Thoroughly disgusted with fish tank.

I started my first fish tank in October. It's a 10 gallon freshwater tank. We started out with 3 silver mollies and a tiny orange fish and green fish. I new this tank would take a lot of responsibility and I was prepared for it, or so I thought. This fish tank is exasperating me.

I've killed all the mollies. My green fish died today. My problems have ranged from cloudy water, brown gook over EVERYTHING so I had to throw all decorations out, green algea (?), too high nitrate which took forever to get down and yucky gravel. Just when I get the water to where I want it...you know...clear, pretty and good testing...I wake up the next morning w/dead fish, water so cloudy you can't see through it, or brown gook.

I've done water changes, filter changes, daily water testing and adding appropriate "fixes". I've only succeeded in keeping alive one, single solitary, orange fishy. I think he's mutant and probably should have died weeks ago.

I've read posts of the "pros" and people who've had tanks for so long they should be considered "pros" and you all make it sound so easy. I guess I just figured it wouldn't take daily troubleshooting to enjoy my fish. I think it only was normal the very first week of set up.

I'm perplexed and am thinking about just draining the darned thing and putting it in the basement. I just really wanted a pretty aquarium for my living room and for my children to I didn't have to buy a darned puppy.

I'm about to give up. Can I be saved along w/my lonely little orange fishy?

Thanks for reading,

Marci

Welcome Marci, sorry to hear about all your problems. I do believe both of you can be saved. Could you possibly give an example of your day to day or weekly routine with your tank? Maybe we could tweek it from there. Also, how long was your tank set up when you added fish? Was it able to cycle? It sounds like the cloudy water could be from bacteria blooms. The brown goop is likely diatom algae and the green stuff could be cyanobacteria. Both grow like crazy and are difficult to get rid of. Otocinclus catfish love the brown stuff. The cyanobacteria has to be physically removed in my experience. I would not add any more fish until you have stabilized your fish tank. Smaller tanks can actually be more difficult to keep stable than larger tanks. Ten gallons is the minimum I would go. Smaller than that and things tend to fluctuate. How much do you feed your fish? Somewhere there is an imbalance in your tank and the algae is feeding off of the results. Sometimes too much food causes this. Sorry this all seems so random. I am just thinking as I type. I hope something sparks an idea and there will be other people here who will put there input in. You and your orange fishy just hang in there.

We set up the tank and waited for I believe 5 days to put the fish in. I did rewire my daughter to not feed the fish so much. I read that feeding issue could increase the cloudiness and attract the algae. I watch her feed and she's just putting in the amount the fish could eat in 5 minutes. We did tweak that.

I vacuum the tank on the weekends. I try to do about 25% water changes. I add the salt when I do the water change. Two scoops for a 10 gallon tank. When I couldn't get the Nitrates down w/water changing...I bought this stuff you squirt in to help bring the nitrates down. I did that two weekends in a row. I also squirt that clearing stuff in to the tank when it gets cloudy.

I was doing daily water checks for a while after the fishies started dying.

I don't know if I'm overdoing the water fixing or what. I'm using a bucket I bought at the store for the water changes and I checked my tap water for nitrates. None there.

My husband's brother in law said he NEVER has problems. He just feeds his fish, changes the filter and makes sure algae doesn't grow. Why is this soooo hard?

I'm ready to give up. I can't even see through the water today.

Marci

Welcome, Marci!

Megan pretty well covered things, and yes, there is hope. If you did what most newbies do, you probably put in too many fish too quickly, then fed them too much. You should have seen (and smelled) my first few aquariums. Another mistake most of us make is dumping in a bunch of commercial treatments to fix water problems.

Advice is free, so here is one way to solve the problem. Get a separate fish bowl for the orange survivor, and put in an air stone. Empty the ten gallon tank and rinse the gravel as well as any decorations. Go to PETCO and buy one of their cheap under gravel filters, hook up the filter to a small air pump, and put in about two inches of clean gravel. Fill the tank with water, and add a good water conditioner like Stress Coat. If you have some extra money, you could mix in some Flourite or Laterite or Eco Complete with the gravel. The first two things, which provide minerals for live plants, will make quite a bit of dust, which should clear in a few days. Eco Complete has beneficial bacteria that will get the nitrogen cycle going. The cycle is important, because it grows enough good cooties to use most of the nutrients produced by fish waste, left over food, etc. If they don't get eaten by the good bacteria (cooties) those wastes turn into toxic ammonia and algae food. A cheaper way to get the cycle going is the addition of a live floating plant like hornwort or water sprite and/or a small (VERY SMALL)amount of flake food every few days. If you live near Phoenix, I'll give you some hornwort; just make sure you start with plenty of the stuff.

The next step is difficult but very important. Run the under gravel filter all day and the light about 12 hours a day. If the aquarium is near a window, try to prevent sun light from hitting it. Now the difficult part: Don't test the water for at least two weeks. After about three weeks, you should get zero ammonia and zero nitrite. That means the nitrogen cycle is working and the aquarium is safe for fish. If you can find a ma and pa aquarium shop, get a pair of easy live bearing fish like guppies or platties. Maybe you can even get an extra female. Take about an hour to introduce the fish into the tank by using the drip acclimation method (see tips and tricks). Leave the light out until the next morning. Feed the fish a good flake food twice a day, but give them no more than they can eat in a couple of minutes. Some frozen food like brine shrimp can be substituted for a feeding of the flakes. If the aquarium stays in balance, you'll be giving away guppies in six or eight months. Larger or more active fish will need a larger aquarium.

I hope you have not gone to sleep reading all this material. Please feel free to ask more questions, read through some of the posts, and make comments.

Okay, the bad news is my orange fishy has went to meet it's maker. No fish are left in the tank.

I thank you all for your wonderful advise. I really appreciate all your knowledge and your generosity in taking the time to type it all.

I'm going to drain my tank and clean all the gravel and decorations. From what I read, I can only do this with water, right? No cleaners as this will be toxic to fish?

I'm going to print out the cycle information for the starting the tank w/o fish in it and also print out the useful information from your posts here.

I am going to try this again and am anxious to go purchase that under gravel filter. Maybe that will help.

I think I may have started out too big w/the 10 gal. tank. Maybe I should just be a beta girl. One fish in one tank.

I love the look of aquarium's though and won't give up until I can be one of the one's doling out good advice.

Thanks for all your help! Edited to include that i live near Pittsburgh but I thank you for the offer on the live plants.

Marci

Just rinse everything in tap water. If you use strong cleaners you will kill any good cooties, and that will hinder the cycling process. Residue from harsh cleaners can also kill fish and plants; try vinegar, but rinse things really well, and never use soap. I suggested guppies or platties, because they are colorful, small, easy to raise, inexpensive, and a good learning experience. Some of the smaller gourami species will do OK in a ten gallon tank, but they're a little more delicate than guppies. Paradise fish also do well in a small tank, and they're pretty tough. You may even want to try goldfish. No matter what the fish stores tell you, many species of common aquarium fish are just not compatible. Either they require completely different water parameters, or they will fight with each other when they mature. A simple, single species tank is usually better for new aquarists as well as experienced ones.

You should run the tank let it cycle for at least a month. keep the temp around 73" to 78" put a power head in to move the water and you can get rid of the bubbler. if you have a day light lamp upgrade

Sometimes, a small aquarium will cycle faster than a large one. A few months ago, one of the aquarium magazines suggested that live plants like hornwort and water sprite would greatly speed the cycling process. I tried the idea on new (used) 46 gallon and 30 gallon tanks. Each one had a cup of gravel from an established tank, and each had a gob of hornwort along with other live plants and some driftwood. They also had under gravel filters with a conservative amount of air flow. For over a month, I regularly checked water parameters, and the ammonia always read zero. After a month, I used the drip acclimation method to introduce about a dozen juvenile angelfish. Except for the one that landed on the carpet, they're all doing just fine, eating like pigs, and starting to out grow the aquarium.

Welcome to the forum!

I'm a little slow on the draw, you've got lots of good info already, so I'll just be the welcoming commitee!

LOL!

I know you've gotten great advice, but in reading about your tank, I don't recall you saying if you treated your tap water before you put it in with your fish? I don't think that's all your problem, but you should dechlorinate your water before you put it in the tank. That's my 2 cents worth! Good luck with your next try.