DeadStang

My "facepalm" moment was this morning, actually. I have a bunch of plant lights that come on with timers every day but I really wanted to sleep in this morning, so I flipped them off (it didn't work -- I still woke up early). So I came out and turned the lights on in my tank and all the fish were low and not moving, the rummy nose tetras noses were pale, and everyone I saw looked like they were getting ready to die! Horror -- it was like the day a couple months ago when I had a nitrite spike and the fish were sluggish and weird, which tipped me off to something being wrong overnight. Anyway, last night I did a 25% water change and added a new dragon stone...so I saw the fish "laying around" this morning and figured something was dreadfully wrong. I had boiled the rock, then soaked the rock, then rinsed the rock, but maybe something bad had happened? Or maybe something was screwy with my water change? I instantly got my ammonia and nitrite tubes to test before I did anything else and they are solid zero; pH is the same as always and nitrates are the same as my tap. WTH??? Then I go back to look and wring my hands over the tank and am thinking about all my little fishies dying and they were all swimming around and behaving normally! The rummy noses had colored up and all seemed ok...? It then occured to me that they were sleeping and I woke them up! My overhead plant lights come on on a timer every morning and the ambient light goes up in the house, then I get up and wander around and lights come on and stuff happens (dogs get let out, coffee made, etc.), then I turn on the fish tank lights, maybe 1/2 hour later then when the house gets up. I have never turned the tanks lights on in a dead dark house!

I have 1/2 dozen different types of Corys in 2 tanks. Some of the species really hang together in a group but others do not. The bronze are in the "sort of" schooling group as are the peppers. Minimum of 4 per species and look at your tank size -- maybe you can do 4-6 of each if your tank is big enough? I also had a problem moving 3 out of 4 of my reticulated juliis and only have 2 left -- they seem to be doing fine with the blacks (who are heavy schoolers) but I will be adding more juliis when they become available at my LFS because I really like them (and I like Corys, obviously!).

Add 6 of the smallest ones you can get, wait a couple of weeks, then add the rest -- also small. I have an "overstocked" 40 breeder and was able to add a couple of large groups of really small dither fish (rummy nose and marble hatchets) over a week and my parameters have remained stable.

I moved from a 20 to a 29 w/o issues. The tank was cycled by not seasoned. I put all my plants and "furniture (rocks, wood, and plastic stuff) in buckets and added tank water to cover them. Then I took out my filters and put them in other buckets with tank water. Then I took more tank water and put my fish in that with a single sponge and heater and ran those while I kept working. Then I took the rest of the water and put it another couple of buckets. I transferred all the gravel into the new tank I had pre-tested for leaks and had already cleaned. It was a dirty mess! I added back all the furniture, rocks, and wood, and put my plants in (I have very few planted plants -- mostly wired on java ferns and anubias. Then I added all the left over water and put all filters except the one in the bucket with the fish. I was changing over heaters (to an ACO one), so I got that running and waited about 4 hours until the water cleared mostly, then put back my fish and their sponge. I ended up only adding about 2 more gallons of fresh, Primed water and I added the stinky Microbe-Lift at a new tank volume. No ammonia or nitrite spikes and all is well -- the new tank has been up and stable a couple of months.

The silicone at the side of my tanks stained blue but is barely noticeable from prolonged ich treatment x 2 or 3 rounds. It did stain my airlines, which I just replaced. It stained none of my plastic tank "furniture" and did not hurt my plants or snails -- but I did not use salt, just Ich-X (and I keep my tanks at 77 degrees -- I did not raise the temperature). And I treated for 3 weeks each round.

I have a pretty "diverse" local fish store one town over (30 minute drive) but 75% of the fish I have bought from him over the past 6 months have ended up with ich or just randomly dying. So now I drive an hour each way the The Wet Spot in Portland and have had very good luck and am super pleased with their store. It does add gas and time to the fish purchases, but I am sick of treating ich and sick of my fish dying and tossing money away...it's fun to go and I'd rather spend more for fish than toss the money (dead fish) in the trash.

One of my 4 started snapping this morning. It doesn't happen often, but it's a loud click and it's definitely a new thing.

I have a wave maker set on continuous flow, so it's essentially a power head, and I run it 24/7 as well.

Apistogramma cacatuoides. The females are so friendly -- they act like they want to be petted when I go up to the tank!

I did see your post about the Seachem filters when I researching which to buy. I started with a regular Fluval HOB that sucked my snail into the inlet (before I found out about pre-filters) and the priming with my water changes when cycling and then treating ich (twice) was a pain. My water is nice and clear but I really have been "over filtering" for increased biofiltration surface area as I had a hard time getting my nitrite level under control due to a steep learning curve (for me). It just seems like I can't go wrong with too many filters but I don't want to be ridiculous.

Thanks. I have had so many issues with the tanks that I am afraid to "downsize" my filter set-up. I was even worried that I should add a second HOB to this tank, lol!

Currently I have 17 1-1.5" corys and 5 phantom tetras. Aside from excessive power usage (and noise), it's not "bad" to have that much filtration?

I have a HOB (Seachem 55), 2 sponges (a large and a medium from ACO), and a Ziss moving media filter on my 40 gallon breeder. Is this excessive? Everything "seems" to be fine but I honestly don't know... Is there some rule on how much one should have? I know people talk about just using sponges and they are fine, but I would like some guidance.

I have been doing weekly 30%-ish changes with my hard water (well), moderately basic tanks. pH from the tap is just under 7 and overnight it off-gases or something and the pH sits at 7.8-8 in 12 hours. From my tap, my nitrates are about 40 and the tanks stay 40 all week long. I have also been adding the Easy Green after a water change because the plants need more than just nitrates(?) as far as I understand. Maybe I should switch to every-other-week changes(?) -- which I wouldn't complain about! -- and Easy Green every other week as well?My tanks are heavily "planted," but only with rhizomes (Anubias and java ferns).

I do not have a lot of experience with Apistogrammas, but I have 3 A. cacatuoides -- 1 male and 2 female. They are in a lightly stocked 20 gallon community tank and I have not seen aggression between any of the 3... One female has yellowed up and is large while the other has stayed smaller and pale. None of them "hang around" together at all, but when the fish are out and about, there is no chasing or issues (yet). They all seem to inhabit different areas of the tank and there are a lot of hiding places and plants, so maybe that has helped keep them peaceful. But I note that each fish is very curious and interactive with me, so I feel like any of them would be ok alone, also.

Thanks for the replies! Elsewhere I have seen these ideas, so that's kind of the mix I was thinking of following: Labidochromis caeruleus (Yellow Lab) 1M 4FLabidochromis chisumulae 1M 4FPseudotropheus sp. acei (Yellow Tail Acei) 1M 4FPseudotropheus saulosi 1M 4F or 1m:4f Labidochromis caeruleus yellow labs1m:4f Pseudotropheus acei1m:4f Iodotropheus sprengerae rusties1m:4f Cynotilapia zebroides Cobue [Sorry for the black text -- it's a cut'n'paste that I couldn't seem to change.] I also saw some fish people recommend "controlled over stocking" to minimize the aggression where fewer fish are actually more of a problem than the 20. I want to do my research and start out more planned for this tank than I have done so far.

I also want to believe my tank is well-established, but "they" say the tank needs to be at least 6 months old -- if not 12 -- before one can start to be comfortable about parameters and changes. My tank is about 3 months old. So I have vowed to only clean 1 filter at a time (I do weekly 25% water changes and test daily), the HOB one week, then the sponge the next. Then vacuum 1/4 of the gravel another week (the tank is planted so I can't vacuum much real estate as it is). I still haven't decided how often to put the in-water fertilizer yet...it says weekly, but after the nitrite debacle weekend before last, I am gun-shy. I may do it twice a month and see how things go.

I had a similar situation... Newly stable (fragile?) tank; cleaned the filters (just rinsed) but didn't vacuum the gravel, then added some root tabs and had a horrible nitrite spike (no ammonia spike tho) that lasted 36-48 hours. I changed my water every 12 hours until the spike was gone and managed not to lose any fish. I suspect if I had either just cleaned the tank or just added the root tabs, I would've been ok, but the combo overwhelmed the fragile biofilter I have barely established in the tank. I also wondered if my well water facilitated the dissolution of the root tabs capsule, allowing for the fertilizer to release very quickly and to leach into the water column, but reading your thread makes me just think the water may not have been a factor. I will NEVER clean my HOB and my sponge filters at the same time again, and I am going to stick to the fertilizer suspension that I had been using in the water without issue. Hope your situation clears up quickly!

I am doing a fish shuffle and will soon have a cycled tank (I will be switching literally everything from a 40 breeder into this new big 75 gallon tank, including as much of the water as I can). I just finished a mini test, going from a 20 long into a 29 gallon tank. It took about 2 hours and so far, all water parameters are stable and the fish are begging and eating, exploring, and doing well. [OK, there are only 2 fish for the time being to make sure the tank stays stable before I start adding fish in from a second 20 tall I have to combine them and free up space...things may go south, but so far, so good.] I read here that it's important to match fish to your water and I have found that personally with houseplants, too. I cannot grow a jade plant for the life of me, but my philodendrons, spiders, wandering Jews, and pathos are insane -- so I have lots of different colors of the same plants. So, on point: I'm on a well with nitrates from the tap at 40ppm and a moderate amount of GH and KH. The pH of the water from the tap is under 7, but it off-gases (CO2???/something) and sits stable at about 8-8.4 in my tanks after it sits overnight and remains unchanged. So I have a busy, "planted" tank (none in the bottom substrate) with lots of things to hide in (rocks, rock piles, and structures), full of anubias of different types, moss, and lots of java ferns (I have figured out what likes my water and at least will not melt -- if not actually grow). I have a wave maker to move water for current and aerate, a high pH, hard water, and I keep my tanks set at 77* degrees...why not make the 75 a Mbuna tank as what I read to be their ideal environment seems to match mine? I have googled around and found suggestions of 20 fish total, all of approximately the same size-ish. It's recommended to get 4 or 5 species, either 1 male to 3-4 females per group to make up the 20. And to try to get fish as dissimilar in coloration as possible (if possible). My questions are: *Which species of Mbuna would you mix in the mini-harems and why? *Would you do 4 or 5 different species? *Would you strive to add them as much all at once as possible...? I can see doing that from a territorial standpoint, but going from 5 fish in an established 40 gallon breeder into a 75 makes me worry that I'll crash the tank as my biofilter with be unprepared from such an influx all at once, although, due to various bumps in the road since I started fish keeping, I can do a 50% water change very efficiently these days, sigh. I just would rather not have to be so aggressive with my water once the fish are in if it can be avoided. Thoughts? Ideas? Too crazy for me to try...? Thanks!

I have had nothing but problems with my fish then my tank top started leaking... So I have a jungle of java ferns and nano anubias wired to the "furniture" in my aquarium in a 40 breeder with 5 little fish left (with a number of super cool snails). I am now sticking with "easy" fish that can exist within the parameters of my water only and making the tank a nice place to live. If I were you, I'd stock up the tank with lots of those plants -- they seem to be the easiest keepers and just require the in-water fertilizer, not the root tabs, and look cool attached to your stuff inside the tank. Once you like the way you've got it set up, get some easy, inexpensive fish like tetras, coreys, and gouramis. I am liking the group idea as it is not as devastating as single fish who break your heart if they don't make it. Add some groovy, colorful snails, then just have a few fish in your nice plant tank .

The smaller of my 3-spots gouramis is a total hog and was over-eating tiny fish food (little tetras and tiny cories in that tank also). He looked even rounder and fatter than yours (not bloated, just rounded and chubby). Your fish looks a lot like mine before I moved them to their own tank and slimmed him down. Maybe yours is just a little portly like mine?

I LOVE the female Apistogramma's personalities!!! They are small and plain-looking, but they are super, super, super cool!!! Definitely my 100% favorite fish...the male is cool, too, but the female is the bee's knees.

I also have terrible well water -- the well is only 28' deep in long-used farmland. I suspect some mineral (not iron -- I have white hard-line deposits at the top of the toilet water line that is extremely difficult to remove when you clean the thing, and we finally had to re-pipe the entire house as the old lines were eaten thru and springing leaks every few months. The plus is, there is a reading of 40ppm nitrates from the tap(!) and I can grow plants like crazy...the fish thing -- I'm still working on, lol. Having that nitrate level from the tap is not good, obviously, but one needs to try to look at the bright side, lol! [No, we do not drink the water but I've used it to cook and for literally everything else but drinking for 25 years and am not dead or sick yet, lol!] So I (being a major newbie), would recommend you buy a master test kit and kits for GH and KH (if you don't have them already) so you can test the water straight from the tap. Then let a bucket sit out overnight and retest your pH. My pH comes from that tap from 6 to 7, depending upon the time of year (rainy season, etc.), but off-gases CO2 (or whatever happens for the chemical reaction) and hits a pH of 7.6 to 8 overnight. Once you know the standard 4 parameters from the master test kit and your hardnesses, you heavily plant the tank (if you have high nitrates like I do), and get some snails as they seem to be pretty tough and are super cool. Then you get easy, hardy, not-super-spendy fish that will work within your baseline well water. There are lots of cool fish that I just don't worry about getting that are picky about water hardness and lower pHs and such, but I just admire pictures on the internet and move on. I could try to acidify or change hardness and such, but I find keeping fish enough of a challenge with my water that I am unwilling to add that work to keeping fish. It's difficult enough to lug buckets of water to the tanks just in the house, let alone from some else's place. or go out and buy gallons and gallons of spring water from Walmart [yes, I thought about it, tho!].

So I am a total newbie at this (I vetoed getting a fish tank but my daughter spend her own money and came home with one, anyway)...after a disastrous beginning, with nitrite and ammonia elevations and stressing the fish horribly (I trusted her to do research and do the testing, etc. that was required as I did not want to add fish to the mix of houseplants, cats, dogs, work, life!), we ended up with Ich -- big surprise, right? Anyway, I did a boatload of research and used Nox-Ich because it was what was readily available. I found that to treat Ich, one can salt the tank, raise the temperature, and chemically treat. My fish store told me never to raise the temperature AND do chemicals together, but you can salt the tank and use chemicals, or do the salt and raise the temperature. [Don't ask my why we have 2 tanks now in the span of 2 months -- that's another story.] Because I had a loach and a pleco in 1 tank, I treated that one with just the chemicals (Nox-Ich). The other tank had snails but "hardier" fish, so I salted and used the product as I was willing to sacrifice the snails. No temperature increase in either tank. The product told me to keep treating on a cycling schedule until I didn't see Ich on the fish any longer, but I determined that the minimum treatment period should be 2 weeks, which should cover the life cycle of the parasite at 76-78 degrees. Every treatment day (my products says 3 days on treatment, 1 day off, then repeat, repeat, until I don't see lesions on the fish), I did a 1/2-1/3 water change 1st, then treated the tank. 2 weeks ended last Thursday and my tanks appear clear. We realized there was a problem in the delicate, unsalted tank way too late in the disease progression and the fishies were heavily affected. I had a 75% mortality in that tank, but the remaining fish appeared clear -- I treated that tank the full 2 weeks to be safe. In the salted tank, I was too much of a newbie to realize that, after salting, if I was going to take 25% water out each day I treated, I needed to add 25% salt back to the new water so it was only salted once, initially (perhaps that's my my snails all made it?). Anyway, I had a hideously affected blue cichlid in that tank and he lived and cleared the parasite within 10 days or so, but I also treated that tank the full 2 weeks. It hasn't been many days since I stopped treatment, but that tank seems to be doing well and I don't see any new lesions developing on these fish and have stopped treatment. I did feed my fish all thru the treatment period. One apparent predictor of how the fish were doing was whether they would actually eat. Those that did eat didn't die, which I guess just means they felt well enough to eat. Those that wouldn't eat ended up dying. I know it's a different product with different directions, but I would think the treatment interval should be similar?