Russell
17th December 2011, 03:07 PM
Hi All,
My name's Russell, from the Darling Downs, Qld. My son has had one of those useless 8l tanks for a while now, but has managed to keep a Pleco and one Neon alive. I never expected it to do well, but I thought the could of guppies we had in there would live. We've tried several fish over the last two years, with not much success on keeping them alive. But given the small volume of water these tanks hold, I knew it'd be tough.
Time passes, the Pleco and the Neon are still going strong, and my son expressed interest in breeding fish. So after much discussion and investigation, we purchased a 200L tank with all the gear (3 heaters, large cartridge filter + 2 in tank filters, gravel, and an airstone & pump). We set it all up and have been doing fishless cycling with a couple of raw prawns for 3 weeks.
We're on tank water, so it's pretty fish friendly straight from the tap. I put in some old biobooster we got when we first got the small tanks (not realising it's not that useful anyway) as I figured it couldn't hurt. We put in two plants when setting it up as I figured they might help the bacteria grow. It took 2 weeks for the ammonia to drop first off, and then only another 2 days for the nitrites to drop. Seems a bit strange the second half of the cycle was so quick, but we checked again over the next 2 days and everything seemed good. The pH did drop to 6.6, but I corrected that before the last test. Nitrates also were only at about 30ppm too, which also seemed a little strange.
So I figured we'd put some fish in and see how it goes. Bought 4 Danio's, let them swim for 2 days and they seemed fine. So, not wanting to run it without many fish for too long, we went yesterday and bought 9 guppies and 8 neons, and another plant, and added to the tank.
Now to the crux of the problem. Less than 24 hours later, two of the guppies have died already. I have pictures for post-mortem purposes if anyone thinks that may help. We just did a full test sweep. Temp is 24.5 C, pH is 7 - 7.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate around 80ppm!!! I've done a quick 15% water change, as I don't want the temp to bounce too much.
How the Nitrate jumped so much so quickly I'm not sure. All I can think is I muffed the first test by not shaking the solution enough, but even so, would 24 hours at that concentration kill the guppies?
My other concern is, we only have one pet shop within 100km to shop at. We've lost numerous fish from them within 12 - 24 hours. Could they possibly be just poor quality fish in the first place?
Any thoughts would be appreciated, as this is my son's Christmas present, and I hate to see him disappointed. I was eventually wanting to add some Ram Cichlids for him to try breeding too, even though their pH requirements are a little lower than the guppies, once he's comfortable looking after the guppies, but this isn't a good start.
Thanks. Russell.
My name's Russell, from the Darling Downs, Qld. My son has had one of those useless 8l tanks for a while now, but has managed to keep a Pleco and one Neon alive. I never expected it to do well, but I thought the could of guppies we had in there would live. We've tried several fish over the last two years, with not much success on keeping them alive. But given the small volume of water these tanks hold, I knew it'd be tough.
Time passes, the Pleco and the Neon are still going strong, and my son expressed interest in breeding fish. So after much discussion and investigation, we purchased a 200L tank with all the gear (3 heaters, large cartridge filter + 2 in tank filters, gravel, and an airstone & pump). We set it all up and have been doing fishless cycling with a couple of raw prawns for 3 weeks.
We're on tank water, so it's pretty fish friendly straight from the tap. I put in some old biobooster we got when we first got the small tanks (not realising it's not that useful anyway) as I figured it couldn't hurt. We put in two plants when setting it up as I figured they might help the bacteria grow. It took 2 weeks for the ammonia to drop first off, and then only another 2 days for the nitrites to drop. Seems a bit strange the second half of the cycle was so quick, but we checked again over the next 2 days and everything seemed good. The pH did drop to 6.6, but I corrected that before the last test. Nitrates also were only at about 30ppm too, which also seemed a little strange.
So I figured we'd put some fish in and see how it goes. Bought 4 Danio's, let them swim for 2 days and they seemed fine. So, not wanting to run it without many fish for too long, we went yesterday and bought 9 guppies and 8 neons, and another plant, and added to the tank.
Now to the crux of the problem. Less than 24 hours later, two of the guppies have died already. I have pictures for post-mortem purposes if anyone thinks that may help. We just did a full test sweep. Temp is 24.5 C, pH is 7 - 7.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate around 80ppm!!! I've done a quick 15% water change, as I don't want the temp to bounce too much.
How the Nitrate jumped so much so quickly I'm not sure. All I can think is I muffed the first test by not shaking the solution enough, but even so, would 24 hours at that concentration kill the guppies?
My other concern is, we only have one pet shop within 100km to shop at. We've lost numerous fish from them within 12 - 24 hours. Could they possibly be just poor quality fish in the first place?
Any thoughts would be appreciated, as this is my son's Christmas present, and I hate to see him disappointed. I was eventually wanting to add some Ram Cichlids for him to try breeding too, even though their pH requirements are a little lower than the guppies, once he's comfortable looking after the guppies, but this isn't a good start.
Thanks. Russell.