Firstly apologies if this question is in the wrong place in the forum. I got frustrated trying to get this working.
I set up my tropical tank about 2 and a half weeks ago.
I transferred about 8 fish from an old tank, and lost some of them.
I bought 2 dwarf gouramies on Saturday, and they seemed to be getting on fine. Now they are at the top of the tank gasping for breath. The 3 cardinal tetras I bought have now died.
There is obviously something wrong with the water - the PH is fine.
Yeah, add some start zyme to the tank, and an air stone is always good to have. Start Zyme is a tablet that get your tank started up, and it sounds like you added to many fish to fast.
There are very few applications where an air stone is really needed. Gouramis gasping at the surface is not one of them, as they breathe atmospheric oxygen - so its not a matter of oxygen content in the water.
If you already have a tank set up, then the best thing to do would be to move some of your media from the old ranks filter to the new tanks filter. That will give the new tank a jump start on the cycle, perhaps getting up to speed by the end of the week. Water changes are necessary in the mean time.
I'm sorry for recommending the airstone, but I have African Cichlids and they need an airstone in order to remove CO2 and small portions of nitrogen and to add oxygen to the water.
I know lots of people with African cichlid tanks that don't use air stones. Air stones don't actually add air to the water. The bursting of the bubbles on the surface breaks the surface tension of the water, allowing for the gas exchange to occur. If the filtration provides sufficient surface disturbance, as most do, then the air stone is not needed for that purpose.
Air stones are good for eliminating dead spots in Tanks too small for a power head or circulation pump. The rising bubbles create a vacuum that draws water up behind the bubbles.
I seem to have solve my ammonia problems.
I now have 3 new guppys in the tank. Have had them for 3 days now. One of them seems to be lingering around the top of the tank a lot - does this indicate a problem?
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