Seachem tidal
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New tank advice
- Thread starter Rick147
- Start date
Ahh the hang on the back, advice differs from person to person about this but ide personally only reccomend rinsing the filter out every month and ONLY in the aquarium water. If you rinse in clean water you destroy all the beneficial bacteria the filter has produced over time.
D
Deleted member 149562
Guest
This will be devastating for you, I know, but the fish shop has not done you any favours at all. They have given you terrible advice but we can get things back on track.
Hopefully you can get a refund on the fish or at the very least a credit note to use later on once the aquarium is cycled and balanced.
Take a really good read of the fishless cycle section on this thread to get yourself aquainted with what to expect and how to get it done.
www.fishforums.net
Again, I am so very sorry that you and your fish have been let down in this way. The shop should never have sold you fish with an uncycled aquarium, especially such sensitive fish as the Angels, Mollies and Clown Loaches, apart from the Mollies, they are not beginner fish even when returning to fishkeeping like yourself.
We can and will help you through everything, but it will take time and patience. You will be able to enjoy your aquarium and maintain it and have suitable fish in due course.
Hopefully you can get a refund on the fish or at the very least a credit note to use later on once the aquarium is cycled and balanced.
Take a really good read of the fishless cycle section on this thread to get yourself aquainted with what to expect and how to get it done.
Cycle Your Tank! A Complete Guide For Beginners
Fishless cycling https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/ Silent or plant cycling https://www.fishforums.net/threads/planted-silent-cycling.470400/ Fish-in cycling...
www.fishforums.net
Again, I am so very sorry that you and your fish have been let down in this way. The shop should never have sold you fish with an uncycled aquarium, especially such sensitive fish as the Angels, Mollies and Clown Loaches, apart from the Mollies, they are not beginner fish even when returning to fishkeeping like yourself.
We can and will help you through everything, but it will take time and patience. You will be able to enjoy your aquarium and maintain it and have suitable fish in due course.
I agree with the other posters. You need to take all the fish back and cycle the tank. This explains what cycling is, why we need to do it and a step by step guide of how to do it.
www.fishforums.net
You need to be able to test for ammonia and nitrite for cycling, nitrate is useful but not essential.
Once you have the cycle under way, then you can rethink the fish you want to keep. The first stage for this is to find out how hard your tap water is. Hardness or GH is the most important parameter to look at with pH following closely behind. If you are on mains water, your water provider's website should give your hardness - they may call it total hardness or general hardness. You need a number and the unit of measurement as there are several they could use.
Once you have this information, look up the fish you like on Seriously Fish. This is a site written by experts.
www.seriouslyfish.com
Look at the hardness and pH a fish needs; the temperature it needs; the minimum tank size; does it need a group, a pair or a single fish; does it need fast flowing water or slow flowing water and so on. Then choose from the fish which need the same requirements.
Cycling Your New Fresh Water Tank: Read This First!
Cycling Your First Fresh Water Tank What is Cycling and Why is it Important? Fish waste, and especially fish breathing, plus uneaten food and other organic matter breaking down in a tank all produce Ammonia. This can quickly become toxic to fish if it is allowed to build up to any measurable...
www.fishforums.net
Once you have the cycle under way, then you can rethink the fish you want to keep. The first stage for this is to find out how hard your tap water is. Hardness or GH is the most important parameter to look at with pH following closely behind. If you are on mains water, your water provider's website should give your hardness - they may call it total hardness or general hardness. You need a number and the unit of measurement as there are several they could use.
Once you have this information, look up the fish you like on Seriously Fish. This is a site written by experts.
Knowledge Base — Seriously Fish
www.seriouslyfish.com
And if you use the API kit, just do as I do. Each tube is supposed to have 5 mg of water then 5 drops of fluid. I really don't see any difference to just doing 1 mg and 1 drop. It's the same mix. The chances of any slight difference in readings is slim, could really be caused by the size of a drip or slightly over or under the 1mg water test. However it's not going to be significant. The only test that needs 5 mg of water is, I think, the GH and KH. Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite and pH are fine.
Dooing it this way gives you 5 times the longevity of the test kit.
I'm doing a cycle on a new tank myself right now and things are going fine.
Actually they don't all use 5 drops. Only nitrite does. Ammonia uses 8 drops from each bottle and nitrate 10 drops from each bottle. So nitrate would need 2 drops each if only 1 ml water is used and the ammonia calculation is a bit trickier since you can't use 1.6 drops per ml. It would have to be 0.625 ml for 1 drop.
Welcome to TFF
The first and foremost cardinal rule of fishkeeping: NEVER trust what the shopkeepers tell you about proper fishkeeping; they are there to make $$$, not to give good advice.
You've been given mostly excellent advice so in this thread so far; I too recommend returning all of the fish, and starting over, with a proper fishless cycle, following the link provided by @Essjay above
Once we determine the hardness of your source water, we can proceed in offering suggestions on what fish you can keep successfully
The first and foremost cardinal rule of fishkeeping: NEVER trust what the shopkeepers tell you about proper fishkeeping; they are there to make $$$, not to give good advice.
You've been given mostly excellent advice so in this thread so far; I too recommend returning all of the fish, and starting over, with a proper fishless cycle, following the link provided by @Essjay above
Once we determine the hardness of your source water, we can proceed in offering suggestions on what fish you can keep successfully
your water is very soft in terms of fish keeping. This is where my fish keeping knowledge is limited as I keep African cichlids which prefer much harder water. So African cichlids are out the question, hopefully someone else could advise
ClownLurch
Fish Gatherer
Id return the fish mate. Would they hold on to the ones you’ll be wanting to keep while you cycle your tank?
Clown Loaches can grow to well over 12” and live into their teens if kept in a big enough tank ie 8’+. They’re my favourite fish and Id love to have some myself again but it’d be cruel in the tank size I can realistically keep.
As mentioned above NEVER believe what a shop trying to sell you stuff without independently verifying it. This place is just about the best most helpful for struggling newbies and experienced fish keepers alike. Take a look on seriouslyfish.com for the requirements of any fish you like. Water temp, hardness, tank size, decor, tank mates, fish numbers etc it’s science not commerce backed.
Never clean your filters with clean water. Rinse them out in the bucket of used tank water when doing a gravel vacuum or water change by squeezing the sponges into the bucket.you’ll see the gunk muddying the used water.
Best of luck.
Clown Loaches can grow to well over 12” and live into their teens if kept in a big enough tank ie 8’+. They’re my favourite fish and Id love to have some myself again but it’d be cruel in the tank size I can realistically keep.
As mentioned above NEVER believe what a shop trying to sell you stuff without independently verifying it. This place is just about the best most helpful for struggling newbies and experienced fish keepers alike. Take a look on seriouslyfish.com for the requirements of any fish you like. Water temp, hardness, tank size, decor, tank mates, fish numbers etc it’s science not commerce backed.
Never clean your filters with clean water. Rinse them out in the bucket of used tank water when doing a gravel vacuum or water change by squeezing the sponges into the bucket.you’ll see the gunk muddying the used water.
Best of luck.
I understand and thank everyone for their knowledge. I don’t doubt it at all. And I should’ve done a little more research before starting. I was a kid when I last had fish and just thought you give it a day and put some fish in.
But I have to ask, is there any way around this while keeping the fish?
I can do an ammonia test and report the results now.
Also on a side note, how do you declorinate your water?
But I have to ask, is there any way around this while keeping the fish?
I can do an ammonia test and report the results now.
Also on a side note, how do you declorinate your water?
D
Deleted member 149562
Guest
Unfortunately the fish are unsuited to your water chemistry and aquarium size, they are also likely to become aggressive with each other...both interspecies and with their own species...once mature. None will handle the cycle process easily or painlessly, you may well lose some if not all.
There truly is no alternative but to return them to the shop. I am really sorry, the shop should never have even suggested them, let alone sold them to you.
Dechlorinator is either something like Seachem Prime or Tapsafe.....there are a variety of different ones on the market, the most popular being Prime as it negates ammonia if you have a small spike or your tapwater has ammonia within it at source.
There truly is no alternative but to return them to the shop. I am really sorry, the shop should never have even suggested them, let alone sold them to you.
Dechlorinator is either something like Seachem Prime or Tapsafe.....there are a variety of different ones on the market, the most popular being Prime as it negates ammonia if you have a small spike or your tapwater has ammonia within it at source.
We have now established that you have soft water so the mollies you bought will not do well. This is a species which must have hard water so they need to be returned. If kept in water that's too soft, they will suffer calcium depletion and become sick easily. There's a condition called the shimmies which affects mollies in soft water, for example.
The tank is way too small for clown loaches - and they need a group as they are very social fish - so unless you can guarantee you'll have an 8+ foot tank in a year or two, they need to go back as well. Google 'marge clown loach' and look at some images.
The tank isn't really big enough for angels either, especially if it is less than 18 inches/45 cm water depth (actual water not tank height). They really need to go back as well.
If they are all returned, you will have an empty tank. This means you can do a fishless cycle rather than having to cope with a fish-in cycle. If you decide to keep any fish, cycling with them in the tank means testing every day for ammonia and nitrite and doing a large (50%+) water change every time either of them read above zero. This could mean a daily water change for a few weeks. Fishless cycling is so much easier as no water changes need to be done until the end of the cycle.
The tank is way too small for clown loaches - and they need a group as they are very social fish - so unless you can guarantee you'll have an 8+ foot tank in a year or two, they need to go back as well. Google 'marge clown loach' and look at some images.
The tank isn't really big enough for angels either, especially if it is less than 18 inches/45 cm water depth (actual water not tank height). They really need to go back as well.
If they are all returned, you will have an empty tank. This means you can do a fishless cycle rather than having to cope with a fish-in cycle. If you decide to keep any fish, cycling with them in the tank means testing every day for ammonia and nitrite and doing a large (50%+) water change every time either of them read above zero. This could mean a daily water change for a few weeks. Fishless cycling is so much easier as no water changes need to be done until the end of the cycle.
Do you mean which one to buy or how to use it? wasmewasntit has covered what to buy (I use API Tap Water Conditioner). To use it depends on how you refill a tank. With buckets, add it at the dose rate for the volume of the bucket then fill the bucket with water and add it to the tank. If more than one bucket is used, each bucket should be treated with the dose for each bucket volume. If a hose is used, add the dechlorinator before you start refilling at the dose rate for the amount of new water you'll add. The new water should be at roughly the same temperature as the tank water.
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