New Aquarium Owner - Advice Appreciated

[Ryan_W]

Thanks Gilli!

I keep checking on my fish to make sure they're okay. The Danios are extremely spritely and love swimming up close to the filter outflow, I think they like the bubbles?!

I'm feeding my fish a small amount of flakes every couple of days, may extend it to every third day if the tests come back as high NH3... Daily waterchange is a must and I've even got my GF into helping me. She's just worried about the fish and my scaring them lol...

I've already bought the Seachem products, so I'll use them regardless. They come highly rated for the few products on the market that actually work. I'll change from Tapsafe to Prime once it arrives...

 

[Ryan_W]

Just checked on my fish and the Guppies seem to have got a bit more life into them... I changed the temp from 24 degrees to 26 just incase the water was too cold. You think this could have been the problem?!

 

[Ryan_W]

Seems the LFS told me a few more porkies..... Just had a check online, I don't have Guppies, I've got two Platys'.............. They're the ones which seem to be having a hard time at the moment.

 

[Gilli]

I think you are getting confused - your very first post said they were platys? By the way if you have 1x male and 1x female as yourve stated the male will harrass the female to distraction and make her life a misery to mate! You need to keep at least 2 or 3 females to every male. The water temperature was fine. If you dont have your liquid test kit yet then its probably the toxins in the water thats affecting them. Do a 50% water change if you think they look lifeless.

The danios are very active fish and will spend all their time zipping around your tank at top speed, but they do need to be kept in groups of 6 + to keep them happy. Same for the cory - you will find them much more active when kept in groups of 6+ and they will swim around in groups. Get some more of each when your tank has fully cycled.

 

[Ryan_W]

Cheers Gilli,

I may have had a cheeky edit to my previous post to correct it from Guppies to Platies...

I'll do another WC tonight and see how they are in the morning. Test kit should be here then too, I'll test straight away and post my stats.

Once the tank has matured, I'll definitely stock on my fish (a few at a time), making sure all have enough to socialise with...

When's the soonest I could introduce another female Platy to the tank to give the other female a break?

I also found when adjusting the temp, the the knob on the heater had some sort of algee on it. Is this a good or bad sign? It's not anywhere else in the tank, from what I can see...

Cheers,

Ryan

 

[waterdrop]

Don't introduce more fish while you're in a fish-in cycle.

Are you sure it wasn't a grayish or whitish film on the heater knob? That would be a bacterial biofilm and they tend to like things that have more texture than the glass. 'course it might have been algae, they like that too

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ryan_W]

Yea it's kinda grey, think it'll be the biofilm then.

Sher the zebra/tiger Danio is no longer with us Found him on his side on the bottom not breathing. He was fine last night though.

I did a 50% WC and all the other fish are fine this morning...

API Master should arrive shortly, will be interested to see what's going on with my water stats.

 

[Gilli]

You cant add any more fish until your tank is cycled as it will just increase the toxin load. Algae growth is normal in a new tank until the water balance is right - just scrape it off.

 

[Ryan_W]

I'm not planning on adding anymore fish for at least another 4 weeks...

I'll give the tank a clean tonight when I do the WC... Thanks everyone.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, 4 weeks sounds like a good safe thing for one of our beginners to be thinking, you're getting in to the swing of it.

But really we want you to always remember it as an intelligent combination of test results and time, both. Once you get your kit and become familiar with using it, it will serve as an invaluable tool. It will help you see whether the bacteria have gone a couple weeks with zero ammonia and nitrite or whether there is some lingering problem at a given moment.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rhiannonk]

It seems you are doing larger water changes now ... this is a good thing. Though traditional advice says that large water changes frequently are bad, in fact, they are much less stressful than leaving any amount of ammonia or nitrite in your water. I would not be afraid of doing as large of water changes as needed to keep nitrite and ammonia levels down (you will know this once you get the test kit, but until then, keep up with the fairly large regular changes anyway.) Just be sure to neutralize any chlorine or chloramine from tap water using Prime or another water conditioner, and to temperature match it to the water in the tank. In fact, you are not damaging the population of beneficial bacteria in your tank by changing the water because the majority of them do not live in the water itself, they live attached to surfaces in your aquarium (eg: filter media, gravel, ornaments). The most important thing is to NOT change your filter media or rinse it with tap water - if you feel there is a lot of excess buildup in the media, I would just rinse it in TANK water and replace it into the tank. Generally, however, there is no need to completely clean your filter at all.

 

[Ryan_W]

Just got home to find the Leopard Danio 'CC' dead at the bottom of the tank

Performed a 75% WC, hopefully the remaining fish will make it through the night....

 

[Ryan_W]

Checked my water stats today.

pH: 7.4
NH3: 0.50ppm
NO2: 0.25ppm
NO3: 10ppm

I'll be doing a 50% WC tonight to try and get the NH3 levels down, the rest is okay though isn't it?

Cheers,

Ryan

 

[Ryan_W]

Stats last night afer performing a 50% WC in the morning were:

pH: 7.2
NH3: 0.25ppm
NO2: 0.25ppm
NO3: 10ppm

Fish seem fine, they're full of life which is a good sign!

 

[OldMan47]

The readings right after that water change were just barely acceptable. By the time another 24 hours goes by, they will be out of limits. It is better to start the day with some room so that the chemistry is still acceptable right before the water change.