Hi Everyone,
This is going to be long, so bear with me as I'd like to explain the whole story so you can pick it apart as to all the ways I've screwed up and help me make better choices on my new 29gal.
I'd been begging my husband for a fish, forever. I knew nothing, really, other than feed and clean the tank. About a year ago we bought a beta and a nice 3 gal aquarium for him with some artificial plants. I learned a lot from caring from him as we went through some learning curves. We had issues with the water, so I know now but not then. But eventually my beta "Ajax" is doing well. To those that want to understand what I learned is beta's do not like aerators. I had an air stone with a filter and as soon as I removed the air stone, my beautiful Ajax made me a bubble nest. I got him a yellow mystery snail which I've read too much about which are apple snails, but they’re not...depending on whose post you read. They seemed fine, but then my grumpy betta decided he didn't like my "Hertz" and decided to nip all his long beautiful feelers off. So I decided that I needed a new tank for Hertz, of course . So this is where everything gets interesting.
First the 10 gallon fiasco (still ongoing)
I bought a 10 gallon tank with a nice 20 gallon filter, a stupid nice heater (we live in the mtns and it gets stinking cold). I bought some sand substrate, two live plants, a few decorative pieces (hide caves/logs). Everything arrived and I put it all together and boom insta tank! lol I had done some research, but tbh there is so much information on the internet that contradicts itself and I was really confused by a sure way of knowing when it's "safe" to add fish.
I got 3 male guppies from my local fish store and floated them and dropped them in. Now I realize that there is a much better way to introduce your new fish to your aquarium, but I didn't realize this until later...to be explained. LOL
They all seemed to be doing well, but looking back I'm not honestly 100% sure. I mean, how can you really tell they are happy and healthy? I don't remember exactly how they were acting, as I didn't "see" anything strange, but I don't think I would have realized anything strange was happening...they were swimming after all right? I can say none of them were just laying at the bottom, they were all eating and swimming around. Perhaps slightly stressed, but nothing that seemed crazy.
I waited a week with them in the tank to make sure all was good and dandy, and then went to add more. I went to a different fish store (nothing relevant just as the location we were it was closer) and picked out 3 harlequin, 4 rummy nose, and 2 panda Corydoras Catfish. Before you yell, scream and jump up and down...I know this was WAY too many new fish to introduce at once to a new tank. But again...I know this now....not then.
I got home, floated them all and then dump! This is where **** hit the fan. Everything seemed ok to start, but then it just went crazy. I had one rummy nose that was darting from one side of the tank to the other. Swimming sideways and just going nuts. I think at first I just thought he was having a ball and excited to be in a new pretty clean tank...LOL oh so naive. I lost him pretty quickly, but once I did I think I went into full panic.
Research, research and more research. I figured it was something with the water, but I had no testing supplies so I was shooting on just what I was reading as the possible causes. I started adding some conditioner to the water, thinking it had some chlorine (our tap water is stupid hard) or something and I didn't treat it properly. At this point I lost one additional rummy nose (if I recall correctly) and my harlequin had little color, but my guppies seemed to be ok.
So the conditioner didn't seem to be making a difference, and my husband has a PH meter (electronic) he uses for his hydroponics so we decided to test the ph. It was at like 8 so we decided to get some ph up/down and get the ph down. I put the ph down in and got it to read 7 on the ph meter. An hour later, right back up to 8.
So...more research, research research.
I found out that it's basically because of our water. It can hold a ph of 8 so yes I can forcibly bring it down to 7, but it will only stay there for a short while then naturally it will go right back up to 8. I cannot remember the exact scientific terms or reasoning but it looked like the culprit was my tap water hardness.
Luckily, we have a beautiful RO system (2 in fact) so I decided to do 30% water changes and just add RO water. By this point I had some of those test strips but it was reading weird. It had my water as low alkalinity, but my PH reading at 8 still. No nitrates, chlorine, but the hardness, was up to around 400 ppm.
Again, I'm freaking out because I'm down to one rummy nose and that one is struggling. My guppies are swimming up and down on one corner, and my harlequin seemed to be doing ok. My smaller of the two cory's died, but he seemed pretty weak to start so I wasn't really surprised.
I keep trying ph down, and RO water changes and nothing seems to be working. So, I did more research and decided my tank was not cycled and basically I was killing my fish.
I took out the pretty underwater river aerator I bought because I read that it wasn't necessary as I had a filter, and that the aerator wasn't really making a difference. I removed it because I thought I might be making too much of a current in the water which is stressing my fish out. That also didn't make a difference. Within a day or two, two of my three guppies died. This was a complete shock to me as they were eating and swimming then one died and the next day another did.
I decided at this point I was doing WAY too many changes WAY too quickly and I needed to let my tank sit. I figured there was a good chance that all of my fish would eventually die, but that I had to let my tank "cycle" and if I needed to, start from scratch.
So that's where I am right now. I have a much nicer testing kit to test my water, so here is where the 10 gallon is:
PH: 7.6
High Range PH: 7.8
Ammonia: 4.0
Nitrite: 1.0
Nitrate: 10
Hardness: 75
Chlorine: 0
Alkalinity: 40
I have done the following to help the tank cycle:
I added rocks from my beta tank that's been set up and running for well over a year.
I added a air stone that creates less current than the underwater river I had.
I added a piece of driftwood from an already established tank (from the fish store).
I lowered my heater down to about 77 degrees. I noticed during the afternoon the temp could reach 81/82 which I read can kill the fish because it carries less oxygen.
I have the 3 harlequin still alive and kickin (1 actually survived ich with no treatment which I was super impressed.) I lost the last cory this morning and I have the one guppy left and one rummy nose who seems to be adopted by the harlequin.
What I've learned about my 10 gallon. First and foremost I shouldn't have added that many fish to a newly set up tank. There wasn't enough bacteria present to carry the new fish addition and a combination of the new fish, the not properly cycled tank, and way too many water changes basically made me a murder.
So where are we now?
My husband wants a glo aquarium so I'm going to transfer my remaining fish into a 29 gal aquarium (not immediately hush I'll get there LOL) and then beef up their schools so they feel safer. Then turn my 10 gallon into a black light color show for him. My beta will stay in his 3 gallon home, he loves it there.
So now on to my 29 gallon and where I need some help and any feedback you have is SOOOO appreciated.
So I got the 29 gallon, rinsed it out and rinsed all the supplies.
I bought 40 lbs of CaribSea Eco-Complete for substrate and a really nice large piece of driftwood. I painstakingly filled up all 29 gallons with RO water, screw tap water! I put in the substrate and soaked the driftwood for about 8 hours before putting it into the tank. Right now the tank ONLY has the substrate, RO water, filter and the driftwood. I'm letting it sit for right now until I have some feedback. Hopefully!
I would love some guidance on when I should put my fish from my 10 gallon into my 29 gallon. I realize I need to introduce them correctly. Meaning I'll scoop them up and then every 30 min add one cup of the new tank water into their holding container. After a few hours of doing this I will net them out and put them into the new tank. But when? I don't want to kill any more of them but I also know waste is a necessity to help cycle the tank. I was thinking about just putting my snail in there and giving him a few pellets letting him put waste in the tank for the bacteria, but will he be enough?
I also don't want my 10 gallon to start going down the tubes so I don't want to remove them too early from the 10 gallon, seeing i need that tank more established to be feel comfortable with putting the glofish in there.
I will also be moving my Aponogeton Ulvaceus Bulb to the new 29 aquarium. It's not growing upwards, but the leaves all grow down, so I'm assuming this has to do with the tank/nutrients. The new substrate for the 29 gallon is supposed to support live plants much better. I'm also adding Echinodorus Aflame Purple Knight Red Amazon Sword, Dwarf Baby Tears and Twisted Vallisneria Spiralis Torta Vallis. I'll be adding a VivaGrow DN RGB LED Aquarium Light and my plan is to have 8 Harlequin (plus one adopted rummy nose), 4-5 corys's and 4-5 guppies. I won't get any more rummy nose because I've just heard so much about how sensitive they are and I don't want to kill any more. If you have any suggestions on fish/school sizes I'm totally open. I guess I figured the best decision for the fish was to give them the proper school size, vs appeasing my need for a variety of fish.
I think I covered everything, but please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, advice, direction, etc. I don't have any water tests yet for the new tank, I just got it filled and filtering this morning so it's a little too early to be able to know where the tank is going to be.
This is going to be long, so bear with me as I'd like to explain the whole story so you can pick it apart as to all the ways I've screwed up and help me make better choices on my new 29gal.
I'd been begging my husband for a fish, forever. I knew nothing, really, other than feed and clean the tank. About a year ago we bought a beta and a nice 3 gal aquarium for him with some artificial plants. I learned a lot from caring from him as we went through some learning curves. We had issues with the water, so I know now but not then. But eventually my beta "Ajax" is doing well. To those that want to understand what I learned is beta's do not like aerators. I had an air stone with a filter and as soon as I removed the air stone, my beautiful Ajax made me a bubble nest. I got him a yellow mystery snail which I've read too much about which are apple snails, but they’re not...depending on whose post you read. They seemed fine, but then my grumpy betta decided he didn't like my "Hertz" and decided to nip all his long beautiful feelers off. So I decided that I needed a new tank for Hertz, of course . So this is where everything gets interesting.
First the 10 gallon fiasco (still ongoing)
I bought a 10 gallon tank with a nice 20 gallon filter, a stupid nice heater (we live in the mtns and it gets stinking cold). I bought some sand substrate, two live plants, a few decorative pieces (hide caves/logs). Everything arrived and I put it all together and boom insta tank! lol I had done some research, but tbh there is so much information on the internet that contradicts itself and I was really confused by a sure way of knowing when it's "safe" to add fish.
I got 3 male guppies from my local fish store and floated them and dropped them in. Now I realize that there is a much better way to introduce your new fish to your aquarium, but I didn't realize this until later...to be explained. LOL
They all seemed to be doing well, but looking back I'm not honestly 100% sure. I mean, how can you really tell they are happy and healthy? I don't remember exactly how they were acting, as I didn't "see" anything strange, but I don't think I would have realized anything strange was happening...they were swimming after all right? I can say none of them were just laying at the bottom, they were all eating and swimming around. Perhaps slightly stressed, but nothing that seemed crazy.
I waited a week with them in the tank to make sure all was good and dandy, and then went to add more. I went to a different fish store (nothing relevant just as the location we were it was closer) and picked out 3 harlequin, 4 rummy nose, and 2 panda Corydoras Catfish. Before you yell, scream and jump up and down...I know this was WAY too many new fish to introduce at once to a new tank. But again...I know this now....not then.
I got home, floated them all and then dump! This is where **** hit the fan. Everything seemed ok to start, but then it just went crazy. I had one rummy nose that was darting from one side of the tank to the other. Swimming sideways and just going nuts. I think at first I just thought he was having a ball and excited to be in a new pretty clean tank...LOL oh so naive. I lost him pretty quickly, but once I did I think I went into full panic.
Research, research and more research. I figured it was something with the water, but I had no testing supplies so I was shooting on just what I was reading as the possible causes. I started adding some conditioner to the water, thinking it had some chlorine (our tap water is stupid hard) or something and I didn't treat it properly. At this point I lost one additional rummy nose (if I recall correctly) and my harlequin had little color, but my guppies seemed to be ok.
So the conditioner didn't seem to be making a difference, and my husband has a PH meter (electronic) he uses for his hydroponics so we decided to test the ph. It was at like 8 so we decided to get some ph up/down and get the ph down. I put the ph down in and got it to read 7 on the ph meter. An hour later, right back up to 8.
So...more research, research research.
I found out that it's basically because of our water. It can hold a ph of 8 so yes I can forcibly bring it down to 7, but it will only stay there for a short while then naturally it will go right back up to 8. I cannot remember the exact scientific terms or reasoning but it looked like the culprit was my tap water hardness.
Luckily, we have a beautiful RO system (2 in fact) so I decided to do 30% water changes and just add RO water. By this point I had some of those test strips but it was reading weird. It had my water as low alkalinity, but my PH reading at 8 still. No nitrates, chlorine, but the hardness, was up to around 400 ppm.
Again, I'm freaking out because I'm down to one rummy nose and that one is struggling. My guppies are swimming up and down on one corner, and my harlequin seemed to be doing ok. My smaller of the two cory's died, but he seemed pretty weak to start so I wasn't really surprised.
I keep trying ph down, and RO water changes and nothing seems to be working. So, I did more research and decided my tank was not cycled and basically I was killing my fish.
I took out the pretty underwater river aerator I bought because I read that it wasn't necessary as I had a filter, and that the aerator wasn't really making a difference. I removed it because I thought I might be making too much of a current in the water which is stressing my fish out. That also didn't make a difference. Within a day or two, two of my three guppies died. This was a complete shock to me as they were eating and swimming then one died and the next day another did.
I decided at this point I was doing WAY too many changes WAY too quickly and I needed to let my tank sit. I figured there was a good chance that all of my fish would eventually die, but that I had to let my tank "cycle" and if I needed to, start from scratch.
So that's where I am right now. I have a much nicer testing kit to test my water, so here is where the 10 gallon is:
PH: 7.6
High Range PH: 7.8
Ammonia: 4.0
Nitrite: 1.0
Nitrate: 10
Hardness: 75
Chlorine: 0
Alkalinity: 40
I have done the following to help the tank cycle:
I added rocks from my beta tank that's been set up and running for well over a year.
I added a air stone that creates less current than the underwater river I had.
I added a piece of driftwood from an already established tank (from the fish store).
I lowered my heater down to about 77 degrees. I noticed during the afternoon the temp could reach 81/82 which I read can kill the fish because it carries less oxygen.
I have the 3 harlequin still alive and kickin (1 actually survived ich with no treatment which I was super impressed.) I lost the last cory this morning and I have the one guppy left and one rummy nose who seems to be adopted by the harlequin.
What I've learned about my 10 gallon. First and foremost I shouldn't have added that many fish to a newly set up tank. There wasn't enough bacteria present to carry the new fish addition and a combination of the new fish, the not properly cycled tank, and way too many water changes basically made me a murder.
So where are we now?
My husband wants a glo aquarium so I'm going to transfer my remaining fish into a 29 gal aquarium (not immediately hush I'll get there LOL) and then beef up their schools so they feel safer. Then turn my 10 gallon into a black light color show for him. My beta will stay in his 3 gallon home, he loves it there.
So now on to my 29 gallon and where I need some help and any feedback you have is SOOOO appreciated.
So I got the 29 gallon, rinsed it out and rinsed all the supplies.
I bought 40 lbs of CaribSea Eco-Complete for substrate and a really nice large piece of driftwood. I painstakingly filled up all 29 gallons with RO water, screw tap water! I put in the substrate and soaked the driftwood for about 8 hours before putting it into the tank. Right now the tank ONLY has the substrate, RO water, filter and the driftwood. I'm letting it sit for right now until I have some feedback. Hopefully!
I would love some guidance on when I should put my fish from my 10 gallon into my 29 gallon. I realize I need to introduce them correctly. Meaning I'll scoop them up and then every 30 min add one cup of the new tank water into their holding container. After a few hours of doing this I will net them out and put them into the new tank. But when? I don't want to kill any more of them but I also know waste is a necessity to help cycle the tank. I was thinking about just putting my snail in there and giving him a few pellets letting him put waste in the tank for the bacteria, but will he be enough?
I also don't want my 10 gallon to start going down the tubes so I don't want to remove them too early from the 10 gallon, seeing i need that tank more established to be feel comfortable with putting the glofish in there.
I will also be moving my Aponogeton Ulvaceus Bulb to the new 29 aquarium. It's not growing upwards, but the leaves all grow down, so I'm assuming this has to do with the tank/nutrients. The new substrate for the 29 gallon is supposed to support live plants much better. I'm also adding Echinodorus Aflame Purple Knight Red Amazon Sword, Dwarf Baby Tears and Twisted Vallisneria Spiralis Torta Vallis. I'll be adding a VivaGrow DN RGB LED Aquarium Light and my plan is to have 8 Harlequin (plus one adopted rummy nose), 4-5 corys's and 4-5 guppies. I won't get any more rummy nose because I've just heard so much about how sensitive they are and I don't want to kill any more. If you have any suggestions on fish/school sizes I'm totally open. I guess I figured the best decision for the fish was to give them the proper school size, vs appeasing my need for a variety of fish.
I think I covered everything, but please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, advice, direction, etc. I don't have any water tests yet for the new tank, I just got it filled and filtering this morning so it's a little too early to be able to know where the tank is going to be.