i messed up

R

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Jul 20, 2004
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ok, heres the thing. On a spur of the moment deal i ended up buying a 10 gal tank. Got it set up like they said, a week later added fish. The guy at super pet said, "sure add about 4 fish and things will be fine" So now I have 2 Dwarf gouramis, 1 angel and a bala shark. Well for the last week i have also had a CRAZY! ammonia spike. The tanks on its 4 week (sunday). Have been doing a water change every other day for the last week and a bit. Still high, approaching 1.2 level.
Someone help, dont want these fish to die! Have done plenty of reading and realize ive over stocked.
Any suggestions to get this tank on its way again?

Sorry about the lengthy email

Thanks all!
 
Well for starters..I'd take the Angel and Bala shark back as they are going to out grow that 10 g and just keep on the water changes. It just soundws like you dont have a good bacteria bed for the bio load. Ihave 2 black marbel angel breeders in a 55 and the female measures 8 inches from tip of dorsal to tip of anal and shes not full grown. The male is all of 9 inches tip to tip. I'd suggest maybe a half dozen cory cat fish and those dwarfs and maybe some platys or some tetras. Good luck and dont despair. Just educate
:cool:
 
biospira should help out a lot, worked for me. Yeah, definitely lose the angel and bala shark.
 
Im not telling you what to do but voicing my opinion. Just starting out I think its the best idea if you did everythign manually to learn. There are no short cuts to an instantly balanced tank that I know of. Some may ave gotten away with using these type products I just dont have much faith in them. Its your tank though. and good luck with it
:cool:
 
Look up fishless cycling on the forum (I believe there's a sticky). You want to do that before you put fish in.

Now I'd either return everything and fishlessly cycle or hope that the gouramis weather the storm and cycle with them.
 
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yea that bala will get to a 12" long i would return it to the dealer if it was me (and give the manager a little chat )

[edit]- oh yea get that angel outa there. im a big fan of gouramis but mine always got bloat and died :( i still have no clue why
 
im gonna go bigger

hey all,
I know the tnaks to small now, i plan to go bigger around chirstmas as i have learned alot since my initail blunder, Im thinking 50 gal. However, what do i do about the overstocking right now? The angel and bala are both small but the tanks not cycling fast enough, i think im gonna lose some fish due to ammonia? How long should I expect the spike to last before the nitrite cycle kicks in?
 
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