Hello,
First off forgive me this is my first forum so i dont know quite how it all works yet. I am not really new to fish keeping as i had a convict chiclid for about 5 yrs and a plecostomus longer and he is my pride and joy!!! however when the chiclid passed about 5 months ago we decided to start a new community tank with no killer fish in it. HAHA since we got the chiclid unknowingly as a small baby and did not know anything about fish at the time. He killed everything save for my pleco. So now we have a nice tank hexigon with a sand and gravel mix at the bottom wich i love and hate still trying to master cleaning but not destroying the floor. We have the pleco and 5 neon tetra 5 zebra danio which are the genetically altered ones so glofish type 3 electric green tetra now they are tetras but not sure what kind originally large roundish ones had 2 red wag plattys now have 7 red wag plattys however. And some regular old opps i got snails snails which i keep but downsize the population when i clean or change water The tank is roughly 40 gal. I am trying to find good homes for some of the plattys so as not to overpoulate the tank but as of now i have 7 one very very tiny! So about 2 weeks ago our pleco became ill and to my surprise since we change water regularly about once a month 50% . however i now know that is a real bad idea and the test strips always said everything was ok also now know they are a bad idea for keeping any real tabs on h2o conditions. Anyways i rushed to the pet store and got directed to melafix to help now i used it for 5 days without carbon (bad Idea also) ploto is now on the mend and doing well. However in the process of trying desparitly to save him i found out a lot of things and also had a very nice bacterial bloom which i later found out could happen only contributing to his rapid breathing. so i freaked out and did a 50% water change and rushed a sample of water to the pet store where they told me all was well and of course did this with test strips. The more i read on forums and web i began to wonder. So i picked up an API master freshwater test kit O BOY well ammonia is at .25 PH 8 Nitrite .25 and Nitrate 40ppm not so ok so off i go again to the pet store and spend hours reading info on line. I finally resolved to buy two jugs of ready water and API nitazorb and Phos zorb filters for my filter in hopes of bringing levels down. The tank has been up and running now about 5 months and i should think it is cycled by now
Also i bought biomax rings and stufed them into most of the open space inside my filter I have a Rena hob type filter with as of now one biochem charcoal filter one nitra zorb and one phos zorb inside. THe last water change was yesterday with the about 5 gal of ready water. I feed the fish once in the am about 8 ish and once in afternoon 3ish then ploto gets a wafer after the lights out a 8pm. the tank also got 4 new java ferns and a melon sword and a amazon sword yesterday as well. I cannot seem to get my ammonia and nitrites to 0 no matter what i do and i would also like to get my nitrates under 40ppm just to be safe.Also today after testing my tap water on sat decided to get an API tap water filter to help add only great water from now on in hopes that i can bring down ph and all the rest. So here is my story and now please anyone with advice or needing more spicifics or scoldings please inform me I feel like i just discovered how really involved keeping my little gems happy is and like i have been doing it all wrong for a very long time.O the temp sits constant at between 79 and 82 however i only have the stick on temp gages to go buy but there are 4 of them 2 high and 2 low in seperate areas to give me a general idea. Thanks to all who have input info ect in advance!!!
