Cleaning bother's tank

patoloco

patoloco

De seguro no sabes lo que dice aqu
Oct 20, 2005
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Costa Rica
wetpatoloco.tripod.com
Here is the story. When I started in this hobby, my brother got bugged too.
After a while, he got a 10 gl. tank with an UGF, followed the marvelous LFS instructions, and stocked it with 2 balas, 6 zebra danios, 3 black neons, 3 neon tetra, a peppered corycat and a common pleco.

After 10 months, the tanks has 1 zebra, 3 black neons, the cory and the pleco who remains 3" long.

The first months his water change and mainteinance schedule were good, but after the time passed the enthusiaism was declining and now the fish are abandoned. Today, when he was not watching, I tested his water:

Ph: 7
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: Over 110 (off the chart)

The gravel looks totally dirty.

At least, the biological filtration is working. What bugs me is the NO3 account. What chances are that the tank is suffering OTS. The tank has been "mainteinance free" for around 4 months maybe.

I will start giving it 10% water changes every other day to help reduce the
nitrates slowly.

Not really a question. Just sharing the reaslity.
 
Yeah, that happened to my 55 at my parents house. After I moved out, it was all too easy to neglect it. The tank crashed, and I ended up losing a firemouth, a pleco, my dempsey, a blue gourami, and a pictus cat. Tough lesson to learn.
 
1. I would be so bold as to do 25 every day, no more. That should gey things back on track a little faster.

2. Take you brother out behind the shed......
 
You should adopt the balas and find the pleco a new home, say they died or something when he wasn't home :laugh:
 
patoloco said:
After 10 months, the tanks has 1 zebra, 3 black neons, the cory and the pleco who remains 3" long.
Click to expand...

No balas left. Only those fish remain.
 
You can do the slow water chages each day, espceially at 10%. By the end of the week do a good gravel vacuum and a larger change, they should be adjusted by then. See if you can trade the pleco in at the fish store and add 2 cories in its place. It certainly will make the cory happier. And it should keep the wastes down a bit.

I assume you are going to run this tank now?
 
Yep! I will be taking care of it from now. Probably the pleco will magically dissapear and re appear at my 50 gl tank.
 
When you start cleaning and taking care of other peoples tanks "just because", then you know you are a true hobbiest. I myself have adopted two tanks from friends. One I have to travel to another city to check on. Ever get the feeling we're a bunch of lossers?
 
If your not able to take care of it all the time you could throw some hornwort in there. At least it will help with the nitrate problem until you are able to get to his tank.

mooman said:
.... Ever get the feeling we're a bunch of lossers?
Click to expand...

I almost posted on that subject, because tv and movies sometimes (enough for me to notice anyway) shows people who are loosers, weirdo's, crazy or what ever else, as people who like keeping fish.
 
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