Hi, New Fishkeeper

[shawsharp]

Hi everyone. Finally after years of wanting admiring fish I have finally got my own tank. I bought it over a week ago and considered carefully how I wanted to go about this as I want to ensure that before I leap into the hobby of caring for lots of fish in huge tanks, that I know I cans safely do so. So I have a 40 litre Askoll Pure M! It has it's own built in mechanical, biological and chemical filtration system with filter and a heater as I want to keep tropical fish.

I set the tank up over a week ago and have a couple of rocks and some silk plants with blue gravel stones.

After letting things settle for a week or so, I went to one of my local fish stores to buy some Biomature as advised on another forum for my 4 week fish cycle but ended up leaving the store with 6 fish and a me tank stability product called "Stability"

I expressed my concerns the store owner that I wanted to cycle the tank correctly and then introduce fish in a few weeks. He said you don't need to do that these days and showed me this Stability product which he said is totally safe.

So I thought about it and questioned him and went with it. My tank is only 40 litres so 5ml of this product on the first day followed by 7 days of half a capful 2.5ml.

FISH- I have put 4 small neon tetra in the tank with 2 Gourami, a female gold gourami and a male smaller blue gourami. All seems well and I am feeding them twice a day with JBL Novo color flakes. I have a couple of rocks in the tank with two fake silk plants and small blue gravel base. The neon tetra seem to want to hide all the time around the back of one of the rocks and will not come out even at feeding time especially if the light is on which does seem very bright. They will come out if the lights off but not very often. I think they are probably just a bit weary of the gourami and perhaps do not feel safe in a shoal of four?

To get the food flakes down to the tetra hiding down behind the rock I have to also put the flakes in at the end of my filter system where the water is being forced back down into the tank as this pushes the flakes down to them

The female gourami chases the male a lot especially at feeding time. Are they both going to be ok in this environment?

Would it be safe for me to introduce more neon tetra now to give them more support/strength in numbers or should I wait a while yet

I also bought my self a API freshwater master test kit which I have not used yet

Hi
 
Its a little bit late from my side but anyways

  to the TFF, its the right place you can share your problem regarding your 

  tank...

 

[Fishmanic]

a dwarf gourami would be more appropriate for you tank size but don't get it till the tank is fully cycled.  

 

[Paddski]

Hi and welcome! Sorry a bit of a late welcome from me!
Sorry to hear your LFS persuaded you to get fish before your tank was cycled. Lesson number one learned here, be wary of ANY advice given by LFS until you know they are knowledgeable and not just after your money!
Fluttermoth is giving excellent advice in saying to do large water changes and to return the fishes if you can (yes, a net will help! )
I'd also advise you to do things this way as well anyway and recommend to start afresh with fishless cycling.
You are also doing thing the right thing by asking lots of questions on this forum and heeding advice given. Doing some research will also help you.
We will help you as much as we can.

Thanks for the welcome, I am learning fast

 

[Paddski]

Hi everyone. Finally after years of wanting admiring fish I have finally got my own tank. I bought it over a week ago and considered carefully how I wanted to go about this as I want to ensure that before I leap into the hobby of caring for lots of fish in huge tanks, that I know I cans safely do so. So I have a 40 litre Askoll Pure M! It has it's own built in mechanical, biological and chemical filtration system with filter and a heater as I want to keep tropical fish.
I set the tank up over a week ago and have a couple of rocks and some silk plants with blue gravel stones.
After letting things settle for a week or so, I went to one of my local fish stores to buy some Biomature as advised on another forum for my 4 week fish cycle but ended up leaving the store with 6 fish and a me tank stability product called "Stability"
I expressed my concerns the store owner that I wanted to cycle the tank correctly and then introduce fish in a few weeks. He said you don't need to do that these days and showed me this Stability product which he said is totally safe.
So I thought about it and questioned him and went with it. My tank is only 40 litres so 5ml of this product on the first day followed by 7 days of half a capful 2.5ml.
FISH- I have put 4 small neon tetra in the tank with 2 Gourami, a female gold gourami and a male smaller blue gourami. All seems well and I am feeding them twice a day with JBL Novo color flakes. I have a couple of rocks in the tank with two fake silk plants and small blue gravel base. The neon tetra seem to want to hide all the time around the back of one of the rocks and will not come out even at feeding time especially if the light is on which does seem very bright. They will come out if the lights off but not very often. I think they are probably just a bit weary of the gourami and perhaps do not feel safe in a shoal of four?
To get the food flakes down to the tetra hiding down behind the rock I have to also put the flakes in at the end of my filter system where the water is being forced back down into the tank as this pushes the flakes down to them
The female gourami chases the male a lot especially at feeding time. Are they both going to be ok in this environment?
Would it be safe for me to introduce more neon tetra now to give them more support/strength in numbers or should I wait a while yet
I also bought my self a API freshwater master test kit which I have not used yet

Hi
 
Its a little bit late from my side but anyways   to the TFF, its the right place you can share your problem regarding your   tank...

Thank you

 

[Paddski]

a dwarf gourami would be more appropriate for you tank size but don't get it till the tank is fully cycled.

Thank you for advise I will research more

 

[Paddski]

Just keep on emptying your bowl. You really do need to change at least half the water
 
Don't forget that, until your tank is cycled, the ammonia will be going up all the time. You will not harm your fish by doing large or multiple water changes, whereas the ammonia and nitrite can kill fish or cause them long term health problems.
 
Doing small water changes will not reduce the ammonia enough to be safe for your fish; it needs to be brought down as soon as possible.

I think they are doing ok, but what do I know. The tetra look to have some very small white spots I noticed today so I have turned the temp up a little.

Have done another 33% water change today. How soon can you test the ammonia and nitrite after a water change?

The water in my area is very hard and so I have water softners in my house. These can be turned on and off so as to divert the water away from the softener if you require and this is what I have been doing when taking water for the tank.

Would it be better filling the tank with softened water?

I did some test of the hard water against the soft water and there was no diff in readings really but the nitrate may have been slightly lower on the soft water at 10ppm, it's difficult to tell really.

The ph reads blue 7.6 on the test kit of low ph and reads light brown 7.4 on the high ph test. I have read the ideal ph for tetra is around 6.8 so should I buy some ph lower or struggle on and wait until the tank is cycled?

 

[Ch4rlie]

Ok, white spots on fish are not a particularly good sign am afraid. Keep an eye on that and report if any changes at all asap.
 
You can test water parameters about an hour after water changes, although if you are using Seachem Prime for de-chlorinator, that sometimes gives false ammonia readings. But still, give it at least an hour before doing any testing.
 
Would not recommend using the water softener for your tank, just stay with the normal tap water and de-chlorinator, that will be perfectly fine despite having hard water.
 
I would not recommend using any ph chemicals for lowering ph levels, more trouble than they are worth to be honest.
 
If you decide to go down that route you will be testing ph an awful lot and spending a lot on the ph lower stuff to treat tank every time you see levels going higher. This will just stress the fish out, much easier to stay with steady ph levels, fish will usually adapt to your ph level as long as no rapid swings and will be fine.

 

[Paddski]

Ok, white spots on fish are not a particularly good sign am afraid. Keep an eye on that and report if any changes at all asap.
 
You can test water parameters about an hour after water changes, although if you are using Seachem Prime for de-chlorinator, that sometimes gives false ammonia readings. But still, give it at least an hour before doing any testing.
 
Would not recommend using the water softener for your tank, just stay with the normal tap water and de-chlorinator, that will be perfectly fine despite having hard water.
 
I would not recommend using any ph chemicals for lowering ph levels, more trouble than they are worth to be honest.
 
If you decide to go down that route you will be testing ph an awful lot and spending a lot on the ph lower stuff to treat tank every time you see levels going higher. This will just stress the fish out, much easier to stay with steady ph levels, fish will usually adapt to your ph level as long as no rapid swings and will be fine.

Ok thanks for the advice. I have been told you can test the water straight away? I use a de-chlorinator.

Have tested water again using my API kit and nitrite is zero with ammonia at.25

 

[Ch4rlie]

Well, have just read on another thread that you can test water straightaway so entirely possible I was wrong on that point. But I am still gonna wait at least an hour before testing as I use Prime dechlorinator.

Probably just a personal choice really unless someone proves otherwise.


Your ammonia at 0.25ppm now, ok, even though fish can cope with low amounts of ammonia I would still suggest doing another water change to get ammonia levels as close to zero as you can.

 

[fluttermoth]

Prime stays active for between 24 and 48 hours, so waiting an hour to test won't make any difference.
 
You can still use the API ammonia test, if you use Prime, you just have to read the test immediately rather than waiting for the five minutes as the instructions tell you.

 

[Paddski]

Pictures

Well, have just read on another thread that you can test water straightaway so entirely possible I was wrong on that point. But I am still gonna wait at least an hour before testing as I use Prime dechlorinator.
Probably just a personal choice really unless someone proves otherwise.
Your ammonia at 0.25ppm now, ok, even though fish can cope with low amounts of ammonia I would still suggest doing another water change to get ammonia levels as close to zero as you can.

What % should you change with a reading at .25

 

[Paddski]

Hi everybody. Not been on here a while but that's because I have been fish less cycling my tank. I ended up losing the four neon tetra after the white spot ordeal so was very upset about that. From that point I emptied my tank and started again. For several weeks I did regular water changes and water tests until I was sure all was ok and then went to a different fish shop locally at the Whisby garden centre. Spoke to a very helpful chap there and I left with some carbon mix and 6 small guppy fish. I have had the fish a couple of weeks now and they look very comfortable indeed and are feeding well. As mentioned before it's only a 40 lite tank so I will be getting another 4 guppy today and then that's it, no more. The guppy are only about 2cm each in size.

Now? How often should I be checking water and doing water changes?

 

[fluttermoth]

Were you adding a source of ammonia while the tank was running empty?
 
If you weren't, then your tank still won't be cycled, and you're doing a fish-in cycle. That entails testing for ammonia and nitrite, every day, and doing as many, or as large, water changes as necessary to keep both under 0.25ppm at all times.
 
Was the carbon used, from one of the LFS filters? If it was, it might have enough bacteria to cycle your tank. If not, it won't be doing any good, as carbon will not[/] remove ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.

 

[Paddski]

Were you adding a source of ammonia while the tank was running empty?
 
If you weren't, then your tank still won't be cycled, and you're doing a fish-in cycle. That entails testing for ammonia and nitrite, every day, and doing as many, or as large, water changes as necessary to keep both under 0.25ppm at all times.
 
Was the carbon used, from one of the LFS filters? If it was, it might have enough bacteria to cycle your tank. If not, it won't be doing any good, as carbon will not[/] remove ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.

I have not been adding a source of ammonia! Looks like I am back to square one then. Carbon is new as existing was getting on for 3 months old.

 

[daizeUK]

Don't get any more guppies today - ideally you could return the 6 you've got and do a proper fishless cycle to ensure you don't go through all that hassle and heartache again.