iluvguppies
Fish Fanatic
Hi everyone,
This is our first foray into fishkeeping. We bought the tank, filled it with water added bioactive tapsafe and filter start (both from interpet) and let the tank sit for a few days before adding any fish. The tank is approx 15gallons (65litres) and has a heater and 3 stage filter which came with it. We added a bubble feature(airstone connected to pump) etc to the tank. The plants are NOT real. Temp is about 26-27C.
First we added 10 young neon tetras. After about 2 days we lost a fish. Over the next 1-2days we lost 3 more fish (found inside filter dead). We then did not have any loses for almost a week so we decided to get some more fish. In this time we have also done a 20% water change (atfer the last dead fish) and added futher amount of filter start as specified in their instructions. We want to stock up slowly and were therefore advised to get no more than 5 new fish. We chose 5 young guppies and took these home today. We added stress coat by API to the water before introducing the new fish and in order to minimise territorial behavoiur we added a few more decorations to the tank and rearranged it a bit. We also fed them a very amount of flake and tubifex dried worms straight after adding new fish to distract them. This worked well and they have integrated very well. We have 2 males guppies and 3 female ones. They are very active and swim up to the surface a lot. I was worried it might be a lack of oxygen so I upped the flow rate of the filter (it has built in bubble flow) and as we bought API master water test kit I tested the levels.
The results were quite worrying...
PH 7.6
AMMONIA 0.5 mg/L
NITRITES between 2 and 5 mg/L (hard to read color its inbetween the 2 matches)
NITRATES 10mg/L
I have read high PH makes effects of ammonia worse and I know my PH should be 7.0-7.2 and that ammonia and nitrites should really be 0. We have carried out a 20% water change just now to try to lower the levels.
Are we doing the right things and what should we do next?
Many thnx for any help
Nikki
Also the guppies kinda went "mad" swimming fast and darting about alot just near surface mainly but since the water change they have come down from the surface a bit (they are utilising more of tank not just at surface but all of it) and appear calmer.
This is our first foray into fishkeeping. We bought the tank, filled it with water added bioactive tapsafe and filter start (both from interpet) and let the tank sit for a few days before adding any fish. The tank is approx 15gallons (65litres) and has a heater and 3 stage filter which came with it. We added a bubble feature(airstone connected to pump) etc to the tank. The plants are NOT real. Temp is about 26-27C.
First we added 10 young neon tetras. After about 2 days we lost a fish. Over the next 1-2days we lost 3 more fish (found inside filter dead). We then did not have any loses for almost a week so we decided to get some more fish. In this time we have also done a 20% water change (atfer the last dead fish) and added futher amount of filter start as specified in their instructions. We want to stock up slowly and were therefore advised to get no more than 5 new fish. We chose 5 young guppies and took these home today. We added stress coat by API to the water before introducing the new fish and in order to minimise territorial behavoiur we added a few more decorations to the tank and rearranged it a bit. We also fed them a very amount of flake and tubifex dried worms straight after adding new fish to distract them. This worked well and they have integrated very well. We have 2 males guppies and 3 female ones. They are very active and swim up to the surface a lot. I was worried it might be a lack of oxygen so I upped the flow rate of the filter (it has built in bubble flow) and as we bought API master water test kit I tested the levels.
The results were quite worrying...
PH 7.6
AMMONIA 0.5 mg/L
NITRITES between 2 and 5 mg/L (hard to read color its inbetween the 2 matches)
NITRATES 10mg/L
I have read high PH makes effects of ammonia worse and I know my PH should be 7.0-7.2 and that ammonia and nitrites should really be 0. We have carried out a 20% water change just now to try to lower the levels.
Are we doing the right things and what should we do next?
Many thnx for any help
Nikki
Also the guppies kinda went "mad" swimming fast and darting about alot just near surface mainly but since the water change they have come down from the surface a bit (they are utilising more of tank not just at surface but all of it) and appear calmer.
