zenseed75
02-23-2008, 10:36 AM
:help: lol. Hi my name is Angie and isn't having fish supposed to be relaxing? I've never been more stressed out!
This is an intro, but also showing what brought me here. I will continue on the general freshwater forum if that is more appropriate. Please read it all, I've googled my life away but never seem to get straight answers to what I'm looking for.
I am renting a house that my landlord used to live in. He didn't want to move his 400l tank so he left it here.The tank is 6 years old, had a complete breakdown cleaning a year ago, and has 2 chinese algae eaters, 2 cory cats, 1 pleco, 3 congo tetras (2 now :confused:), 3 angelfish, 1 red finned shark, and 1 clichnid (sp?) of some sort.
When I took over the only experience I had with fish was getting them from a plastic pool at a clothing store when I was little for a quarter and them dying the next day and two weeks of watching a friends saltwater tank.
He had a little rock garden going on with a few fake plants, very open tank. I took all the fake plants out and added real plants that are doing quit well and made it look more natural and have more hiding places.
I have been reading a lot trying to learn but it seems the more I do to help them the worse it gets. For instance, he said he never had problems in 6 years, yet he never did water changes and told me not too. Well, from everything I read I started doing them regardless, changing 15% every 1 to 3 weeks and vacuuming the gravel a bit each time because you could see so much build up and yuckiness in it. He never touched the filters, so I started changing them (not all at once of course) because there was so much gunk in the filter box that the water wasn't circulating well and there was a nasty brown algae build up. I added plants like I mentioned before and hiding places. I made it so the pump would agitate the surface because before it just went out about 3 inches below the top ( I was afraid they weren't getting enough oxygen). The heater had all sorts of dried up burnt on gunk so I took it out and cleaned it off. I thought I was making their world so much better, but now they are all hurting and I feel as if its my fault.
The first sign of an issue was a few months ago, one of the tetras had a cloudy eye. I took a water sample to a store and they told me not to use antibacteria medicine because it was too harsh. They recommended turning down the temp, it was at 82, and putting in more plants because my phosphate level was too high, and of course keep up with the water changes. I did that but could only get the temp to go to 80. Well, the fish ended up losing sight in that eye but otherwise was doing well.
A week ago I noticed one of the algae eaters looked rather bloated. While I was taking pics of him to take to the store I noticed one of the tetras was missing. I thought the algae eater ate him but then found him in a decoration trapped. I got him out and he swam around but the next day he was dead. This same fish would always swim into the gravel really fast at night if I walked up to the tank and had one lightly clouded eye. Well, I started examaning the fish really close the last two days and noticed the bloated one has one scale that is coming off, the red finned shark has white spots (looks like he is losing color) and has some skin coming off, one of the corys has a white patch on the back of one fin, and the tetra that lost his eyesight in one eye has his other eye clouding.
I put some salt in the tank and fed them peas after reading advise online. I notice not all of the salt would dissolve in my aquarium water. What would cause this?
I went back to the store today and took some water. Keep in mind I check the nitrates, nitrites, PH, and Ammonia weekly and they were always fine. Well all except the nitrate that I can never get below 80. Well, she tested the water hardness and found I had 0 and was rather alarmed. She gave me some KH+ Buffer carbonatharte-puffer (german), and told me to put three packs in every day for the next three days to bring the hardness up, then she gave me some sera baktopur (german) to give 440 drops the day after my kh lvl is up, wait a day, then do the 440 drops again. After that she gave me some ELOS nitri zero (nitrite remover) to re establish my good bactera.
What I am wondering is if this sounds right? Should I be treating the bacteria first? After the medicine is my tank going to cycle again? Don't I need to put a carbon filter in after the medicine and do a water change? I'm so nervous about using the medicine because I have never cycled a tank and I'm terrifed if they make it through the bacteria treatment that I may kill them because of cycling stupidity.
The only thing going well in this tank is the plants are doing great and I didn't even put any CO thing in. :headshake2:
Well, this is what brought me here. Like I said up top, I will repost my issues in another section if this was inappropriate. Thank you for reading this all.
This is an intro, but also showing what brought me here. I will continue on the general freshwater forum if that is more appropriate. Please read it all, I've googled my life away but never seem to get straight answers to what I'm looking for.
I am renting a house that my landlord used to live in. He didn't want to move his 400l tank so he left it here.The tank is 6 years old, had a complete breakdown cleaning a year ago, and has 2 chinese algae eaters, 2 cory cats, 1 pleco, 3 congo tetras (2 now :confused:), 3 angelfish, 1 red finned shark, and 1 clichnid (sp?) of some sort.
When I took over the only experience I had with fish was getting them from a plastic pool at a clothing store when I was little for a quarter and them dying the next day and two weeks of watching a friends saltwater tank.
He had a little rock garden going on with a few fake plants, very open tank. I took all the fake plants out and added real plants that are doing quit well and made it look more natural and have more hiding places.
I have been reading a lot trying to learn but it seems the more I do to help them the worse it gets. For instance, he said he never had problems in 6 years, yet he never did water changes and told me not too. Well, from everything I read I started doing them regardless, changing 15% every 1 to 3 weeks and vacuuming the gravel a bit each time because you could see so much build up and yuckiness in it. He never touched the filters, so I started changing them (not all at once of course) because there was so much gunk in the filter box that the water wasn't circulating well and there was a nasty brown algae build up. I added plants like I mentioned before and hiding places. I made it so the pump would agitate the surface because before it just went out about 3 inches below the top ( I was afraid they weren't getting enough oxygen). The heater had all sorts of dried up burnt on gunk so I took it out and cleaned it off. I thought I was making their world so much better, but now they are all hurting and I feel as if its my fault.
The first sign of an issue was a few months ago, one of the tetras had a cloudy eye. I took a water sample to a store and they told me not to use antibacteria medicine because it was too harsh. They recommended turning down the temp, it was at 82, and putting in more plants because my phosphate level was too high, and of course keep up with the water changes. I did that but could only get the temp to go to 80. Well, the fish ended up losing sight in that eye but otherwise was doing well.
A week ago I noticed one of the algae eaters looked rather bloated. While I was taking pics of him to take to the store I noticed one of the tetras was missing. I thought the algae eater ate him but then found him in a decoration trapped. I got him out and he swam around but the next day he was dead. This same fish would always swim into the gravel really fast at night if I walked up to the tank and had one lightly clouded eye. Well, I started examaning the fish really close the last two days and noticed the bloated one has one scale that is coming off, the red finned shark has white spots (looks like he is losing color) and has some skin coming off, one of the corys has a white patch on the back of one fin, and the tetra that lost his eyesight in one eye has his other eye clouding.
I put some salt in the tank and fed them peas after reading advise online. I notice not all of the salt would dissolve in my aquarium water. What would cause this?
I went back to the store today and took some water. Keep in mind I check the nitrates, nitrites, PH, and Ammonia weekly and they were always fine. Well all except the nitrate that I can never get below 80. Well, she tested the water hardness and found I had 0 and was rather alarmed. She gave me some KH+ Buffer carbonatharte-puffer (german), and told me to put three packs in every day for the next three days to bring the hardness up, then she gave me some sera baktopur (german) to give 440 drops the day after my kh lvl is up, wait a day, then do the 440 drops again. After that she gave me some ELOS nitri zero (nitrite remover) to re establish my good bactera.
What I am wondering is if this sounds right? Should I be treating the bacteria first? After the medicine is my tank going to cycle again? Don't I need to put a carbon filter in after the medicine and do a water change? I'm so nervous about using the medicine because I have never cycled a tank and I'm terrifed if they make it through the bacteria treatment that I may kill them because of cycling stupidity.
The only thing going well in this tank is the plants are doing great and I didn't even put any CO thing in. :headshake2:
Well, this is what brought me here. Like I said up top, I will repost my issues in another section if this was inappropriate. Thank you for reading this all.