Axle86

I have had similar experiences with buying guppies from a store, chain or local. I have had guppies die suddenly after a few hours to about the 72 hour mark and never had any idea what the problem was other than I hear that guppies aren't as hardy due to inbreeding. That's the answer I had typically got from Facebook groups. So like other have mentioned it is probably something they're carrying or something in the tank, say you just set up a quarantine tank where the biological filter hasn't had time to get established.... This might be a good resource, https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/17-6-guppies-and-livebearers/

So the good news is the one guppy that was acting strange seems to be fine now almost right after my last post. A couple of strange things about the pond. The pH has up until recently been around 7.8-8.0, now is getting up in the 8.3-8.4 range, still nothing to write home about and thought it was simply due to evaporation. Except rain and topping it off hasn't had much effect. I do have both crushed coral and some floramax planted substrate, it's about half and half with the crushed coral kind of on top, some of it did get mixed. I suspect it is the flora max because I thought crushed coral would only take the pH to a certain point... The water parameters recently... I've added enough ammonium chloride to cycle a 150 gallon tank, the mini-pond is around 50 gallons. I will see a small amount of ammonia, a small amount of nitrite and never have got nitrates to appear. I thought maybe algae is taking care of it but the water has only recently turned green and added plants recently. Does the sun have an effect on things? I'm just surprised that the nitrates didn't go through the roof. We did have a lot of rain in March but not so much this month so not a lot of water has overflowed out of the pond. Finally, one of my other concerns is temps. Hasn't got hot yet and the pond hasn't got above 75 as far as I know. I miss out on peak heating at work so it may have gone 1-2 degrees more. I am wondering once we start getting 85...90+ days that the pond will far exceed the 82 degrees. Not sure how well or if guppies will tolerate temps going well beyond 82 F during the afternoon. To give a better description of the weather we typically get in Western NC during the summer, it's humid (60-70's dewpoints) and temps typically don't exceed lower to mid 90's, overnight temps in the lower 70's. Afternoon thunderstorms are fairly regular but not always daily, but often will cool things down even if it doesn't rain. Starts drying up in August and remains hot until mid September. I expect to be able to keep guppies outside until the end of October (depending on weather). That being said I have recorded the pond temps periodically. There is a 200 watt heater set at 72 to help prop the temps up. I know major nermage with the Excel spreadsheets.... Seems the temps range +/- 15-20 degrees on a sunny day right now. I think once the humidity starts staying high, when we start staying 65-70 overnight with matching dewpoints the range will be a little less. I'm wondering if I will end up needing more shade or more plants to cover the top of the pond. The pond gets about 5-6 hours of sunlight, from about 10:30 to about 3:30 roughly.

From my understanding CO2 present will drive the pH down, since plants will take in the CO2 it will raise the pH. So depending on how much CO2 and other dissolved gases that are present in your tap water will have an effect on the pH. I suppose you could put some tap water in a cup or bowl and let it sit overnight to get a clearer picture of what your water is like once it's gone into your tank. All in all I think you'll be fine with panda corys. They do like it cooler (some keep theirs around 72) but if your tank is at 78 for your betta you should be fine. I think as long as you're not at 85 or something crazy probably won't have trouble from what I have observed with mine. I keep my 55 community tank around 75-76 F and everyone seems happy with it, both betta and panda corys.

I don't think Fritz Zyme was the ammonia source, not saying it is 100% without a shadow of a doubt impossible but shouldn't cause ammonia. Yes, pH, GH & KH are a little high for bettas and panda corys but I don't know that it would prevent you from keeping them, so if someone more knowledgeable would chime in, I know both fish prefer softer, lower pH (7 and under). However, it is best to not try chasing the pH & hardness, that would likely prove more stressful for the fish than just keeping them in your water. The fluctuations in pH are also from the amount of CO2 & O2 in the water, so water changes shouldn't be a problem. That being said you can get RO (reverse osmosis water) which removes all the minerals that make the water hard but those setups can be outside of someone's budget. As far as the test strips go it depends on the brand as to how easy it is to read, even the liquid tests can be hard to tell under certain light.

@Chlo No worries. I've been there myself when I got back into the hobby, and when I say I got back into the hobby...before I didn't really know about the nitrogen cycle. In short, glad I came across Aquarium Co-Op's youtube channel. So Ammonium itself is non-toxic (or less toxic) to fish. The catch about ammonium is that if the pH is above ~6.4 it becomes ammonia which is of course very toxic to fish. In your case my thinking would be that the fish (or rather their poop) is the ammonia source. So adding the Fritz Zyme was a good thing and since you're not showing any ammonia you're mostly ok. I say mostly because nitrite is still toxic to fish, but not as bad as ammonia. Not sure the exact threshold of toxicity on nitrite but I would think less than 0.5 ppm is probably ok (take with a grain of salt as it might be less than that) but you may want to add something like Seachem Prime which will detoxify nitrite to be on the safe side. The instructions on their product say to dose 5x the normal amount for detoxifying nitrite, but doesn't indicate if you need to redose (perhaps someone can chime in on that as I myself have not used prime). Otherwise I would think you're probably on the home-stretch on getting the tank cycled. The next thing to watch once the nitrite goes down is nitrate which as a general rule of thumb shouldn't exceed ~40 ppm, aim for about 10-20. Live plants will consume some of the nitrates and reduce how often you will need to change out water.

In my experience using Fritz Zyme 7. I only tested positive for ammonia when there was an ammonia source like Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride. I don't recall ever reading ammonia present when using without something else with it. As far as I know it is just the bacteria, but getting 4-8 ppm ammonia is pretty significant so I'm baffled by your experience. I do use the API master kit for ammonia and not sure if perhaps certain ammonia tests could somehow react to it? Is this in a new tank that hasn't been cycled? Is there a possible other ammonia source, such as [previously] having fish in the tank? edit: And yep, if you're seeing no ammonia and some nitrite you're on the right path. Eventually you should see some nitrates.

A while back I started this thread about starting a mini-pond, a ~50 gallon kidney bean partially buried pond liner... Since then I have used some crushed coral and flora max for substrate, sponge filter and more recently an 8" waterfall which I dumped some bio balls and more sponge to since it had a trough and why not. I also added a 200 watt heater to help prop the temp up which does help but still not quite warm enough to add any live stock. I think a few more week things should be ready. My plan is to put some guppies in the pond, if I can find enough cover for them. Having a hard time finding stuff like hornwort and a tad early for pond plants but I do have a couple lily pads started. I have a 20 gallon tank setup inside. Our well water is on the softer side, so I opted to use crushed coral in the 20 gallon tank as well as the mini-pond. The 20 gallon tank is sitting at 7.8 and the pond a little higher (evaporation?) at 8.2. The 20 gallon is a newly cycled and since i have been running medication and having to change some of the water the water is a little cloudy. No ammonia/nitrite and nitrates less than 5 ppm (down from 40 after it finished cycling on 3/9). I did make a mistake and bought 4 guppies from a well known chain store to which 3 of the 4 guppies died in less than 48 hours. So I did get 8 more guppies from a local pet store and did not have quite as bad luck, I've lost 1 or 2, but I do have one that is behaving weird. In the attached photos the guppy will lie on the bottom of the tank and then swim off, but I have not seen it swim more than halfway up. I can't see anything visually wrong and the rest of the fish seem to be fine. (seems the photos aren't rotated correctly). I have treated the tank with Maracyn, Para cleanse and Ich-X. The consensus of responses I got from other sources are that guppies aren't as hardy as they used to be and that I just got a bad batch of guppies, etc. Not entirely sure that is true, I just think getting them from a chain store and a newly cycled tank that I'm running meds through probably is part of the equation. My question about the guppies since I have not previously kept guppies before are things to look out for, or other "general" tips. Someone suggested brackish water. Which is also something I haven't had experience with. I did lookup to get an idea of how much salt I would need to add for brackish water...in short depending on whether you go "low end" or "high end" brackish, closer to marine, it seems you would add somewhere around 1.5 lbs of marine salt for a 20 gallon tank. The two concerns I have is whether any plants can acclimate to brackish water that have previously been in freshwater and since my plan is to keep guppies in an outdoor pond, I don't know how difficult it would be to maintain brackish water outdoors or that there is a whole lot of benefit of keeping guppies in brackish water. Definitely would prefer the easier route but if brackish water is a hands-down good way to go for guppies and the plants won't die off it is something I would look at doing. Plants I plan on keeping in the 20 gallon are really going to be limited to floating plants like duckweed, frogbit and water sprite...hornwort if I can ever find any. Some sources suggest these plants will tolerate brackish water but I am a bit skeptical. Plants I plan on keeping in the mini-pond are the same as the 20 gallon plus lily pads and other pond plants like water hyacinth, water lettuce and so forth. Getting to some of the concerns about the pond itself. One of the concerns I have is temperature. I have been monitoring the temps for some time and I am worried that when the hot weather arrives that I will have a hard time keeping the temp at or under 82 F. The pond will be in sunlight between 11 AM and 3 PM which is enough to warm up the water quite a bit and it hasn't been very warm or humid yet. I don't know if having a lot of floating plants covering the water surface will help enough to keep the temp under control or not. Can't really move the pond at this point, not many places get less sunlight that is level enough to keep the pond. Any suggestions and advice are welcomed 🙂

@GardenStateGoldfish If you're referring to climate zones as shown on here https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/climates I am between C & D (western NC mountains). It can get quite hot during the summer, although last year it never got above 93 but normally we have days were it can approach the 100 mark. If I remember correctly 2012 we had 3 104 F days in a row...but that's atypical. The location of the kidney bean pond should see sun from mid morning to late afternoon during the summer. Once the end of October gets here will probably mark the end of the season as far as keeping fish outside... Being a smaller pond (50 gallon) I do wonder if going with one of the larger stock tanks would be better to reduce temp swings? Since it will be under direct sunlight for several hours. Once summer gets here overnight temps usually don't fall below 68 F between June and August. Also good heads up on the dragonfly larvae, never knew that would be a problem and we do have some dragonflies. Also good advice @Streetwise about having ways to keep critters from falling in and drowning, that would be bad and likely to go unnoticed for too long.

I did consider, before being given this pond, to go with a stock tank which I can get from a feed store. Looks like the depth on the 100 gallon stock tanks are about 31" and the depth of the pond I was able to measure about 18" in the deepest section. I did look up the pond I have and appears 50 gallons is the capacity. The larger stock tanks do get a bit deeper. So if given the option would it be better to go with a stock feeder tank for the extra depth (if not overall capacity) versus trying to fortify the kidney bean pond? I am also assuming that floating plants like water lilies, water hyacinth, guppy grass, duckweed and so on would also provide some protection and cover from predators? Is it standard practice to keep a screen of some sort over a pond?

@Dawn T That is a concern, not sure what will work best, whether I need to fabricate a cover or load up on floating plants for cover.

I'm planning on setting up a mini-pond this spring once the weather warms up. I was given a kidney bean shaped pond which I estimate hold about 50-60 gallons. So far I have the pond filled with water and purchased some caribsea flora max and crushed coral. I have pretty soft, slightly acidic well water, so hoping the crushed coral and substrate help raise the pH and add hardness as my understanding that guppies prefer harder water higher pH. Do correct me if I am wrong on any of that, haven't added anything to the pond other than water. My next step is to run airline from inside (hopefully) to a sponge filter. May consider adding a heater just to help keep it from getting too low at the beginning and end of the season. The pond is partially buried but we're talking about 12-16". So that means by the end of the end of the season I'll need something else to keep the guppies (and perhaps their fry if this all goes according to plan) in at the end of the season, so I'm thinking indoor mini-pond. Definitely will have to find a source for plants (guppy grass, water lilies, etc) perhaps that sort of stuff is out of season? I just want to make sure I'm not going down the wrong path, or missing some important steps or other things I need to consider. This will be my first pond and first time keeping guppies.

Looks like I forgot to follow up so here's an update. The smell was definitely the rocks. Not sure if it would have caused problems but felt it would better to not roll the dice. In short, I removed the rocks, changed the water out and no more smell. I've had the tank running with fish since then and haven't had any problems so far. So the moral of this story is don't put random rocks in your tank unless you know the source or know what kind of rocks they are. Same goes with DIY driftwood, that was something else I thought about doing and didn't go through with. It is very easy to add stuff to the tank that might cause more problems.

Probably the worst thing I ever done was try to do a marine aquarium in a 10 gallon tank. Not saying it can't be done but at the time I had no idea what I was doing and as anyone could imagine it didn't end well. I simply had no understanding about things like the nitrogen cycle and that ammonia was a thing. I have definitely learned a lot since I was a kid and getting back into the hobby. Looking back it is amazing how many myths and bad information there is out there. For instance like someone else mentioned, I would change out all of the water, rinse the gravel and so forth...it does make me cringe thinking about how bad that was.

@JaredL Yeah I read similar things and most of what I read sounded like that is more likely to occur in an older setup tank or having deep substrate. No airstone in the tank currently, however the tank is completely new and was filled along with the Fluval Stratum and rocks then the smell started at about 48 hours in. To answer your question, no there is likely not adequate agitation if I had fish in the tank, right now it is just water, substrate and a few plants from my other 10 gallon. My guess would be that since the tank is not stocked that oxygen levels should stay at a decent level with the agitation there....then again I'm not expert either. I did drain and refill, rinsed out the filter media and we'll see what happens. If it stinks again in a couple days then we'll know the rocks from Home Depot weren't the cause...or maybe I didn't get all the water out (which is pretty much impossible having substrate)...

Nope, didn't add any dechlorinator. I am on well water, however, I've never noticed any sort of odor coming from the water. I did see that Prime and some other stuff can cause odors. I did try to search around to see if Stratum might cause an odor, same for the rocks (I was inundated with ads to go buy some more rocks). I did see a lot of posts on other aquarium related sites that rocks from places like Home Depot are allegedly safe or that people didn't have problems. Couldn't really find anything mentioning a sulfur smells specifically for Stratum or much of anything about the rocks. I guess the one way for sure I'll know having taken the rocks out of the tank (and now I can put ~3 more gallons of water in) is to drain and refill the tank and see if the odor comes back. Probably need to ring out and rise the filters too. I'll post back to the thread after I've done that and a few days have gone by. Definitely curious if anyone has had odd experiences like this.

@Dandy Pearl That is correct. Actually just a HOB and heater. The tank is new, I did have it going, temporarily, with fish a month ago. I drained it and it sit for a few weeks dry. I rinsed the tank out before filling it and adding substrate and this "creek stone" The best I can determine on these rocks is that they're supposed to have come from a dry creek bed...but of course not knowing what kind of rocks these are, or if they've been treated with something (nothing on the package)...Hopefully a drain and refill will fix the problem and won't be a problem later on when I do get around to adding fiash.

Yeah that's kind of the feeling I got...but since I've never used the stuff before. At any rate, I went ahead and removed the rocks. Probably the better choice rather than to experiment with boiling and baking rocks and finding out they're not safe for fish. I'll probably wait until tomorrow but I should probably change out some of the water and do so until the smell is gone.

A couple of days ago I got my 55 gallon setup with Fluval Stratum and also got some "Natural Creek Stone" I got from Home Depot, thought it would be a money saver, look neat against the black background and substrate. I did rinse and clean the rocks. However, after 2 days have gone by I am noticing a sulfur smell. I've never used Fluval Stratum before but I also don't think that's where the smell is coming from. I have a feeling it is coming from the rocks. Someone had suggested I boil/bake the rocks but I do have a concern about explosions and not sure that would necessarily fix the problem--but then again I don't know. The tank is not stocked with any fish and won't be until likely after the holidays. Other concerns about the rocks, because hindsight is 20/20, is whether or not the rocks will alter the water chemistry, hardness, etc over time. I plan on doing a large school of neon tetras and possibly other fish that prefer similar water parameters. Haven't completely decided on everything. My gut instinct is to remove the rocks and find a new purpose for them, after all once plants are taking over the tank I probably won't see much of the bottom anyway. I don't know what type of rock these are other than they're natural creek stone and not cement. I guess the first question is to rule out the possibility that the Fluval Stratum would be the cause of the smell? Second is the likelihood of these rocks being an issue. I'm not opposed to removing the rocks but wouldn't mind not having to remove them either. edit: The water parameters after 24 hours after filling were: pH 6.6, GH 72 ppm, KG 36 ppm, Ammonia 1 ppm, Nitrite 0 ppm and Nitrate >0 but less than 5 ppm. I rechecked the water and nothing has changed (that I can measure).