TheChunkyFish

I don’t have carbon and I’ll been using seachem prime and stability I’ll watch it see what happens.

Ugh my tank totally crashed. I have 1.0 ppm ammonia today. I’m gonna do like a 50% water change I think, and ask a friend if they have spare filter media because I am so done with my tank crashing. my dgh is 6 and dkh is 3 though.

No need to get rid of it they are perfect beginner plants very hardy and forgiving, but what you can do it superglue a little dot and attach the plant but the root looking thing to the rock and then it will be perfectly fine. if you want to know more the plant is called Java fern windelov, at least the plant in the front I’m not sure about the ones in the back. also how long is your light going for? Just curious cause something I didn’t know when I was starting that the lights weren’t supposed to be on all the time. If they are on all the time it can cause stress in the fish so just turn them off at night or leave them on for 8 hours with a timer that can go into your plug. you might already know and I’m just being annoying. idk why the video is not a link and it’s the whole video 🥲

Aww I love your cat! By the way the cloudy water is to be expected it’s 100% normal. It’s called a bacteria bloom. So your tank is doing something, congrats! Oh are those live Java fern? If so they really don’t like being placed in the gravel, they are called rhizome plants, very hard by the way, and you can get away with putting the roots in the soil but not the long stick bit or it will possibly melt away. But other than that looks great I’m sure your future fish will be super happy to live there!

I don’t have any carbon in just 2 sponges, crushed coral and bio rings. ok I’ll try it out and see how It goes hopefully something starts working. 🥲

I’ve heard you can take out your filter media and put it into a bucket with a air stone and it will survive, should I do that in attempt to save my beneficial bacteria? And I can buy fritzzyme I already have stability. And yes I do use a water conditioner, I have prime and api water conditioner. I normally use api water conditioner. I have tested my tap water I’ve tested my sink water but the thought occurred to me that I use the tub to fill up the water, so maybe the water is different from the tub? I’m going to check after school but I’m assuming it’s the same.

Yes I think it’s weird too. I did use a bottle bacteria at first which I realize doesn’t always work I know, but yeah the brown algae doesn’t really grow on the sand… it definitely covers everything else though. And I have green algae in the sand along the glass in the side that gets the most sun but no brown algae. How would my tank be producing acids? Just curious. But yeah I’m not sure what’s wrong with my fish, just that they die eventually and there isn’t really symptoms. And it’s only one at a time. It could be some mystery water parameter? Or maybe a bacterial internal infection? I could ask a friend if they have spare filter media, but I’m worried it will somehow come with a disease that I don’t want in the tank.

Not constantly but I’ve had this tank running since last summer and it’s probably crashed 4 times. Which yeah is still a lot but I’m not sure how to fix that. I was planning on getting some plants and wood from a friend and that will probably have some beneficial bacteria to help my cycle. This could possibly be the cause of this mystery disease but I don’t think it’s what it is how bout you? After improving my gh and kh my fish seems to be degrading slower so that’s good I guess.

The thing with the algae is I’ve had it since I’ve had the tank, I got this tank last summer and it was cycled around August when I added fish. My room is really sunny and so that’s why I’m assuming I have so much algae. I don’t know what you mean by what kind of ammonia I’m testing? I use the API water test kit, and those are what my readings say. I’ve been test very frequently recently because of this problem, but December 12 I tested my water and my nitrates nitrites and ammonia had all spiked high, the ammonia was .5 but everything else was super high. (I know .5 ppm is still bad) I’ve never really seen nitrates on my readings before that and now it’s back down to zero. which I made a post about earlier, but I had this mystery disease before the spike in parameters. I got these fish from a friend which probably got them from a fish store. I can ask where she got them from that would probably be helpful but yeah my tank doesn’t have ammonia as far as I can tell. I’m sure there is something up with my cycle cause I’ve had it crash a few times while having the tank. I used API quick start initially to start the cycle and in December when my cycle crashed I used Prime and Stability to cycle it and that seemed to work great. Since I know my cycle is probably weak I’m trying to avoid bacterial infection meds because I’m afraid it will crash my cycle and I’m just doing small partial water changes to see if that will help the small bit of fin rot. The substrate is just white sand from petco. I’m pretty sure it has phosphate in it so that encourages the brown algae that could be why I have so much too and I have never been able to get rid of it. But I don’t think my algae or substrate is the problem here. As far as I know my water is just really really soft here and I don’t have a water softener. I am feeding hakari sinking pellets like 3/4 of a pellet every night, one little 4th for each fish as I’m trying to get the active healthy fish to stay away from the sick little guy so he can eat his food in peace, but I don’t think that’s the problem either. I have an api water conditioner and prime but I haven’t been using prime as I thought my aquarium was cycled. No loss of appetite, my sick fish is still motivated to eat but struggles to swim so has a hard time eating. Yes last week I saw one of the healthy fish flash once but I haven’t seen flashing this week. I have a majority fake plants other than some anubias. I did buy floating plants recently which I made a post about but they have a weird pink fuzz on them that I’m trying to get rid of before I put them in the tank. I have no idea what the pink fuzz is but it’s taking over my plants and honestly I can’t get a break from this hobby. I just want a nice healthy tank :’)

I’ve been struggling with whatever this is since October of last year. I’ve made a few posts about it, but I’m going to post one more time to see if anyone knows what this is. I recently have been talking with another aquarium forum and they said it’s my gh and kh value, but I don’t think that’s what it is, that’s probably what caused the disease but I don’t think it’s what is happening. My kh and gh value used to be zero, and now the dgh is 4 and dkh is 2. Which is better than having nothing like before, still low I know, but better. The thing is if it was my kh and gh values that were the problem I think I would’ve seen improvement in my fish. My water parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate. 0 nitrate has always been that way for me, not sure how to raise it because when I feed the tank nothing happens to it. Idk I’m pretty confident my tank is cycled, cause these parameters have stayed the same since I’ve had this tank, if anyone knows what’s that is all about I would love to know. But I don’t think that’s the problem. However, I haven’t tested my water parameters in about a week, but they are normally consistent. I can recheck that tomorrow after I wake up. The only “symptoms” of this mystery disease is the fish becomes pale, like the gill area is no longer is sparkly and green, and the fins are clamped, and slowly over time the fish can’t swim very good. He lays very flat on the ground and swims like a hill stream loach, in small bursts of energy not constant fluidly moving. I could make a gif of a video if you all want to watch the way he swims. I’m not sure he will live much longer but this disease has taken one fish at a time pretty much every month. Right now I have 3 fish I started with 6. The sick fish is still motivated to eat but gets outcompeted by the other fish because it doesn’t swim well. I’ve treated both with levamisole and API general cure twice, and no improvements. I don’t have activated carbon in the filter all I have is 2 sponges, bio rings and crushed coral. I’ve also used ich-x just in case it was fungal but that didn’t really help. I feed sinking pellets but I’m guessing it’s not his diet because all the fish would be affected then. Recently a small spot of fin rot has appeared on his tail, which makes no sense because that comes from bad water. The only thing I haven’t tried is bacterial medications because my tank is prone to crashing. My tank has crashed when I used bacterial meds before, so it’s probably not a super strong cycle cause from what I’ve read most healthy tanks can withstand the meds. Ill do it if that’s what everybody thinks I should do. I’ll attach a photo but I really want to know how to help my fish and know if I can prevent the other two cories from getting this. It’s really sad watching the fish degrade. I think I’m still technically a beginner so please help me out anyone who knows what is happening. p.s. I know the algae is bad, I clean the water but not the algae all the time.

Guppies are pretty hardy, so that could be why it’s still alive, but I’ve never heard of an aggressive guppy. Actually I did research on it, and it’s possible that your guppy is aggressive if it’s a male, and like doesn’t have enough females but that was a quick 5 minute research so I’m not entirely sure. Interesting though.

I’m not sure how long the bacteria would last without oxygenation though, the shipping might be hard on the bacteria. I know bacteria on a sponge can stay in a bucket of water with an air stone for 24 hours so I’m not sure. The one review said it worked great…but it’s only 3 dollars I’d give it a shot, abut maybe see what the other people on the form say, I’m not aware of any negatives to this though 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Oh no I’m so sorry! My experience in the hobby first started like this, I got a 20 gallon and put some cories in it without knowing how to cycle a tank. They died pretty fast and I’ve had many problems since which is part of the learning process. But you've started out in a great spot, most start with a betta in a cup or a goldfish in a bowl. 30 gallons is great for the learning curve associated with this hobby, as it is a pretty large amount of water that is more forgiving than a 5 gallon. So don’t feel guilty you didn’t know. I would recommend you get a water test kit, API is the best one I’ve had. It has helped me tremendously in learning about fish keeping, and we a huge benefit. I don’t know if that’s already been said…im a lazy reader. Another thing that helped me out was getting seachem prime and stability, it quickly cycles tanks and helps support new tanks. Seachem prime detoxifies ammonia, nitrite and nitrate which ammonia and nitrite are harmful for your fish so it makes your water to be safe to live in for the fish but also kickstarts your cycle. I’ve had to do this many times…and it works! Seachem stability is beneficial bacteria for the aquarium cycle. It was a life saver and I have fish today because of these two products. (They can be found on Amazon, in you local fish stores, in big chain pet stores or aquarium co-op website) It’s a safe fish-in way to cycle that doesn’t harm the fish. Although it sounds like you already have some products to help with the cycle, so I’d try those and see how they work. Keep us updated on how those work I’d be interested in that. Once your tank is more stable, all the fish in you tank like to be in decently large groups, I would start with 5 or each at least, and depending on the tetra you can have up to 10. But someone can correct me on that I’ve never kept these kinds of fish, I just know you have schooling fish, which like groups. This is more for later when your tank is more settled I think, but um I just recently have been having problems with this and I have learned, the hard way, the importance of ph, gh and kh, and if your water is what you call “soft” then you mollies will not be happy so I would recommend getting a gh and kh test which can be found on Amazon. But yes if you’re looking for medicating fish or any other questions I would come here! Best of luck! If you need more information another good place to go it youtube, there are tons of videos on how to care for fish and every aspect of this hobby. That’s where I spend most of my time haha😅

Yeah me too..I don’t know how or why though. Or how to fix it.

Hi everyone, I decided recently to try out floating plants! I have them in a quarantine little water box, where I was watching for snails. I found one…and now I’m attached so I can’t find the heart to kill it but I don’t want my tank over run with snails. So I’m still deciding what to do with him and that’s why the plants are still in here. Some plants look better than others, my frogbit seems to be doing good, making lots of runners, and the Asian water moss looks good too. My water lettuce I think did not like the shipping process, but the red root floaters are looking very rough. It has this white fuzzy stuff on it that I can’t find anyone else on the internet having to deal with this. Is there something I can do?