I'm new here, and new to fish-keeping too. I read something here yesterday about the chemistry in the tank and how to deal with it, but for the life of me can't find it now that I'm ready to do something about it. So, I'm sorry if this question is already out there.
Here's my story:
We got a 20 Gal for my son on his birthday back in Nov '11. I hadn't had any fish since I was maybe 5 (add almost 40 years to that now). So I went to Petco asked a bunch of questions, set up the tank, got a few fish and we've been pretty successful - even though we did the fish-in cycling :silly:. We've had a couple of casualties, but we've also had a few babies. I got so obsessed with it, that my wife let me go buy a 29 gal tank for our anniversary (April 14).
I have a friend who is a former fish addict, and she suggested I get some tiger barbs and maybe a red tail shark for my tank, so I did - again with the fish-in cycling. I don't have patience for anything else. Everything was lovely for a week or two. The shark teased the barbs. The barbs teased each other. Er'body was happy until one of the barbs died. Now that I've read some things here on other threads, I think what happened is that once the barb count dropped below 5, they turned on the shark, because one day, I couldn't find him. He honestly just disappeared. No where to be found. For whatever reason, it was at that point I became a bad fish daddy. Real bad. It was 3 weeks before I did a cleaning.
Please don't reprimand me. I know I was bad. I've learned my lesson.
When I finally did a cleaning and water change, everything in the tank had a slime coating on it. The tank did have an odor, but it wasn't a knock you down kind of thing. So I washed everything off, used a dish scrubber that I bought just for the occasion. I found what I think may have been the shark. It was a glob of black goo stuck in one of the plants. A week went by and I did another change (this past weekend). Everything except the spongebob pineapple house felt pretty clean. I washed it off, and put in the quidward house instead. The barbs seem to be doing pretty well despite these tragic events.
The 4 barbs are looking pretty lonely in these 29 gallons, and I'm anxious to get maybe three more, and maybe two sharks, but I wanted to make sure everything was kosher first seeing as how blackie may have helped me infest the tank with too much ammonia. After reading some things on here yesterday, I went back to my Petco, and bought a testing kit. Not the one with the strips, but the real scientific looking one with the glass vials and magic potions you drip into them. This is what it tells me (I think):
PH 7.6 (that was top of the low range, so I did the high range test which was 8)
Ammonia 4
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
This aint' real good, but I don't know what to do about it. Can I get some other magic poitions to bring down the ammonia and the PH? Are my nitrates too high?