Basic question

Please do not use quick cure again, you need to identify the disease and use an apropriate med for it. In the case of quick cure, treating the tank will only make things worse; formalin merely posions the fish.

Your goldfish and plecuastomos died becuase they are both very messy fish wich will require a tank of atleast 280g in the end, 75g to start, actually two of them, goldfish are coldwater while plecos are tropical.

You do know you need to let spring water sit for a day before using it right? They add ozone to bottled water for the same reason they add chlorine or cloramines (and in some cases, such as my town, ozone) to tap water,to kill bacteria, and they can have the same effect on fishes and invertebrates (snails, shrimp, ect.).

Ay this point in time, your tank is going through the nitrogen cycle, and amonia and nitrite will be reaching toxic levels, so you need to do daily water changes of about 50% to keep those levels down and keep your guppy and snail alive.
 
wow I had no idea they added ozone to bottled water. It makes sense though I suppose. learn something new every day i guess :duh:

72 should be OK for the guppy. according to the species profile they can handle mid-60s to low 80s.

it sounds like you need to let the spring water air out for a day like dorkfish suggested as well as water changes every day or every other day (also per dorkfish's suggestion) and you should see things improve.

what kind of tap water treatment were you using? I've never seen one that makes the water cloudy before. I use one called "Dechlor" that will treat chlorine or chloramines and you only use 1 drop per gallon (chlorine) or 2 drops per gallon (chloramine) and it never does anything to cloud the water. I tihnk it was about 4-5 bucks a bottle at my LFS so it may be worth looking into instead of using the bottled water.
 
Your plecostomous most likely died because of starvation. From what it sounds like, you made the mistake (like I did) in thinking that they were algea eaters only and would survive off your tank alone. That and they do need a big tank around 55g. And I personally wouldn't use spring water, just for the fact that you don't know what they did to refine it. They could have added ozone, or it could be RO water or distilled. Tap water is really find for what you need. A general water conditioner will take care of any chemical problems. The bubbly effect you talk about is being caused by tiny air bubbles. This air was under pressure in your water pipes, much like carbon dioxide in a bottle of soda. When you turned on your tap the pressure was released, allowing the bubbles to appear, just as removing the cap from a soda bottle causes the soda to fizz. If you allow a glass of water to stand for a few moments, the air bubbles will rise to the surface. This phenomenon is called entrained air and does not affect the quality of your water.
 
msouth468 said:
The bubbly effect you talk about is being caused by tiny air bubbles. This air was under pressure in your water pipes, much like carbon dioxide in a bottle of soda. When you turned on your tap the pressure was released, allowing the bubbles to appear, just as removing the cap from a soda bottle causes the soda to fizz. If you allow a glass of water to stand for a few moments, the air bubbles will rise to the surface. This phenomenon is called entrained air and does not affect the quality of your water.
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Good point. I was thinking that might have something to do with the meds that were used. That happened with mine for awhile after I medicated the tank. I got fizzy water. Took tons of water changes to fix it.
 
Thank you so much for getting back with me!

So, if I'm understanding everything right here, it's basically going to be more of a pain in my rear to maintain this little tank than it would be to maintain a 10 or 15 gal tank like I did before? We never had any problems with our other tank (had the filitration and everything set). And also, last time we used water from our pet store that they had specifically for fish tanks. I think they treated it themselves, and I never had one problem with that water. I had thought of the other tank as a pain simply because of the periodic cleaning, but doing a water change every day seems like a lot more trouble than maintaining a properly filtered and airated bigger tank (which I would enjoy more).

At one time I was really into fish, and I loved our aquarium. As I said before we maintained it for probably 2-3 years. Without any unnatural fatalities, I should point out. So maybe we'll go back to what we had before. I'll talk it over with my husband and see what he thinks.

Thanks again!
 
It seems that a larger tank (20 gallons or so) is MUCH easier to maintain for a beginner than a small one. Theres more room to work with, and mistakes arent so devastating. You still have to do your weekly gravel vacuuming and water changes, but its not so difficult! Go for a bigger tank, learn alot (here) and have fun!

As far as water - I suspect youd have terrific results with tap water, treated properly with dechlorinator. I bet thats what your LFS was selling you. Theres usually no need to monkey around with stuff too much, its one of those catch22 things. The more you mess with it, the more you will need to mess with it to get things back to normal.
 
Larger tanks are definately easier to maintain than small ones. The less water you have, the smaller the margin of change can be before something like ammonia or nitrite becomes toxic to fishes.

The reason why you have to do daily water changes early on is due to the cycle process. To simplify it, tanks need a period of 4-6 weeks of close monitoring while it develops a bacteria colony to break down toxic chemicals generated by the fishes. During this period, you remove the excess toxins by water changes until the bacteria becomes established. People often tackle this problem by starting the tanks with only a few hardy (or expendable) fishes and slowly increase the number of fishes over the course of weeks. This isn't possible in small tanks because of what I said above.

If you live in a metropolitan area, chances are your tap water is fine and just needs to be treated with dechlorinator.
 
Thanks again, I talked to my husband and we will probably move to a bigger tank.

While we are establishing the new bigger tank, when will it be safe to add our exsisting fish and snail? I am assuming it will be best to wait about a month before adding any new fish. But I'm just wondering how long to wait to transition our little freinds we already have. They are already in their established tank, but it's questionable how safe that really is for them.

Thank you all for your advice, and I do plan on haging out here more to learn as much as I can. And I will be going back to the original store we went to for our first (successful) tank, they are a wealth of knowledge there and I'm sorry I didn't go there sooner. :)
 
newtosnails said:
While we are establishing the new bigger tank, when will it be safe to add our exsisting fish and snail? I am assuming it will be best to wait about a month before adding any new fish. But I'm just wondering how long to wait to transition our little freinds we already have. They are already in their established tank, but it's questionable how safe that really is for them.
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Going to go a little more in depth about the cycle process. The tank will need something to generate ammonia in order to start the process, because the bacteria colony needs ammonia as a food source. If you leave your tank without ammonia for a month, the bacteria colonies won't have a food source and you'll still be at square one.

Now let's say you go with a 10 or 20g tank, you can add your guppy and snails right away to start the process. The livestock will generate ammonia as waste to feed the bacterias. You can probably add another guppy or 2 along with what you have. After a week or two, you can add a couple of more fishes and then wait another week before adding more. What you're doing is allowing the bacteria colony to grow to accomodate the extra waste while trying to keep the levels safe for the fish. Add too many fish at one time and they'll produce more waste than the bacterias can handle.

I would still recommend at least weekly water changes early on to keep the fishes safe.
 
I would move the entire contents of your curent setup into the larger one ASAP, becuase your current setup isn't established and the nitrogen cycle will be easier on your fish in the larger tank.
 
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