Hi!

[Clbrtwewill]

Hi, I'm Stacey.. I'm 19 and a college student studying music in New York. I've always liked fish - I grew up with my brother while he had his aquarium and all of his mishaps (pleco that became literally huge, most notably). So I decided to get a betta two years ago, it was red and blue, from a pet store - he went from living in a vase w/ a plant to having its own five-gallon tank. I had him about a year and a half, he traveled back and forth to college with me and survived countless water changes..and dorm parties w/ my first two room mates..bleh. However I moved this past summer and he didn't make it through the first water change; the water sat out for over a day and it still wasn't clean enough for him from what I am figuring now. We found out a couple of weeks later that the water quality was significantly different at the new house and a lot of irrelevant events took place.

So I went back to college!! Started up my five gallon tank again, and no matter what fish I had gotten they kept coming down with illnesses and dying, within days of one another.

A couple of months later I have established a ten gallon tank with two dwarf platies, two sunburst platies, a snail, and I had two dalmation mollies until about a week ago - one developed a red spot and I seperated them into the five gallon tank because they were both behaving oddly. The female survived a few more days than the male did though.

I've been registered & reading here for awhile though - this is an EXCELLENT resource and I will certainly be around asking some questions when things happen now though. A number of the guides have helped - from learning about cycling a tank to beginner suggestions and a lot else.

 

[fish-aholic]

to the forum! I made the same mistake and found this site after I stuck my fish in my ten gallon. Wish I would have known earlier as I didn't cycle the tank.

 

[backtotropical]

Welcome to the forum, Stacey.

Trying to make headway into diagnosing the problem with your tank, what are your water stats?

Ammonia?
Nitrite?
Nitrate?
PH?
Temp?

Also, what filer do you use?
How much and how often do you feed?
and
How much and how often do you perform water changes?

 

[Clbrtwewill]

Hi & thanks to both of you.

My tank is currently not with me - I didn't see logic in moving them all again back to school for two week. So I don't know what my water stats are for the time being, I apologize.

I changed 1/4 of the water on Sunday; from what I read and have been doing that was okay, I will start only changing about 1/10 of it soon. Is this okay? It's what I did with the other tank before moving the fish over.

Again not sure on the kind of the filter; I had a filter that pulled water in from under the gravel, went through a filter, and came out at the top before with my previous tank. This one pulls water in from over the gravel, goes through a filter and comes out at the top. So far I don't like it as much.

There's also a heater and I've been keeping the water at about 76 degrees F.

I feed them once a day, a pinch (bit less of a pinch now that a couple of them are gone again), at night time.

 

[Squidman]

Welcome to TFF. Dont be afraid to ask questions.

 

[fish-aholic]

I had a filter that pulled water in from under the gravel, went through a filter, and came out at the top before with my previous tank. This one pulls water in from over the gravel, goes through a filter and comes out at the top. So far I don't like it as much.

Sounds like you had an undergravel filter (UGF) and now have a hang-on-back(HOB). This is a large upgrade as UGFs suck.