It's been tough keeping an aquarium

It's been tough keeping an aquarium

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Turn7

23,502 posts

220 months

Friday 27th February 2015
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Let the tank settle. Dont add anything for a month at least....

stevensdrs

3,208 posts

199 months

Friday 27th February 2015
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Lot of good advice here but what is paramount in having a successful tank is the water you put into it.
I have kept fish for 40 years and I never put any water into a tank unless it has been aged for 3 days in a barrel and heated to the tank temperature first. I only do a 25% water change every 2 weeks and a tank vacuum at the same time. Having a good established filter will scrub your water and keep the chemical balance. I never have nitrate or ammonia problems and never add any chemicals.
The biggest mistake beginners make is to have too many fish too soon which leads to chemical imbalance and high stress levels. Patience is required to allow a tank to mature fully and only add fish a few at a time over 3-6 months to achieve a sustainable tank. It is risky not to have a quarantine tank for new fish where you can observe them for a couple of weeks before introducing them to your main tank.
I have a golden sucking loach in my tank which is now 25 years old and still going strong.

ViperDave

5,520 posts

252 months

Saturday 28th February 2015
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Sorry i have to agree with the others, let things settle down, your fish will still be pretty stressed over the whole affair, especially the one with only half a fin. The last thing they need is new "healthy" fish turning up hustling for space and upsetting the hierarchy.

Take your time to spend some on equipment, get that tap water filter installed, and start bringing your nitrates under control, also take some time for some reading, and see if you can figure out where you went wrong, at the moment you have treated the disease but not necessarily rectified the cause. I haven't done freshies for a while so others may jump in and correct me, but you mention Ram cichlids and Hatchetfish, a quick google suggests both of which prefer acidic water conditions yet you mentioned you have a PH of 8, some species will tolerate a wide range of PH but I'm pretty sure cichlids aren't one of them and a PH of 8 is the extreme top end for the hatchets so you may have to work a bit harder on your water change's to get things to where they will be happy, Sorry its not always good enough that the water is wet and warm. So have a read and understand the needs of the fish you have beyond 0ppm ammonia and nitrite.

With the treatment and unless they have changed (i haven't used any for years) they usually take their toll on your filter bacteria too, so adding more load at this time is not really advised.

stevensdrs said:
I have a golden sucking loach in my tank which is now 25 years old and still going strong.
Good going, its hard not to get attached to these little things when you have them that long, My clown fish is celebrating its 20th birthday this year, i worry all the time now that it really shouldn't have made it to that age and it has seen many tank mates come and go and wonder how much longer it has to bob around in its anemone (that's got to be getting on for 10 years or more too!).



AlexC1981

Original Poster:

4,904 posts

216 months

Saturday 28th February 2015
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Righto I'll give it a month to let things settle down. I plumbed in the nitrate filter today and I'm giving it a flush though now. I'll filter some water tonight and do a 10% change tomorrow as recommended on the WS3 instructions. I have a spare tank heater I can use to heat the water overnight.

I'll get some biopellets on order and add them to my filter, but I won't add them just yet. I'll do a few water changes with the (hopefully) zero nitrate water and let it reduce gradually.

ViperDave, I haven't kept any cichlids apart from when I had the German Blue Ram. At the moment I've got a dwarf gourami, a platy, two ornate tetras and four marbled hatchetfish. They should be fine with a PH of 8, except maybe the hatchetfish, though I read that 7.5 is ok for them. I have some Indian almond leaves which are supposed to make the tank a little more acidic, perhaps I will drop a couple in, though I did this a while back with one leaf and it did not appear to make any difference.

I see you can get digital PH testers on ebay for £6, I might give one of those a go to double check the API test kit reading.

Poisson96

2,098 posts

130 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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Update? Is everything going alright?

rumpelstiltskin

2,805 posts

258 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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Im having the opposite problem,i 'want' my fish to peg it lol.Other half won these three gold fish at a fair,11 bloody years ago!!!,they're looking brighter and fitter than ever.I really thought about all the stories of fish won at these sort of things not lasting long,i'm here to tell you it's bks!!
So i've got this huge tank in the corner taken up by these now fairly big,gloriously healthy looking goldfish and i desperately want to get back to keeping tropical fish again,but there's just not the room now damnit.
I've thought about subtly grilling them and or sticking them in some delighful little kedgeree dish some night and say they were stolen by a rubbish cat burglar,now relegated to snaffling fish during the night.It's a pain!

ViperDave

5,520 posts

252 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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laugh (although i shouldn't)

Have you tries swapping them for some tropicals at your local fish aquarium shop. Or is the Mrs emotionally attached to them?

AlexC1981

Original Poster:

4,904 posts

216 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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Poisson96 said:
Update? Is everything going alright?
Hi, thanks for asking! Yes, everything is ok. Once the white spot was eradicated they seemed to recover very quickly. The hatchet fish I started calling stumpy, regrew his fins completely in about two weeks. The platy fry has grown a lot as well.

The nitrate filter I bought works really well. 0ppm nitrate going in each change compared to 40ppm previously.

I have added three black phantom tetra as companions for the two ornate tetras. The ornates are more lively with the black phantoms in the tank. They are very similar in appearance and manner.





rumpelstiltskin

2,805 posts

258 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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ViperDave said:
laugh (although i shouldn't)

Have you tries swapping them for some tropicals at your local fish aquarium shop. Or is the Mrs emotionally attached to them?
I think the whole streets emotionally attached to them theyve been here that long!.I really miss tropical fish and their colours,im not even lucky enough to have 50 shades of grey,ive just got three shades of orange damnit.

Poisson96

2,098 posts

130 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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AlexC1981 said:
Poisson96 said:
Update? Is everything going alright?
Hi, thanks for asking! Yes, everything is ok. Once the white spot was eradicated they seemed to recover very quickly. The hatchet fish I started calling stumpy, regrew his fins completely in about two weeks. The platy fry has grown a lot as well.

The nitrate filter I bought works really well. 0ppm nitrate going in each change compared to 40ppm previously.

I have added three black phantom tetra as companions for the two ornate tetras. The ornates are more lively with the black phantoms in the tank. They are very similar in appearance and manner.
I've noticed most fish thrive with more counterparts, I have 3 peppered Corys introduced and are doing better than single ones I have had before, as with the 4 Endlers I introduced at the same time. Probably not wise to introduced multiple rainbow sharks though XD

I'd say 7 at once was overkill, and now your tank is working try and leave it alone is my advice (aside from water changes and one or two additions). Plans for more tanks yet? :P (I have 3, one in use, one which was emptied and now cycling due to leaking fear and a new one)

Poisson96

2,098 posts

130 months

Wednesday 8th April 2015
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rumpelstiltskin said:
ViperDave said:
laugh (although i shouldn't)

Have you tries swapping them for some tropicals at your local fish aquarium shop. Or is the Mrs emotionally attached to them?
I think the whole streets emotionally attached to them theyve been here that long!.I really miss tropical fish and their colours,im not even lucky enough to have 50 shades of grey,ive just got three shades of orange damnit.
My new Endlers are many colours, but I have possibly the worlds most hyperactive Corydoras (x3) in my tank which is 50 shades of distracting :P Someone will take your other fish if you want them gone

AlexC1981

Original Poster:

4,904 posts

216 months

Thursday 9th April 2015
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Poisson96 said:
Plans for more tanks yet? :P (I have 3, one in use, one which was emptied and now cycling due to leaking fear and a new one)
I think one tank is enough for the time being! I'd like to get some corys. The long fin peppered corys look great, also some cardinal tetras, some clown loaches, cichlids, angels.......

paintman

7,669 posts

189 months

Friday 10th April 2015
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Corys are a shoaling fish. Best kept in numbers. Same with Guppies - although if you keep both sexes of those you will find yourself overrun!
You need to check the fish you plan to introduce to see if they are compatible.
Angel fish are predators, so if you like to see some of the other fish - your endlers & the platys - producing babies then don't get angels as they will eat them in quick order. As they get bigger this means they also become a problem for the smaller fish in your tank.
The cichlid species look great in a species tank to reflect their natural habitat but they are aggressive.

GT03ROB

13,207 posts

220 months

Friday 10th April 2015
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AlexC1981 said:
Poisson96 said:
Plans for more tanks yet? :P (I have 3, one in use, one which was emptied and now cycling due to leaking fear and a new one)
I think one tank is enough for the time being! I'd like to get some corys. The long fin peppered corys look great, also some cardinal tetras, some clown loaches, cichlids, angels.......
Really hope you are not planning on mixing that lot in one tank! Clown loaches grow so need a big tank. Cichlids can be quite aggressive & grow.

Timlocalad

43 posts

115 months

Friday 10th April 2015
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I've been keeping tropical fish for 25 years and currently have a 330 litre tank stocked with various tetras, guppies (started with 5 and now have about 40), mollies (started with 5 and now have about 50), Flying Foxes, Clown Loaches, Bristle Nosed Catfish, Corydoras of various types, Ruby sharks and some Assassin and Zebra snails. My tank is probably overstocked but an air stone sorts that.

When I started I followed all the recommendations wrt water treatment/changes etc. Nowadays I tend to ignore most of that advice.

I don't de-chlorinate tap water, I rinse filter pads with mains water - there's gotta be far more bacteria in the water and gravel than a few foam filter pads, I only do water changes when the water level has dropped significantly (water in-flow gets noisy) and use a mixture of collected rainwater and tap water at whatever temperature it happens to be. I clean the filter maybe once every 6 weeks when I replace the active carbon (The most essential part of the filter IMHO), clean the gravel probably twice a year. I have never used aquarium salt or any medication in this setup.

Maybe I've been lucky but since I started the above regime I've had very little trouble from my setup and rarely lose a fish. The only recommendations I would make are to use real plants & get a CO2 kit fitted. Actively growing plants remove nutrients from the water which in turn reduces algae growth, oh and DO NOT overfeed.

One piece of advise, parasites have to be introduced to a tank, they don't suddenly appear so find yourself a decent supplier and get a quarantine tank, it doesn't have to be huge but it's far better to keep an eye on new fish for any signs of disease for a few months rather than possibly introduce something that could wipe out your entire stock

AlexC1981

Original Poster:

4,904 posts

216 months

Friday 10th April 2015
quotequote all
GT03ROB said:
AlexC1981 said:
Poisson96 said:
Plans for more tanks yet? :P (I have 3, one in use, one which was emptied and now cycling due to leaking fear and a new one)
I think one tank is enough for the time being! I'd like to get some corys. The long fin peppered corys look great, also some cardinal tetras, some clown loaches, cichlids, angels.......
Really hope you are not planning on mixing that lot in one tank! Clown loaches grow so need a big tank. Cichlids can be quite aggressive & grow.
Oh no, that was just a wish list in reply to Poisson's question on if I had plans for more tanks.

Turn7

23,502 posts

220 months

Friday 10th April 2015
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Timlocalad said:
I've been keeping tropical fish for 25 years and currently have a 330 litre tank stocked with various tetras, guppies (started with 5 and now have about 40), mollies (started with 5 and now have about 50), Flying Foxes, Clown Loaches, Bristle Nosed Catfish, Corydoras of various types, Ruby sharks and some Assassin and Zebra snails. My tank is probably overstocked but an air stone sorts that.

When I started I followed all the recommendations wrt water treatment/changes etc. Nowadays I tend to ignore most of that advice.

I don't de-chlorinate tap water, I rinse filter pads with mains water - there's gotta be far more bacteria in the water and gravel than a few foam filter pads, I only do water changes when the water level has dropped significantly (water in-flow gets noisy) and use a mixture of collected rainwater and tap water at whatever temperature it happens to be. I clean the filter maybe once every 6 weeks when I replace the active carbon (The most essential part of the filter IMHO), clean the gravel probably twice a year. I have never used aquarium salt or any medication in this setup.

Maybe I've been lucky but since I started the above regime I've had very little trouble from my setup and rarely lose a fish. The only recommendations I would make are to use real plants & get a CO2 kit fitted. Actively growing plants remove nutrients from the water which in turn reduces algae growth, oh and DO NOT overfeed.

One piece of advise, parasites have to be introduced to a tank, they don't suddenly appear so find yourself a decent supplier and get a quarantine tank, it doesn't have to be huge but it's far better to keep an eye on new fish for any signs of disease for a few months rather than possibly introduce something that could wipe out your entire stock
I really CBA to have a row with you, but if your livestock means that little to you, maybe you shouldnt keep fish ?


Turn7

23,502 posts

220 months

Friday 10th April 2015
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Actually,maybe I can.

Tell me how an sirstone resolves overstocking issues ?

Timlocalad

43 posts

115 months

Monday 13th April 2015
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Turn7 said:
Actually,maybe I can.

Tell me how an sirstone resolves overstocking issues ?
CBA

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Monday 13th April 2015
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One of the limiting factors on stocking density is the rate of gas exchange across the surface of the water, which is naturally limited by the surface area of the tank. Surface turbulence, flow, and bubble surfaces created by an airstone can increase that rate to some degree - but we're talking single figure % increases in transfer rate. So they are potentially a useful measure in a crisis, but of limited effect and not something I'd want to rely on long term (in a power outage, my tank temperatures and biofilter stability will not be dangerously affected anywhere near as quickly as gas exchange in a tank relying on artificial aeration).