changes are used to trigger spawning in fish.

I'd personally say no to lemon tetras, but they're easily a better option than the red eyes. Same goes for glowlight and red phantoms.

However the black neons are a reasonable choice, as are black phantoms

To add to your possible list...
Green neon tetras, ember tetras, cherry barbs, dwarf rasbora (Boraras maculatus) and Hengel's Rasbora.
And that's JUST shoaling fish and just off the top of my head.

Other possibile inhabitants (not neccesarily fish or shoaling species)
Sparkling/pygmy gouramis (absolutely gorgeous little fish, perfect for small tanks as they are very shy and tend to do well in smaller volumes)
Scarlet Badis
Male betta splenden (Siamese fighting fish)
Possibly some of the apistogrammas (eg. Cockatoo Apisto)
Shrimp - Cherry shrimp, snowball shrimp, tiger shrimp, bee shrimp, crystal red shrimp, amano shrimp (list is practically endless)
Snails - Apple snail, nerite snails
African dwarf frog(s)

 

[Kitty_Nin]

Assaye and Curiosity will steer you right! I just wanted to say kudos to you for trying to do right by your fish. Most people don't care/get defensive, and then wonder why their fish die every 2 weeks.

 

[karin]

One other possibility for the girlfriend issue is to get so into this small tank and all the interesting issues that you have found and all the challenge in creative problem solving that you turn to her gushing with exuberance and say, "HONEY! I love this soooooo much I want a bigger tank! Lets go buy this one together."

 

[henryfg]

Curiosity101, far out man, that's a good looking list! Looks like I got more options than I thought! So I'm thinking a school of fish and then one larger fish on it's own, that'll be a good look for my tank I think! Then with otos or shrimp! I think I have found a home for the tetra too, a friend of mine has a brother away at uni and just yesterday sold a red tailed shark (I think? Something like that) from his 90l aquarium leaving it with only 6 zebra danios inside, so my friend (the brother NOT at uni) has said he can take the tetras off me and put them in that tank!

So this is obviously good news. It's now just a case of choosing the right schooling fish, and perhaps talking him into taking the gouramis too! Then finding something solitary and pretty.

Now one more question. I'm afraid you've really piqued my interest. Tell me about African Dwarf Frogs! My initial instinct is that I can't keep them since I have no dry land in my tank and they are, presumably, amphibians. Perhaps, though, I'm wrong? So what's the deal with these? Would they fit in my tank well? How many does one need? How delicate are they etc. etc.?

 

[Curiosity101]

Hmm red tailed shark. That reminds me, please don't get any of the follow (regardless of what ANY fish shop person tells you). Chinese algae eater (sometimes called golden algae eater), red tailed shark, rainbow shark or flying fox (sometimes confused with ottos)

African dwarf frogs, lovely little things, but they're quite timid. So long as they have plenty of cover and peaceful tank mates then they're a nice addition to any set-up. Only thing to note is that they are fully aquatic, but do go to the surface to breath. And they're a little bit slow to feed at times, so either need to be with relatively slow fish or have to have food squirted at them with a turkey baster/syringe.

What is the pH in your tank? I could put together a couple of lists if you'd like? Just examples so you can get a feel for some rough stocking levels.

 

[henryfg]

yeah! That would be great, I'd really appreciate it! So my pH is between 7.5 and 8.5, but that's only based on universal indicator solution I got from the lab I work in, rather than actual aquarium test kits. I wonder if it is, in fact, the same stuff in the aquarium kits anyway? Basically it's a horrible coloured liquid that goes from a deep red for the most acidic right up to a deep violet for the most alkaline, with neutral being a nice leafy green colour. The colour I get from using this universal indicator solution is is a sort of teal colour. That's how I say 7.5-8.5, since 7.5 is a good green, and 8/5 is a good blue, and what I have is green AND blue! I hope that helps!

I will be getting a test kit on Saturday though (unfortunately I go to work before the shops open and come back after they close!) so if this is not an accurate enough pH, I can tell you then. But anyway, some lists would be fantastic. Then, hopefully!, I can fix the problems.

 

[Assaye]

I might as well join in with the list making.

1)

6 x ember tetra
4 x otos
1 x sparkling gourami

2)

3 x african dwarf frogs
1 x betta splendens

3)

1 x betta splendens
10 x cherry shrimp (or other small, ornamental shrimp)
1 x apple snail OR 2 x zebra nerite snail

4)

6 x galaxy rasbora/celestial pearl danio (same fish)
4 x oto
2 x apple snail

5)

1 x dwarf puffer

So many awesome fish!

Aside from pH needs and such, there are a couple of things to remember:

Shoaling fish need 6 or more members of the shoal and should not be more than an inch long for your little tank. Centrepiece fish shouldn't be more than 2 inches or so (the larger the fish, the more sedate and slow moving it needs to be). You also need to make sure you get fish that all like similar pH, water hardness and temperature. Many fish are very adaptable but you wouldn't keep temperate danios in 28 celcius water, for example.

 

[Curiosity101]

Just a note - Sparkling gouramis shouldn't be kept as single fish. If you did that you'd never see it. You need a group of at least 3, with 4-5 being best.

I'll put up a couple of my own idea in a bit when I have more time

 

[Assaye]

Just a note - Sparkling gouramis shouldn't be kept as single fish. If you did that you'd never see it. You need a group of at least 3, with 4-5 being best.

I'll put up a couple of my own idea in a bit when I have more time

I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out =)

 

[Curiosity101]

I learnt from experience. They're SUCH pretty little fish. But they're extremely shy and very small.
I'm debating getting a trio for my shrimp tank next year.

I was having a think and I don't have a huge amount to add to assayes list.

Main fish (a single one of any of the following):
Honey Gourami (male or female, any colour variety)
Male Betta Splenden
Male Cockatoo Apisto

Shoaling fish - Can't think of anything to add to my list other than Assayes additions.