Newbie Needing Help And Advice Please!

[Miss Wiggle]

yes safest to do the water changes anyway, the way it goes is this

there's nothing that you have told us that you've done that would have miraculously cycled the tank for you, the process often takes several weeks so is unlikely to have completed without you knowing by now.

in addition to this the cycling process is a supply and demand thing, you grow enough bacteria to deal with the waste you have, so even if the tank had cycled to handle the first load of fish you put in, when you added more it becomes un cycled because you've now got more waste than bacteria who eat the waste.

you've got fish exhibiting symptoms of ammonia poisoning and even if the water tests are not accurate the indication is that there is ammonia in the water.

for now it's safest to assume the worst so you should do daily 50% water changes until you can get a better test kit and accurate readings.

 

[B13]

Hurrah!!

I did my first water change this morning and apart from wet feet and the coolie loaches going AWOL behind a rockface, all went well.

(I can only do a 20% change at the mo because I've only got 2 ten litre buckets... I know that's not ideal, but until I can get something with a larger capacity, I'm stuffed. I've got some more water aging as we speak...)



Considering that the grey-ed out fish that I'm worried about was only bought on Saturday and was looking like that in the plastic bag, do you think that there's an ammonia problem at the aquarium centre? (Today, he actually looks less grey, is moving about a bit more and his dorsal fin is now being held upright at rest. I'm gonna keep an eye on him...)

The coolie that I was worried about has stopped 'panting' and rushing around too.


BUT...


I'm going to order the test kit you recommended today and see if I can find bigger/more buckets...

In the meantime, I'm gonna go post up some pics in the other thread of the tests I did post-water change this morning using the Pond Not-Very-Masterful-at-All Test Kit...



(Phew! Talk about a steep learning curve, eh? Again, thank you for all your help and advice! I'm acting on it as fast as I can!)

 

[Miss Wiggle]

what i would suspect is that he was a bit poorly before he left the shop, then gone into water with an ammonia problem and gone 'arrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhh' and it's all got worse. think about it like putting a cancer patient into a hospital ward with an MRSA problem......

am i missing something really obvious here, you can drain water into the two buckets, empty them, drain some more water into the two buckets, then fill them up and pop them into the tank, fill them up again and pop them into the tank

another option is that you can use a hose pipe for water changes if that's easier. a hose will work as a siphon just as well as any other tube so get the siphon going, drain out the water you need to, dump your water conditioner straight into the tank and then fill it up from the tap.

water change has obviously improved things for the two poorly fish then if both show signs of improving.

just keep it up with as many changes as you can do and get a decent test kit asap.

yup steep learning curve all right, but we've got people through plenty worse before and i'm sure we'll manage with you.

we can't give false hope, we have to be responsible for the information we give out, i'm sure you've gathered by now that ammonia in the water can be deadly and we can't guarantee you that the poorly fish will make it. But we can do everything in our power to get you the best advice and then we just keep our fingers crossed that it all works out!

 

[Schmill]

I think "B13" is under the impression (as I was) that the fresh water must be allowed to age / breath / warm etc before you can add it to a tank. However I have since learnt that as long as you add the declor product you can just take bucket to tap, add declor, pour in tank.
Or as the knowledgable MW says use a hose pipe and just dump the declor straight into the tank

 

[Miss Wiggle]

aaaaaah i had missed the 'ageing the water part'

yeah forget about that mate, thats what people used to do before we discovered dechlor. now that we have that you can just go with water straight from the tap. no need to have buckets of water sat around all the time!!

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there B13 and welcome to TFF,

It looks like you've got the master (MW) doing all the work so I'll just drop in to say that I think you're getting good advice. I don't know the Interpet tests to be bad really, but I do remember one thread at least where we decided that an interpet kit seemed in the end to be part of the problems we were having. This was a while back and I can't remember which thread.

Agree with the above that conditioner is all you need, no waiting. If you use a hose to add tap water directly to the tank then the dose of conditioner needs to be sized for the tank size. Seachem Prime is an excellent conditioner that is more concentrated (although there are pond ones that will cost even less) and it comes to mind in your case for some of its other binding properties. With fish in, though, it is more ideal to roughly temperature match for any water change at about 50% or above if you do any of those.

Many of us here on TFF use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit and like it. The Nutrafin Mini-Master is also a popular test kit and there are various Salifert tests that are highly accurate and sometimes chosen when even more accuracy is needed. Sounds like getting the water change skill going and performing the water changes MW advises is the first order of business both before and after you have more accurate tests.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the master (MW)

thanks WD, needed a smile today!

 

[B13]

Ah!

All the books I've read have said, "Age water for two days, add declorinator stuff, then-and-only-then pour into fish tank."



...


My dad would go NUTS if he found out I was changing water. When he kept fish (i.e. 25 years ago) he NEVER changed the water ...and ever since he found out I was starting up a tank, he's been repeating the mantra "Don't change the water!!" So if I turn up in here one day clutching a red ear, you know he's found out and given me a sharp clip round the earhole...


(I wouldn't mind, but I'm 36!!!)

 

[chesterscot]

lol my dad was the same
WHY YOU FIDDLIN WITH THAT TANK ITS GOT A FILTER TO KEEP IT CLEAN
parents always know best (so they think)
scot

 

[Miss Wiggle]

now i'll try and keep this explanation to a minimum but we quite often have problems with people saying 'oh my dad's kept fish for 40 years he say's i don't need to do this' or 'i've got this really great aquarium book written in 1960 which say's i should do this' and we just feel like banging our heads against a brick wall.

Basically you have to remember that fishkeeping (as we know it) is a relatively new hobby, we've only had conventional tanks with some sort of heating, filtration system etc in for a relatively short time span. When people first started out there was a lot of stuff that was really hit and miss, no one really understood the fishes needs so they just tried stuff and when it seemed to work thats what they told everyone to do.

Nowadays we have a much more in depth understanding of a fishes requirements, the science behind keeping fish has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 20/30 years added to which the equipment and testing kits available to us are much more accurate than ever before so now we know a bit more we do things differently.

A good example of this is way back in ye olden days of fishkeeping someone tried sticking some salt in the tank and they found that it made the fish live a bit longer and seemed to cure loads of problems. so they started using it for everything. Now that some research has been done we know that what salt does is reduces the toxicity of nitrite and nitrate in a tank, in tanks with little or no water changes and under gravel filters as were the norm back then nitrates will have been absolutely sky high in most tanks, therefore the salt will have helped with that. But now that we can all test for nitrate with a reasonable degree of accuracy and we know that we can just do a bit of regular maintenance to keep it down there's no need to use salt in this function.

But, old dogs and new tricks, while of course there are some notable exceptions a lot of people don't like being told that what they've been doing for the last 30 years is wrong, particularly not by some young wippersnapper over the internet (there's a good yorkshire word for you waterdrop)

then when you throw into the mix that fish now are often not that hardy, commercial mass inbreeding to get the fancy tail varieties, colour strains etc of many fish has left the gene pool weakened meaning that fish often can't take the stick that they could 30 years ago.

So yeah, all in all things have moved on!

Now of course there's more than one way to skin a cat and not all 'old fishkeeping' techniques are rubbish, and naturally we think our way is right and people liek your dad will think that their way is right.

all we can do is tell you how we do things and then leave you to make up your own mind.

 

[B13]

*points up*

Ain't that the truth!

I'm a keen horse-rider and my Mum was a riding instructor when she was in her 20's and the change in how things are done, what tack/kit you can buy, training methods, etc, etc, etc have changed soooooooooooo much!!

 

[waterdrop]

<...>But, old dogs and new tricks, while of course there are some notable exceptions a lot of people don't like being told that what they've been doing for the last 30 years is wrong, particularly not by some young wippersnapper over the internet (there's a good yorkshire word for you waterdrop)
<...>

well, wippersnapper is one of the few of your words of that sort that made if over to this side of the pond and is very much used here, although if it really began in Yorkshire, that might be an interesting story, presumably it was your uncle that first coined it? Let's see, I saw one of you UK types using some short word in a thread I read or responded to this morning but I can't remember it now... ( I want to say "bit of kit" but that wasn't it I don't think, sigh, maybe I'll see it again later)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

ha ha dunno where it began (and considering that my ancestors are polish jews, not good solid yorkshire stock unfortunately!! lol) but it's definately the sort of word you associate with a yorkshire man in a flat cap with a whippet!!

 

[waterdrop]

eeu, do they have racing dogs there in YS?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

greyhound racing is pretty common