HELP! Am I doing this wrong????

I have had my aquarium for about a month. It is a 29 gallon that had a kit with the filter, heater, etc. I kept losing fish, and replacing them so I added a new filter system to the one that came with the tank and replacing the heater from the kit with one that has the temperature you want written on the dial. I recently added some live plants.

The current stock in the tank are: 4 balloon mollies, 4 angel fish, 1 cory, 1 pleco, one pictus cat (there were two, but one died this afternoon) and four Banded Gourami-there is a fifth, but he is in the process of dying at the moment.

Three days ago, my original Angel Fish (Judy) got pop eye. The same day I discovered my Nitrites were ridiculously high (accorfding to the test done at the store). So I went to PetSmart where I got a siphon hose that hooks up to my faucet which is right behind the tank (planning ahead on the water changes). I purchased some medication for the Pop Eye, some "Nitrifying Bacteria Supplement" and the correct fish foods for my new friends based on info from the store. I was told to medicate nightly wait fifteen minutes and then add the Bacteria Supp. I have done this twice and the Nitrites appear to be decreasong ever so slowly and Judy's Pop Eye is better and she doesn't swim funny anymore. I also got test strips, which is how I know about the nitrite decrease. Problem is, the colors don't always match the pictures that show levels, so I do not know if I am reading it right or not.

The lady at the store said she only does partial changes once a month, and when she does, she uses this hose that attaches to the faucet to suction/fill the tank. She sold me some Water Conditioner (PetSmart brand)and said to vaccuum the tank-but not the gravel since the good bacteria are in there, put the water conditioner all across the top of the tank, adjust the faucet to the right temp, and then just refill the tank straight from the tap with the hose thingy.

Is this wrong or right? I live in a lake community in Texas, they treat the lake water for home use. I had been buying water from the local pet store and hauling it home in five gallon buckets every weekend, heating with the old heater from my orig kit and then filling the tank with it, one bucket at a time. This is EXPENSIVE and TIME CONSUMING! I am now about a thousand dollars poorer and frustrated.
Help, please!!!!!!

at first you have to maintion that what the temp u maintain?it is 28 deg for angel fish..and moreover you also keep in mind that those fishes (mollies) cann't live in heavy filtering system..since it is 29 gallon tank you may use a low horse power biological filter so as to maintain the nitrogen level...moreover use thermostat rather than a heater.at the same time u must change 20 % water change per week...

OK where to start mate, I wouldnt take my whole word on this as i dont know how your pop eye infection treatment works. But i can help you save some money on water. Ok first off if you have high nitrates i would do a 20% waterchange daily until its where it needs to be. But dont go buy tank water etc go and buy a bottle of Seachem Prime. Its £6.50 over here so i dont know about their. Add that to the tap water when doing the changes and you nitrates will drop dramaticcaly. If their as high as you said. You can try what i did a week or two back which is do a 50% waterchange and then add the prime but add enough for the whole tank then do 20% for a few days then another 50% treating the whole tank again. That bought mine down from over 100 to 0 within 4 days and without loseing a fish(think their mutant). But as i said make sure you check that the prime wont effect the pop eye treatment. Also with a tank that size i would definatly make sure you do a waterchange weekly especially with the amount of fish in their. Id also find another fish keepre to get advice from as i think that ones hopeing to get hold of alot of your hard earnt money.

I have a thermometer in the water (digital to make life easy) and it stays between 81 and 82 degrees. I have an Aqua Glo lite in the hood. I am attaching a pic of the tank so you can see the set up. I appreciate the advice.

Should I put the water conditioner into one of the buckets, fill it from the tap and then pour into the tank, or can I put the tap water in, and then add the water conditioner to the tank? I am not sure what Prime is, but according to the pet stores (They apparently saw me coming-*grin*) the Water Conditioner I bought isn't supposed to interfere with the treatment. The medication says to wait until the full 7 day treatment is complete and then do a 25% water change. Does that sound right to y'all? Should I even be medicating, or just trying some other remedy?

Grateful for any and all help!

Add the prime straight to the bucket except the 2 50% chnages add that after the water and remember to treat the whole tank. If you dont mind spending a little more on the angel fish you could go and get a cheap all inclusive tank just a small one for a quarintine tank and put some of the water from your tank in that add prime to drop the nitrates leave it for a day then move the angel that way you can treat him seperatly while you sort the problem with the big tank. Plus youll always have a quarintine when you need it. I know here you can get a full tropical setup new for £40. Its tiny but its only to fix the fish without effecting the rest of the tank

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEACHEM-Prime-500-ML- freshsaltwater-WATER- CONDITIONER_W0QQitemZ220400488670QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ Pet_Supplies_Fish?hash=item220400488670& _trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683%7C66%3A4%7C65% 3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Thats the prime, sorry it kept messing up when adding it to the main response

Thanks for joining our forum. It looks like you got off to a pretty bad start, but in this hobby bad starts seem to be the rule rather than the exception.

From reading your post, I'm guessing that the aquarium had not completed its nitrogen cycle before fish were added. There is quite a bit about the nitrogen cycle in our blog section. In simple terms, it involves growing a colony of bacteria that process waste materials into harmless stuff. Without a healthy colony of bacteria, wastes from fish, food, and plants turn into toxic ammonia then toxic nitrite. Both of those things are reactive nitrogen compounds that can burn gills. Cycling should take about a month, but you can do a few things to speed it up. Live plants help, and you can also buy live bacteria. For now, as Tony suggested, the partial water changes will help. Once the aquarium is healthy, the ammonia and nitrite levels will be zero, the fish will stop getting sick, and you can go to once a week partial water change. Did i mention that live plants will also help?

About the dip strips. When you peel back the label, you'll see two color comparison charts. Be sure you use the one for fresh water, and make sure the bottle is well sealed. You also need a test kit for ammonia. The common ammonia test kits use a test tube, a reagent chemical and a color chart.

The syphon setup has a valve on the pump (the part that attaches to the tap) and you can use it to both drain and fill the aquarium. When I do partial water changes, I drain the water into the yard, then attach the pump to the water tap. Then i add conditioner to the aquarium, adjust water temperature to approximately that of the aquarium, and run water into the tank. If you hold the output/input end a few inches from the water surface, it will dump in lots of bubbles, which is good. No bucket needed.

With regard to medications, be sure to follow the directions exactly. You should rarely need medications after the aquarium finishes its cycle and has a balanced biological load. In fact, chemical fixes and medications have a potential for misuse, and they should be considered only as a last resort.

OK, I'll stop rambling. Your aquarium looks great, but the species of fish you selected are not compatible, nor are their requirements. You can look up almost any fish on Google, and of course you can get lots of advice on this website.

OK, SitRep time!

I went and got some PRIME and some more plants (I got a variety based on things said in this forum). Oddly, my Ammonia has spiked to .25 Just so you know what I did just prior to the spike, in order of occurrence:

1) I used the siphon to drain off 50% of the water.
2) I planted the new plants in the gravel
3) I put the appropriate amount of PRIME on the top of the water (in quantity to treat the whole tank)
4) I used the siphon to refill the tank from the tap
5) I used a net to skim out as much of the floating plant material as possible

After a few minutes, the ammonia gauge on the side of the tank started reading the ammonia spike. At the same time I noticed the gauge for the ammonia had a bleed over from the ph reading section, so I pulled it out of the water and did an API drop test, just to make sure of accuracy. It confirmed a spike in Ammonia-the reading is .25

I will say, the fish appear to be loving all the new plants, they are swimming through them, a few are hiding behind them, and a few are happily nipping at them. The tank also looks very nice with the plants, not quite so barren.

That beng said, any thoughts on what just happened? The store is closed, so I cannot get AmmonuLock, like the test kit said, and the only other option it said was to do a 25% water change, which seems odd, given I just did a 50% one.

Oh, and my fish count is now at:
1 Pictus cat
3 Balloon Mollies
3 Gourami
4 Angel Fish
1 Pleco

Is the Pictus the incompatible one? I checked the compatability chart at LiveAquarium.com and everything appeared compatible but that one. He seems to be OK thus far, should I return him to the store?

Y'alls help is VERY much appreciated.

pictus cat is a ottom feeder fish along with pleco.so now u use 2 bottom feeder.i think this is of now use.sometimes pictus have a tendency to eat little mollies.so better to say that u have to avoid it.

Can you have too many plants? I am attaching a pic of the new look so you can make an informed opinion.....

Oh, and I just tested the tap water--the ammonia in the tap water is pretty high. I am wondering if I should use more of the Prime to counteract. Any advice?

Welcome to the forum!

You can NEVER have too many plants. So far as I've dealt with... the more plants you have, the better they do.

I'm not sure what you can do about ammonia in the tap water... I've never had this problem, hopefully someone else will help you out here. Don't do another water change immediately after a 50% if you have ammonia in your tap...
Good Luck with your tank!

It's possible that all that planting and cleaning stirred up the substrate and put some ammonia in the tank. Until the nitrogen cycle is complete, the aquarium will have an ammonia problem. You may be able to mitigate it somewhat by feeding very conservatively and leaving the aquarium light on for a couple of extra hours. If you think the tap water has ammonia, test it like you would aquarium water. My guess is the ammonia is from aquarium wastes.

The plants look really good, and like Angela said you can't have too many.

I just thought of one more thing. Sometimes when you use a product that is supposed to remove ammonia, the ammonia test will continue to say it's there.

Sadly, when I fed everyone just now, Judy was not amongst those eating. I guess she has passed on in the ampitheater in the tank, because I do not see her body anywhere. She was my very first fish.

However, two of my newer angelfish that had only very very faint black stripes on them both now have very black very prominent stripes, which I understand means they are healthy and unstressed.

I did one treatment today of AmmonLock and will wait to test again for two days so that I know if it is the additive giving me a positive reading on the ammonia test. Will see how it goes.

I would find that fish if i was you mate or youll have more troubles than you have now

How do you mean? The last time a fish died and was in the ampitheter, the lady at the fish shop said not to worry, the other fish would take care of it. I asked her if it would harm them, she said no, it was nature taking its course. I am gathering that is bad info??? And why is it bad?

Oh and the other 3 angels are swimming at the top of the tank and surfacing every minute or so, so I just did a 25% water change using Prime. I put in aquarium salt as instructed on the package as well.

Do you ever get the feeling God is trying to tell you something? Like maybe Angelfish are a bad idea for me?

Found Judy. She was sucked onto the filter behind a plant. Gave her the 21 flush salute.....

One of the Angelfish has white spots on its side. Accotding to another post, this is ich. What I am not sure of is the treatment. I increased the water temp, had already done a partial water change and cleaned some of the gravel (the plants are making reaching the gravel hard), and I used the salt. Do I need to go buy some meds? Different posts had different opinions on the meds. It said increase to a max temp of 88, that seems awfully high.....

Does everyone go through this craziness when they start this hobby? Other posts make it seem like this is not unusual, but when does this get easier? Is there really light at the end of the tunnel?

lemurnandy u said that ur angels move on the top of the tank,that means that they don't give much oxygen,so provide them more oxygen.
angel always live in 28 deg centigrate,don't give too much temp than that.

as for med not experiment too much with it.it may cause fatal to ur angels.so be sure and carefull before giving into the tank.
thank you.

I have two bubble stones and a bubble curtain that are always running in the tank. Is that enough? I also set the filters to high so they are generating some bubbles as well.

Doing some research here, I just found out that the salt I added can be bad for Cory's(I have one that has managed to live-and I am guessing I may have just killed it, but another site said it wouldn't kill, but might make it sick). I do not have a quarantine tank, and to be honest, my pocketbook cannot handle that kind of expense right now. I pushed the temp up tp 82F. I am hesitating to do meds, since the last round for the Pop Eye did not help Judy, apparently, and the consensus is apparently don't medicate if you do not have to.

Sorry, I am going on and on, but I really love my aquarium, I just hate that I keep having issue after issue.

Angelfish are a truly tropical species, so most of us who raise them keep the aquarium temperature at around 82 degrees. That's too warm for some fish. Angelfish are fairly delicate, and although they're sold to beginning aquarists, it's better to have some aquarium experience before you try them.

As for when the mistakes stop, probably they never do. I remember they started to decrease for me when I stopped using water fixes and medications. Actually, I was a kid and had spent all my money so I couldn't afford a tank full of chemicals and expensive fish. That's when the natural processes took over and the fish that were left started to do better. After a while, the hobby gets simple.

So is 82F OK for this, and my Cory is swimming all over the place, while usually he just sits at the bottom. Did my salt treatment hurt him? In other words:

1) What temp should I set on this for treatment of the ich?
2) Is the Cory in trouble and if so, what do I do?
3) Should I do another water change to get the salinity down for the Cory and then go buy an Ich treatment?

You are all so helpful! My fish and I thank you for your patience and assistance!

I know that some of the ich treatments work, but you need to look at the instructions for the specific medication you select. It should say something about temperature and maybe even salt. Cory cats can be pretty active, and they can tolerate angelfish temperatures. If he's running into things and being really frantic, he could be stressed. I don't remember reading anything about their reaction to salt, but your research is probably right. Mollies can adjust to salty water, and salt is often added to an aquarium as a medication. However, you're dealing with freshwater fish that can be stressed by high levels of salinity. A healthy fish can resist most diseases and parasites but not over medicating. Maybe you should think about doing 15 or 20 percent partial water changes several days in a row to reduce both ammonia and salinity. Try to make sure that any changes in water parameters are done slowly to avoid shocking the fish. Some medications call for raising water temperature, because it increases the metabolic rate of the fish. Of course, some will also kill the beneficial bacteria that eat the ammonia.

If it sounds like a no win situation, it almost is. The problem boils down to an incomplete nitrogen cycle, possible over medication and a mix of species that require different aquarium conditions. That's exactly how I started in the hobby. The best way out is the series of partial water changes, moderate feeding, and no medications. You may also have to accept the loss of more fish and the fact you can do little to stop it. I know that sounds awful, but the fish will not thrive until aquarium conditions are close to ideal. Excessive medicating and water fixes seldom if ever produce ideal conditions.

I may be wrong about Prime, but I believe it's formulated to take care of more things than chlorine and heavy metals, and it may change water parameters that don't need changing. Stress Coat is not as serious; you can buy it and other water conditioners in small containers. In your aquarium, Amquel Plus may be a good choice. If you decide to medicate after a week or so, Jungle brand products are supposed to be pretty good. I'm going by the words of others, because I haven't used fish medications for years.

I'm very sorry if any of this has discouraged you, and I hope you don't give up. Aquarium keeping is fun and easy if you don't break too many of Nature's rules. Please keep us posted.

John et al,

Thanks for the information. I am going to try the daily partial water changes for a week or so and see what that does. I am with you on the medication, since the last time, it really did not help that I could see.

Thanks to the various pet stores, I have Prime, AmQuel, TopFin Water Conditioner, Cycle, and TopFin Bacterial Supplements as well as a few other things that I do not understand as of yet and a lot of stuff I probably do not need. I am going to continue this week of water changes using the Prime and see where I stand.

As for the viability of this hobby for me, I have discovered that I absolutely love sitting in the evenings and just watching the fish swim and the plants sway, and bubbles bubble--in short, I cannot imagine sitting in my living room again without the aquarium. It is so relaxing after a long hard day to just lose myself in its depths....Ok, that was schmaltzy--but true *grin*...

Anyway, I decided to give these fish a chance at life and if it does not work out, I will go back to square one and set up the aquarium with only one species of fish to start with as recommended for beginners, and let the cycle run until it is actually ready to handle fishies.

Thanks so much for all your help and advice--hopefully the current population will be OK. I will give y'all an update once the fate of the current aquarium is decided....

Thanks again!
Ellen

If we helped, that's why we're here. Give it some time, and please update us.

OK, update! The ich started to clear up. Then suddenly my tank went green and the ammonia and ph levels all started rising-the readings are all in the danger zone.

So, since I am really trying NOT to kill my fish (really, I am not, even though they probably think I am *chagrinned smile*) I set up a small 10g "hospital" tank with water from the pet shop, seed gravel and Safe Start. Once the temp gets up, I am moving my fish over.

I am then going to break down my 29g and do it right this time, with an under gravel filter, plants in good spots, and clean water and seed gravel from the pet store.

I am going to leave one of the groups - the Mollies, Angels or Gouramis (and maybe the pictus) in the hospital tank to try and maintain the status quo bacterially.

I now have: 3 Gourami, 3 Balloon Mollies, 3 Angelfish, 1 Cory, 1 Pictus cat and 1 pleco. I think at least one of the Gourami may be dying from the toxicity, but only time will tell.

Ok... First of all just breathe...

I know how frustrating this can be.

The tank may have an algae bloom... Could be from too much light... maybe even sunlight (is your tank by a window)... Or from overfeeding... (perhaps a child likes to feed the fish every time they pass...)

How long has your tank been set up? If you're going for the hospital tank setup... Perhaps you aren't too attached to your fish yet? Maybe the store will accept the fish back until you're ready...

You should get your tank cycled in about a month, unless you help it along with the seeded gravel, or bacteria, or floating plants...

If you decide to take the fish back... Google the fish you're thinking about getting... Make sure of their requirements... Temperature... how the fish do with other fish... Things like that.

Angels can be quite aggressive as they mature. Especially if you happened to get a pair... They'll not be happy tank mates...

I have 18 tanks up and running right now... I have an 80 or 90 gallon that I'm wanting to set up soon... Like, a couple months ago... LOL... But I've been studying about what I'm going to put in it... It's a difficult choice. I think I'm going to heavily plant it and then put either a large school or Preacox rainbows, or cardinal tetras, or rummynose tetras... and nothing else... So a single species tank with a large school of fish... I think that'll be so relaxing!

Good Luck and keep us posted!

My aquarist neighbor came by this morning. And he said the same thing as you, Angela--to chill for a sec.

I told him the situation and he advised that once I get the 29g reset, leave the balloon mollies and the pictus cat or the cory in the 10g instead of making it a hospital tank. It'll reduce the biological load in the 29g and make it easier to keep clean and reduce parameter issues. He also recommended I not clean all the gravel in the 29g when I break it down, since after 5 weeks, he is pretty sure the good bacteria is there, just sorely tested by bio load and bad water from the tap (the levels of chlorine, ammonia and ph in my tap water is very high). I am going to change out the filter media since it smells awful-at least the sponge, as that has the strongest smell.

I thought that not naming the fish would keep me from getting attached. I was wrong-I cannot believe how quickly I grew to adore the little guys.

Anyway, much better outlook at the moment-or at least a lot more optimism. Cross your fingers!

I hope it all works out. You may enjoy reading the aquarium equation in one of our blogs. I'm still working on expanding the thing, but it should give you something to think about when it comes to biological loading.

Sadly, 2 of the 3 Angels have died in the ten gallon and the last one isn't looking too hot-I guess I am not meant to have angelfish. So I have moved all the rest of the fish back to the 29g and left the ailing angels in the 10g. Will probably let the 10g cycle (if the angels make it until tomorrow, I will be shocked) and then maybe make it a one species tank so I have a backup in case something goes wrong in the 29g again.

BTW--THANKS, JOHNARTHUR--The new 29g UGF is amazing and quick at clearing the tank's water-by the time the temp came up to normal levels, the water was clear as can be! And all of the 29g's numbers are absolutely perfect! Am going over to read the aquarium equation blog now.