New aquarium, anyone in Arizona who can help?

[Hellbore]

Hi, I've wanted an aquarium for a long time, so finally I decided to get one.

I decided to start small, with a 10 gallon Marineland combo deal they had at PetSmart.. or Petco, one of those. I forget which.

It came with a hood, light, heater, and Penguin 150 bio-wheel filter.

The aquarium came with instructions, which I followed. Unfortunately the instructions did not talk about cycling, or waiting to add fish. So now I have a tank that has not cycled yet, with 5 guppies and a Molly. I don't want the fish to die!

Here is a picture of my setup. I added 2 bunches of Anacharis, 2 bunches of "frill" (seems to be some kind of milwort), and the 2 broad-leaved plants you see on the 2 ends, I forget their names (lost the tags unfortunately).

The substrate is plain aquarium gravel from the pet store. Unfortunately I set up the substrate and plants before I saw all the info online about planted tanks. Are these plants going to be OK set up like this, or do I need to redo the substrate with something under the gravel, like peat moss and sand, or clay, or something? Or can the accumulation of fish waste in the gravel supply enough nutrients for the plants?

Anyway, back to the fish... I have the API test kit and have been doing 50% water changes to keep the fish alive, but even with daily water changes my ammonia levels hover around 1 ppm or even 2 ppm some days. Nitrites and nitrates are both zero, and pH is 8.2. Water temp is about 82 to 84 during the day. The tank has had fish in it now for two weeks but no sign of the cycle starting.

I just thought I would check here and see if there was anyone in the Mesa / Tempe / Gilbert / Chandler area of Arizona who might be able to help me out with some kind of media from a well-established, cycled freshwater tank, to jump-start my cycle so my fish don't have to suffer through it. I wish I could still buy Bio-Spira :rant2: I tried API Stress-Zyme which I believe is supposed to be for this purpose, but it doesn't appear to have done anything to the levels at all.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any advice, and if anyone local could help me get some bacteria to seed my tank, let me know! Thanks!

 

[rwilliams254]

That's a lot of substrate... wow.

You may be ok.. those are sturdy fish. If they do happen to die...think of it as "cycling with a fish".


Keep up your water changes... like...daily. Use PRIME. That stuff's a miracle.

 

[Hellbore]

I forgot to mention, I had one guppy die, but he died only 3 days after bringing him home, while the other guppies from the same store are fine. I think he had some kind of disease. He had a tiny red spot on him when I first got him, so small I didn't notice it until the day after I brought him home, and he seemed to behave differently than the other fish.

Here is a picture of the fish after he finally succumbed to whatever ailment this was. I worry whether this could be something contagious. The other fish don't have the redness around the gills or any red spots, as far as I can tell, so I hope they will be OK. Please let me know if you recognize this ailment, I'm worried what it could be and whether it could spread to the others.

 

[platytudes]

I don't know if he has any left, but Dr. Tim was giving away samples of his product, Dr. Tim's One and Only, which is an effective bacterial starter:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233550

Hope you can find someone local! Both of these fish can do very well with some salt added to the water, and salt helps with nitrite toxicity. Your water is hard enough, I would say plain old Morton's sea salt (or aquarium salt if you want) from the grocery store would do. Sea salt is the closest thing to marine salt mix you can buy outside of a local fish store or LFS, and both guppies and mollies can do well in brackish conditions. A substitute for aquarium salt is kosher salt. Sea salt for sure is dehydrated sea water.

I'd start with 2 teaspoons and then add another 2 teaspoons in a day or two. Make sure you dissolve the salt in warm water first, so as not to burn the fish.

 

[Hellbore]

That's a lot of substrate... wow.

You may be ok.. those are sturdy fish. If they do happen to die...think of it as "cycling with a fish".


Keep up your water changes... like...daily. Use PRIME. That stuff's a miracle.

That's a lot of substrate? LOL... When I bought the tank I asked the employee how much gravel I should put in, and they directed me to that size bag and said put the whole thing in. Is it going to cause problems, or does it look silly?

I'll have to see if my local pet store has Prime. Is it just for treating new water for the water changes? If so, I already bought a BIG bottle of API Stresscoat+ that removes chlorine and stabilizes the water etc. etc. Does the Prime do something else?

 

[Hellbore]

I don't know if he has any left, but Dr. Tim was giving away samples of his product, Dr. Tim's One and Only which is an effective bacterial starter:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233550

Hope you can find someone local! Both of these fish can do very well with some salt added to the water, and salt helps with nitrite toxicity. Your water is hard enough, I would say plain old sea salt (or aquarium salt if you want, but really basically the same thing) from the grocery store would do. Sea salt is the closest thing to marine salt mix you can buy outside of a local fish store or LFS, and both guppies and mollies can do well in brackish conditions.

I would start with 2 teaspoons and then add another 2 teaspoons in a day or two. Make sure you dissolve the salt in warm water first, so as not to burn the fish.

Thanks, I'll look into that Dr. Tim stuff, if it's really so great I wouldn't mind buying some, if I have to. I would like to avoid more fish losses if I can! :uhoh:

As for the salt, isn't it supposed to hurt the plants?

Also, I have only been feeding my fish every couple days, and only as much as they can eat within a couple minutes, because I read that feeding them less helps reduce ammonia levels. However, it looks like someone (I think it's the Molly) is feeding on the anacharis and millwort. One whole stalk of the Anacharis has all of its leaves nibbled down to short nubs, and others have nibbles here and there, and there are stalks of the milwort that are missing sections of leaves as well, and I know it wasn't like that before.

Is that possible, will the fish eat the plants? How fast can they grow back? I would hate to have the plants get eaten up too much. They are there to make the fish happy and help the water quality, but also for looks... Should I feed the fish more so they don't eat the plants?

What about the number and type of plants, does this look like enough plants to prevent algae? I read that if you have enough plants, they will compete for the nutrients algae needs, and prevent it from growing in your tank...

 

[rwilliams254]

Prime is great to conditioning water as well as help bind bad stuff. It's fantastic.

I work in Chandler at Intel. Are you anywhere near that?

 

[andyjs]

That substrate is pretty deep. I would probably take out about half of it. With it that deep, it could trap waste deep down and cause problems. With it shallower, it will be easier to clean.

That broadleaf plant on the right in your pictures is a java fern. It has what is called a rhizome (horizontal stem at the bottom that the leaves and roots grow out of). Make sure this rhizome is not buried in the gravel or it will rot and the plant will die. It can also be tied to a rock or driftwood if you add some and the roots will attach to the surface. Also, the plant on the left looks like some sort of sword. If bought at petsmart, there is a decent chance it is a "brazilian sword" or something like that and is not actually aquatic. If the leaves start to die, you could try putting it in a little pot or bowl with a little gravel and enough water to keep the roots covered and it should do fine.

Feeding your fish every 2-3 days until the tank is cycled is a good idea as it will cut down on ammonia, but yes, this will leave the fish a little hungry, and yes, mollies will pick at plants. I would suggest getting some tougher plants like anubias (has a rhizome like the java fern and should be planted/attached the same way)

 

[Chrisinator]

The plant on the left looks more like a cryptocoryne rathern than an sword because of how the stems look.

 

[Hellbore]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try to find the tag for that plant and see if it's really aquatic, and make sure the rhizome isn't buried on the java fern.

I also planted some "betta bulbs", on the advice of one of the pet store employees, who said that if they sprout, they make nice aquarium plants and you know they won't have snails. It has been about a week and they haven't popped up yet, I guess we'll see how that works out...

Prime is great to conditioning water as well as help bind bad stuff. It's fantastic.

I work in Chandler at Intel. Are you anywhere near that?

Pretty close... I work in CH7 hehe... Don't tell my manager, but I like to check the forums at work from time to time, especially when I'm blocked on a project.