Please help a beginner

Nuriel said:
do not clean off these items untill you have an established tank as they bacteria like to nest in decor crevices and such, and never clean the gunk out of your filter (maybe a rinse every six months in old tank water) as that is where the majority of helpful bacteria reside at.
hope that helps a lil bit,. good luck and keep up the water changes!!!!
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You can clean the media more offten in a established tank. I clean it once a week, and I dont get any kind of ill effect.
 
My mom took me today to get an ammonia tester. the only one they had was a Jungle inc quick dip, I've read that strip ones are not as accurate but i'm in a pinch and i'll take what i can get. So anyway i tested and it was inbetween the colors representing .5 and 3.0 I know that is a big gap but it was deffanitly closer to the .5 level. So i added the minimum dose of ammonia clear (i am afraid to do another water change because i probably killed so much bacteria the first time. So hope fully this will help my fish relax and allow time for my bacteria to colonize. Thanks for your help everyone! Updates soon.
 
Nooooo! The test strips are ok, not good not bad. Just make sure that they stay super dry. And get rid of that ammoina clear junk. And do a water change. Heres why:

Ammoina Clear: It take out the ammoina, starving the bacteria because they have nothing to eat. All the bacteria dies= you are starting over again.

Water Change: Will remove ammoina becasue you tank out it and put back in clean water. The water you tank out has little bacteria that is needed to cycle a tank. Remove a bit of good bacteria= the bacteria is still there, and will keep on growing.
 
oh...i did not know that. so i should do water changes but not a thorough cleaning??
 
The only thing you can do to upset the bacteria is adding a chemical that kills them or removing your filter media. Vaccum and water change all you can...
 
well after alot of ammonia talk i have a new problem, My molly now appears tohave a hole under her and has a long stringy white thing hanging from her. The white thing has been there for about 3 hours. I have removed her and put her in to a one galoon tank with the ten gallons tank water. Any body have an isea what is going on?
 
the hole is like right before her back bottom fin (not her tail) I don't know the specific name but from the side it looks like it is indented at least an eigth of an inch. She used to have a white patch there which i assumed was her coloring but and now wondering if it was something different. She also has the white stringy thing hanging out of her. She doesn't swim much, just lays on the bottom. She eats about 1 or 2 flakes of food when i feed her. (I scoop all extra food out after) She mostly just lays on the bottom of the tank.
 
Does anyone have any idea what the current problem could be?
 
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