I Need Ur Help Urgently

[rahina]

Hi All
I am a new fish tank owner I have bought a tank, left the water for three days, added the gravel, the filter and the live plant and left it for three days extra then I added six guppies.; two males and four females
this was last Tuesday. the problem is they did not eat food, flakes and dried worms except Friday's morning. they ate finally . one of my friends said that this might me because of the change of the tank and the fish might be feeding on the live plants. I saw one of the females doing so but what about the others?
On thursday one of the females died . she made some hysterical mobes before her death. I noticed something strange as well one of the males seemed shy and hid within the gravel. was it because the other male was dominating and wanted the females for himself? Well! guess what? the other "bold" male died on Friday . I found him lying dead at the bottom although he seemed lively and suffered no problem since I bought him
I have read about the nitrogen cycle. 8) I figured that my tank hasn't cycled yet although my plants seem great. they are not considered a symbol to show that the tank has cycled. now I have decided to buy no more fish before two weeks and do the tank maintenance regularly. I think it is very important to buy the test kit although it won't be easy to find it.
Wish me luck and I highly welcome all your advice

 

[nmonks]

Sorry, can't read your message. The letters are gigantic and filling up the screen. Try typing using regular font sizes, don't mess about with size and colour for now.

If it's an emergency, try posting in Tropical Fish Emergencies, one of the other sections here.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[nmonks]

It does sound like your tank wasn't quite ready for the fish. Guppies may have been hardy once, but they're so inbred now that they're not anymore, and shouldn't be used for cycling aquaria. Better species include mollies (if you can add salt to the water as well), peppered Corydoras, white-cheek gobies, and danios.

There's also the question of the size of the tank. For cycling an aquarium, for the first week or so you would use maybe one guppy-sized fish per 30 litres (10 gallons), no more. So six guppies would be about right for a 180 litre (60 gallon) tank. If your tank is smaller than that, you added to many fish at once!

When fish behaviour is "odd" it is very often because water quality is poor. The fish are in pain, in a sense, but because they don't know what's hurting them, they simply hide or swim frenetically. It's the same reason that a cat in pain hides under the bed; it can't distinguish between internal sickness (say) and external threats.

Anyway, you still have some fish alive, so for the time being, leave the tank alone. Add only a little food each day, and none of they aren't eating it (it takes fish two weeks or more to starve, so don't worry about them missing a meal!). Get a NITRITE test kit. The best value ones a the little sets of dip strips called eSHa Aqua Test. They come with lots of different tests per strip, and you can cut them down the middle to make two test strips from each one. Your NITRITE reading is probably quite high. Don't add any more fish until it goes down to zero.

When you add more fish, add one or two specimens every couple of weeks, and then watch their behaviour and measure the NITRITE a few days afterwards to make sure it is still zero.

You obviously have read around the topic, which is great. Buying 2 males per 4 females is wise, and will ensure you have happy guppies. Adding plants always makes an aquarium look nice, but they will also prevent algae. Good luck!

Neale

 

[rahina]

Today Saturday I found two more dead fish. only two females left and I doubt one of them is pregnant. I did not take this nitrogen cycle seriously at first in fact five years ago when I had my first tank I knew nothing about it
yet still I want change my plan I determined to have a healthy fish tank 8) 8) 8) so I will wait this time and be patient for the cycle to continue
WISH ME LUCK

 

[Ayanna]

Today Saturday I found two more dead fish. only two females left and I doubt one of them is pregnant. I did not take this nitrogen cycle seriously at first in fact five years ago when I had my first tank I knew nothing about it
yet still I want change my plan I determined to have a healthy fish tank 8) 8) 8) so I will wait this time and be patient for the cycle to continue
WISH ME LUCK

good luck

 

[rahina]

One more important question which bothers me is that I learnt that I have to change the fish tank water totally every six months so this means that I have to leave the tank fishless to do its nitrogen cycle and just add live plants and fish food and check the percentages daily then introduce the fish after the cycle is completed??? is that it?

 

[BFG]

One more important question which bothers me is that I learnt that I have to change the fish tank water totally every six months so this means that I have to leave the tank fishless to do its nitrogen cycle and just add live plants and fish food and check the percentages daily then introduce the fish after the cycle is completed??? is that it?

Never heard that one before. For an established aquarium that would cause nothing less than chaos!! The normal way is a 10-20% water change & gravel vac weekly-fortnightly.

If you do a fishLESS cycle then after this, 80ish% of the water should be changed before the introduction of fish.

As your tank is still cycling, are you doing daily water changes with dechlorinated water to keep the ammonia & nitrIte levels down for the surviving fish?

 

[rahina]

Yes I am thanks for the advice