Your current Fish tank Setups!
- Thread starter Malt_Vinegar
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My first foray into fish keeping.
My girlfriend bought me everything you see here (Tank, stand, heater, filter, substrate, plant, drift wood and 5 x neon Tetras) for £20.00!
One of the Neons is really docile compared to the other 4, he just seems to bob about whereas the other 4 are settling in quite nicely, im thinking he just hasn't taken to the water very well....any ideas?
My girlfriend bought me everything you see here (Tank, stand, heater, filter, substrate, plant, drift wood and 5 x neon Tetras) for £20.00!
One of the Neons is really docile compared to the other 4, he just seems to bob about whereas the other 4 are settling in quite nicely, im thinking he just hasn't taken to the water very well....any ideas?
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Soldato
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If there is constant light on the tank your going to be fighting a losing battle.Can you not relocate the tank?
Otherwise go dark for 3 days, use a carbon based product dosed daily at max amount. I have some advanced plants in my tank and used Easycarbo just fine. You will need to be on top of your housekeeping though weekly as it will return if you cant manage the natural light.
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Neons are a terrible fish for a new tank. They require an aged system to live well. I suspect you will lose most of them. Especially if you did not run a Cycle of some kind before adding any fish.
Neons really need a tank over 6 months old to be happy and live well.
If you are going to do a fish in cycle, then you should use a much hardier fish like a danio, and use a test kit/regular water changes to keep the fish safe untill things are settled.
You should try and get some established filter media asap from a friend, or LFS (local fish shop)to aid the cycle and try to save the fish. Any LFS that advises Neons for a new tank is worth avoiding in future when it comes to advice.
Also, do a 50% (treated water) water change then bring feeding down to once every couple of days, and only what they eat in a couple of minutes, and remove any un-eaten with a net. This should help keep the bio load down. Fish do no need regular feeding, and will survive quite happily on this little amount of food.
Keep testing the water daily and do water changes to suit.
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Soldato
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With regards to fish food my we bought 200grams of King British Tropical Fish Flakes and have noticed that any uneaten food goes mouldy (furry) after a day where as our old brand 'Aquarian' wish is much more expensive never did this, plus the King British is very dry and goes powdery.
What Flakes do you guys use?
What Flakes do you guys use?
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I never use flake. I use Hikari cichlid pellets for the main food, and supplement with frozen tropical quintet, and some sinking pellets.
I also lob in a few daddy long legs, or insects I find when near the tank. My Rasboras and Rainbow fish love them!
I also lob in a few daddy long legs, or insects I find when near the tank. My Rasboras and Rainbow fish love them!
Thanks for the advice.
The tank had been running with no fish in there for 3 weeks, everything you see minus the neons came from the one owner who turned it off, emptied it, we picked it up and filled it up treated with the treatment fluid and have left it empty ever since.
The Ph level has been sat at 5.8 for the past week and from reading around this seemed to be about right so I took the plunge and got the fish.
As an update, the little one who was rather docile has picked up massively and has joined his buddies and seems to be settling.
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Ok, I will bite.. The fish in cycle is perfectly safe, provided you are willing to do the work to keep the parameters comfortable then it's actually better, quicker and safer than a fishless cycle. You could fish in cycle with delicate fish if you wanted to, its just harder work, hence recommending a hardier fish to allow a wider working range of values.
If you accidentally fishless cycle with a lower bio-load than you will eventually be stocking, you risk a spike once the fish are added. A fish in cycle is much more accurate as you are cycling with the correct bio load for the fish you are housing. The sad fact is that people are told when they start by people on the net that a fishless cycle is better and end up preaching this to everyone they meet from then on without ever actually looking into the details. The fish-in cycler ends up proclaimed as bad person, who hates his fish!
This is nicely summed up in the following article.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/fish-in-cycling-step-over-into-the-dark-side-176446.html
So, please, think before you write off the fish-in cycle. With the right care and attention, it is the best way to start a tank, when mature media is not available!
Always happy to help.
What other parameters are you checking, and what method are you using for pH? I would do a full broad spectrum test. Like the API Freshwater Master Test Kit to know exactly what is going on. This is what I use when I test. (which is very rarely now my tank is fully established!)
This was the last test I did to mine:
I am not sure that having your water so acidic is a good idea though, some would say 6 is the lower end of the safe pH spectrum for neons, but they are happy upwards of 7. Aiming for just below neutral would be better, as it give s you more of a buffer in either direction. This is important in a small tank where parameters can swing wildly because of the low water volume. I suspect you may have some nitrate/nitrite out of whack which might be causing your lower pH value.
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Soldato
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This is my rio 400
real plants are all almost brand new to tank so not had chance to grow yet
all plastics are looking a little tired so I have a few on order.
Just wish my 7 clown loaches didn't hide so much, they have grown to decentish sizes now as well
real plants are all almost brand new to tank so not had chance to grow yet
all plastics are looking a little tired so I have a few on order.
Just wish my 7 clown loaches didn't hide so much, they have grown to decentish sizes now as well
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Soldato
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Lost my one week old Betta at the weekend, sucks.Did a weekly water change, all tests came back fine , but there was obviously something he didnt like. No idea....Some fish are so fickle its crazy.
compare that to my blue dwarf gourami one of whom got trapped in some bog wood, was massively bruized on his whole body and is fine as anything now.
compare that to my blue dwarf gourami one of whom got trapped in some bog wood, was massively bruized on his whole body and is fine as anything now.
Although my line is a little different here, I too wouldn't mind knowing what the effects of putting rocks in my tank would be to the water chemistry. In my case, I'm not trying to specifically alter the ph; it would just be interesting to learn a bit more about what things change.
The cycle on my tank seems to have stalled.
The ammonia > nitrite went really quickly, the first 3ppm went back to zero in a matter of days. But the nitrite never budged 2 weeks and more two ammonia doses later the nitrite was sitting at 20ppm and nitrates barley above tap water levels 30-40ppm. PH is around 8.2 and the water is hard.
I have done a water change to bring the nitrite down to 8 and now the waiting game begins again.
Any advice other than to sit it out?
The ammonia > nitrite went really quickly, the first 3ppm went back to zero in a matter of days. But the nitrite never budged 2 weeks and more two ammonia doses later the nitrite was sitting at 20ppm and nitrates barley above tap water levels 30-40ppm. PH is around 8.2 and the water is hard.
I have done a water change to bring the nitrite down to 8 and now the waiting game begins again.
Any advice other than to sit it out?
