Orchid Crazy
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- Jun 2, 2004
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Some background: I've had my tank for more than 15 years, never had problems with it. We've moved multiple times, no problems, only an occasional loss of fish, we had fish that survived 2 moves and had been with us for years. The tank is about 37 - 39 gallons, it's been so long since I've had it, I think it was 39 but it is some odd size. It is the same as a 20 gallon tank, but is 22 inches high. Used to have a normal hood with an aquaclear 200 filter, 2 PHs and an undergravel filter. Never had problems with fish death, very few problems with disease and those were back in the early days of tank life. My fish lived long and prospered, until....
A while back I replaced the hood with an Eclipse 3 hood (thing leaks like crazy from water condensation) thinking it would be nicer, quieter, neater looking than what we had. No idea if it relates to the problems we encountered, but shortly after, we started losing fish left and right, couldn't keep them alive. Ran water tests of PH, ammonia, the normal ones, the pets stores and I never did agree on my results versus theirs. I'm not stupid regarding water quality, just never got into it too much, my tank ran for years without too much attention. I have to monitor the rest of the house water, fish tank and our spa so I am used to running water tests. LFS told me I had extremely high PH, I didn't buy it since my tests told me otherwise (Liquid, strip and electric PH probe tester) and I have very acidic water in the house normally.
Back to the tank problems, now I could not keep fish alive in the tank. We've never been overly attentive to the tank, but never needed to, it ran on its own and survived our level of attentiveness. We had the same number of fish in the tank for years under our old set up and it functioned just fine. I suspect the Eclipse just wasn't able to keep up with the demands of our tank or wasn't providing them with enough oxygen, I don't know. But with it, we couldn't keep fish alive even when we dropped the number of them in the tank. Oh, BTW, we had mostly rainbows in there with a bunch of rummy nose tetras and a few neons. No problems for years, until the Eclipse hood came along.
In over 15 years of having the tank, I never changed my routine with it. We did water changes as needed but never were terribly regular with it; never needed to be. I know people do weekly water changes, but our tank always did fine, we topped it off as needed and partially cleaned the gravel every month or so. I have a python hose cleaner that attaches to the sink for cleaning. PH was about 6.6 - 6.8 which is a bit high for the rainbows, but they always managed fine in it. Ammonia levels checked out fine, even with replacement test kits. Wasn't from overfeeding, we fed the fish about 3 times per week like we always have. I have acidic well water with a natural rock bed for neutralizing the PH and a water softener, been in the current house for over 5 years with no fish decline till the new hood came into place. I've used the same stuff when adding water, that hasn't changed in years either. I use a mixture of Seachems Discuss Buffer and Neutral Regulator as well as Stress Coat. Like I said, no changes other than the hood/filter set up and then I couldn't keep a fish alive.
After the tank filtered for a while with no fish in it, we finally turned the filter off, it got gross and I just finished quite a few hours of emptying the entire tank down to nothing, completely rinsing and scrubbing everything down. I'd like to start over. Unfortunately I did not keep my old hood and filter, dumb me, so I need to start from scratch without breaking the bank. I'd like suggestions on replacement equipment. Also, since it has been over 15 years since I started out a new tank, please refresh this old head of mine, I threw out my fish books years ago. I did read up on the fishless cycling, so once I get the tank set up again, I will be going that route. Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I miss having fish in my family room, especially after having them around for so many years. I want my old tank back!!! Guess it goes to show, don't fix what ain't broke!
Thanks for any help you might provide!
Sandy
A while back I replaced the hood with an Eclipse 3 hood (thing leaks like crazy from water condensation) thinking it would be nicer, quieter, neater looking than what we had. No idea if it relates to the problems we encountered, but shortly after, we started losing fish left and right, couldn't keep them alive. Ran water tests of PH, ammonia, the normal ones, the pets stores and I never did agree on my results versus theirs. I'm not stupid regarding water quality, just never got into it too much, my tank ran for years without too much attention. I have to monitor the rest of the house water, fish tank and our spa so I am used to running water tests. LFS told me I had extremely high PH, I didn't buy it since my tests told me otherwise (Liquid, strip and electric PH probe tester) and I have very acidic water in the house normally.
Back to the tank problems, now I could not keep fish alive in the tank. We've never been overly attentive to the tank, but never needed to, it ran on its own and survived our level of attentiveness. We had the same number of fish in the tank for years under our old set up and it functioned just fine. I suspect the Eclipse just wasn't able to keep up with the demands of our tank or wasn't providing them with enough oxygen, I don't know. But with it, we couldn't keep fish alive even when we dropped the number of them in the tank. Oh, BTW, we had mostly rainbows in there with a bunch of rummy nose tetras and a few neons. No problems for years, until the Eclipse hood came along.
In over 15 years of having the tank, I never changed my routine with it. We did water changes as needed but never were terribly regular with it; never needed to be. I know people do weekly water changes, but our tank always did fine, we topped it off as needed and partially cleaned the gravel every month or so. I have a python hose cleaner that attaches to the sink for cleaning. PH was about 6.6 - 6.8 which is a bit high for the rainbows, but they always managed fine in it. Ammonia levels checked out fine, even with replacement test kits. Wasn't from overfeeding, we fed the fish about 3 times per week like we always have. I have acidic well water with a natural rock bed for neutralizing the PH and a water softener, been in the current house for over 5 years with no fish decline till the new hood came into place. I've used the same stuff when adding water, that hasn't changed in years either. I use a mixture of Seachems Discuss Buffer and Neutral Regulator as well as Stress Coat. Like I said, no changes other than the hood/filter set up and then I couldn't keep a fish alive.
After the tank filtered for a while with no fish in it, we finally turned the filter off, it got gross and I just finished quite a few hours of emptying the entire tank down to nothing, completely rinsing and scrubbing everything down. I'd like to start over. Unfortunately I did not keep my old hood and filter, dumb me, so I need to start from scratch without breaking the bank. I'd like suggestions on replacement equipment. Also, since it has been over 15 years since I started out a new tank, please refresh this old head of mine, I threw out my fish books years ago. I did read up on the fishless cycling, so once I get the tank set up again, I will be going that route. Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I miss having fish in my family room, especially after having them around for so many years. I want my old tank back!!! Guess it goes to show, don't fix what ain't broke!
Thanks for any help you might provide!
Sandy
TO the forum
If you are going to go the fishless cycle route then may i suggest that you use the alternate recipe, the one that gets you to 5PPM ammonia right away. This will likely tend to be a bit faster. For the equipment you will save money buying on the internet But i would recommend a biowheel filter by penquin or emporer. And for a hood there is a wide variety of options here such as an all glass top with light strips on top. Complete hood units etc. The people in the forum will suggest many options just research them to see which is best suited for your price rnage and needs. HTH 
As the previous poster mentioned, the recipe which calls for ammonia levels to be brought to 5ppm is better than the 5 drops a day recipe, in my experience. It's sort of a shame that you cleaned everything so well, you probably wiped out whatever bacterial colonies you had left. If you have any established media left, or can get some from a friend's tank, or as a last resort the LFS, it will speed the cycle considerably.
