Got 37 gallon Aqueon setup

OK, my Molly has done well in my 10g for years with no addition of salts. It has grown quite large. The tiger barb seems to leave it alone. I am just not sure what to do with these guys if I really want to make my 10g a QT tank.

So, you simply leave the QT tank running, with just plants and no fish? Does that produce enough ammonia for the bacteria when it's time to put a new fish in?
 
kahunacohen said:
OK, my Molly has done well in my 10g for years with no addition of salts. It has grown quite large. The tiger barb seems to leave it alone. I am just not sure what to do with these guys if I really want to make my 10g a QT tank.

So, you simply leave the QT tank running, with just plants and no fish? Does that produce enough ammonia for the bacteria when it's time to put a new fish in?
Click to expand...

Who can explain the molly and TB? I can't. This is one of those mysteries of this hobby, that fish sometimes do not conform to the "norm." It's like when I was very young, we had goldfish in a bowl on the shelf, and changed the water every week. Never fussed over chlorine or ammonia because I didn't know about them. Yet the poor goldfish lived sometimes for months, which we thought good. Of course, this was terrible conditions and they should have lived for years. But given the chlorine and ammonia, it is amazing they survived for a few months. But this is not the best way to keep them, survive or not.

Plants need nitrogen, and they prefer it as ammonium/ammonia. So when fish go into a tank with plants, especially fast growers like floating plants, the ammonia produced by the fish is quickly grabbed by the plants. Plants out-compete bacteria for ammonia too. This is why I said previously that you could toss in some floating plants to help. I notice that plant growth slows a lot when no fish are present; this is because the nitrogen (ammonia) is less, only being produced by the breakdown of organics and without fish there are less organics. When I have fish in this tank for several weeks, the plants do respond with more growth. The plants in my display tanks grow much faster due to the fish load.

Byron.
 
I've asked around for someone to take the barb, but nobody wants it. I certainly don't want to kill it. The Molly, we are attached to, so what to do? How do you deal with fish you don't want any more?

Still not sure what to do with the Molly.
 
Another death. This time a threestriped Cory. I found him upside down with what appears to be an orange jaw like the others. Is this some disease?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom