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Theresa_M

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Posts posted by Theresa_M

  1. UPDATE for the people who are following this post. 

    I am so pleased to share that the cloudiness is completely gone and the fish are active and schooling as if nothing happened. Zero ammonia and zero nitrites since I did a water change this morning at 6am. Checked the water three times so far today and always zeros!! I have a trace of nitrates which means stuff is happening people! Everything seems copacetic. Will continue to monitor, but looks like I may come out of this a little earlier and better stocked than I expected. 

    I am thrilled!

    • Like 5
    • Love 1
  2. Hi @CalmedByFish! Great question. Ultimately, my bacteria crashed. What caused it is not entirely known. I took several actions to save my fish that likely played into it - a comedy of errors, so to speak (although not so funny). 

    Look up "nitrogen cycle" or "aquarium tank crash" on YouTube and you'll see that this does happen from time to time. It's not always super clear the reasons why. Short answer to your question about the ecosystem in your tank is that, "no" the cycle is not bullet proof once established. Having said that, some people never have problems and others do. I suspect that the more complex your tank is (not speaking from any scientific knowledge here) with fish, wood, botanicals, etc, the more risk you have of things falling out of balance. BUT, that's not going to stop me from using any or all of those things in any tank 🙂

    • Thanks 1
  3. @Goldie Blue you're not alone. I would venture to guess that most people start out in the hobby that way. I know I did!! It's such a relief when you start to see your nitrites (eating ammonia) and then, as they dwindle, your nitrates come through. It's very satisfying now starting a new tank, knowing what I know. But THIS - fish in cycle - is not fun. Good luck! You've found a great resource in this community! 

  4. On 1/4/2022 at 3:58 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

    Thank you for sharing your experience @Theresa_M. I have had that sinking feeling in my body too many times over the course of my time in the hobby. I wish I had the forum then like we do now to have the support. I hope that with water changes and time things settle down enough for you to catch your breath and get some peace. 

    I appreciate you! Thank you!

    On 1/4/2022 at 4:03 PM, Minanora said:

    I see, I see. I did this same panic mode a few months ago when I had a crazy nitrate spike from root tabs... I panicked and changed almost 100% of the water and lost half of my fish over the course of 2 weeks.

    Oh no! I feel for you!

    • Like 1
  5. @Minanora I use an Eheim heater in this tank. The heater isn't broken and neither is my thermometer. When I added cooler water, the temp went down. The water feeling hot was not actually the reality of the situation. The temp was hovering around 79/80 and when I did the first water change with cooler water I dropped it to 76/77. Now talk about stress on the fish. Oy. That was not a good decision. I could have validated the temp, but was in a total panic and just wanted to act quickly. 

    Maybe that's another lesson - LEVEL YOUR HEAD AND VALIDATE before taking action, lol. 

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
  6. On 1/4/2022 at 3:16 PM, eatyourpeas said:

    @Theresa_M, so sorry this happened. We all do the "smack-on-the-head-what-was-I-thinking" at one point or another. I am fairly new to the hobby and am learning a lot, and even when you do everything perfectly disasters happen.

    I am glad you are not giving up, and are looking to the recovery phase sharing this event with all of us. People like you keep noobs like me always learning, and for that I am grateful.

    I hope you feel better. 😍

    I appreciate that! Thank you for the encouragement!

    On 1/4/2022 at 3:19 PM, Aqua junky said:

    So the new fish came in sick? What caused the Nitrites to sore? I guess I missed what actually  caused the spike or did the tank just reset it self?

    I am sorry this happened to you!  I would be devastated.  

    No clue. I'm still trying to work through it. As I said, it was a series of poor decisions on my part and it's hard to say. I think I probably should have started with the water change after that second random death - for sure after the third. I also should have moved the new fish to quarantine at the same time. That's what I'm thinking. Could have been an overloaded tank and I just didn't realize it. Medicating at that moment is my biggest regret, though.

    If you have a bunch of fish suddenly dying - all different species - over a series of a few days, it's probably(?) not a disease issue that needs resolving. 

    • Like 1
  7. It's just embarrassing. It was really the perfect storm of everything you've ever learned through fishkeeping school that you are not supposed to do. So, if people avoid doing everything this fine forum advises against, they should be good 🙂

    I have a mature 75 g tank with a whole host of fish and plant life that hasn't had any new fish added in over 6 mos (maybe even closer to 9 mos). No additions, no subtractions - just bliss. I wouldn't say that it was overstocked, but it was well stocked. 

    Diamond tetras have been on my list for about a year, and last week I went on a road trip to my favorite fish store just to check things out. They had the most beautiful, fat and healthy diamonds I've seen yet and couldn't resist picking up 6. I also wanted to add to my otocinclus clan, as I only had 4. I picked up 3 more on my trip. 

    Lesson 1 = QUARANTINE. I did not. They were so healthy looking (as is every single thing I buy from this store) that I tossed them right in. Two days passed and life was good. 

    On day 3, I had a dead new otto. I was a little surprised, but chalked it up to a stress death or something like that. The next day, I had a random neon tetra death. Ok, that caused me pause. I checked water parameters with strips and also the kit as a back up. Parameters were perfectly normal. The next day, I lost a black neon and another neon. Still normal water parameters. The next day, lost a borneo sucker, another black neon and another neon. Still perfect parameters - 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, ~20 nitrates. Water was clear. I'm thinking, if the water is fine, there's no need to change it. I had just done a water change the day before adding the new fish. I didn't attribute this to bioload, I attributed it to sick fish. 

    So, I figured, it's been a solid 9 mos or so since the tank had been treated and with these new fish, better to be safe then sorry (I was already feeling pretty sorry). I decided to treat the entire display tank with the med trio and did so last night. (Maybe lesson two should have been to remove the new fish and put them in quarantine instead of treating the whole tank!)

    I didn't go back to check on them this morning because I've done this before without incident - it's how I treat all new fish in my other tanks. 

    Lesson 2 = MONITOR MEDS. If you use them ... keep an eye on things.

    Today, when the lights popped on shortly after noon, my husband called to me that the tank looked cloudy. Meh, no big deal. That's to be expected when you medicate. 

    I took my time getting over there to see what was up. I bent down to look. It wasn't the cloudiness of the water that concerned me. What concerned me were several dead tetras belly up and all of the rest of fish (INCLUDING MY PLECO) at the surface of the water gasping for air. 

    I stuck my hand in the water and it felt HOT. Checked the temp and it hadn't changed. I assumed that the heater was burning out on me and frying my fish and that my thermometer was broken. That's when I added another airline/pump and removed the lids. 

    Ha! I have literally no idea why that was my next action. 

    Lesson 3 = CHECK PARAMETERS FIRST! When you see cloudy water, check your parameters and do a water change!

    10 mins goes by with no change in behavior.

    In my panic, I hastily grabbed all of my equipment and did a 25% water change and replaced with cooler water (smacking my forehead right now).

    Puzzled, I left, asking my husband the check parameters for me. He said, "That can't be the problem. We just checked them last night and they were fine." I encouraged him to do it anyway. 

    NITRITES were higher than we have ever seen in our lives! I didn't even know these kinds of results existed!!!!

    And the bloom! It must be bacteria!!

    I immediately did a 50% water change.

    Things are better. Nitrites are there, but barely.

    I will now spend the next many - many - days recycling my tank with all of my display fish in cycle with multiple water changes a day. It's not ideal, but with more fish on the way tomorrow that I purchased online over the weekend - I don't have a choice. Those new fish are going straight into my cycled quarantine tank and my other tanks are full. 

    So that's my story.

    It's all wrong.

    Every bit of it. 

     

     

    • Thanks 2
    • Sad 5
  8. Dear fellow fish enthusiasts, I am devastated. I crashed my main 75g display tank last night. It's all my fault (of course) and so many of my beautiful pets have died or are on the brink. In my frenzy to fix it all, I may have done even more damage 😭 Only time will tell. 

    I don't need any advice. I know what I'm doing (that was a laughable sentence to write). I just wanted to share with people who will understand how devastated I am right now.

    Thanks for listening.

    • Sad 10
  9. 5 minutes ago, Anita said:

    So by "Ziss Bubble Filter" do you mean an Aquarium Co-Op Coarse Sponge Filter and a Ziss Never-Clog Air Stone

    SpongeandBox_550x.jpg?v=1604376591  ZissAirPumpGreen2_550x.jpg?v=1609463322

    It took me a bit of fidgeting to get the bubbles the way I wanted. So I hope the following explanation helps!

    See the fiber disks (they may be a different color than green) sitting between the two black, plastic parts of the air stone? Those fiber disks are what create your bubbles. Grasp the top plastic part of the air stone and twist the bottom part clockwise (to the right). This tightens the gap between the top and bottom plastic parts and squeezes the fiber disks together. The tighter you squeeze the fiber disks, the smaller you make the bubbles. I have a weak grip, so I need to hang on really tight to both parts and crank hard. That said, I would not recommend using pliers because you could easily damage the plastic threads and ruin the air stone.

    Also, try turning your air shut-off valve way, way down until the air is barely bubbling from the outlet tube of your sponge filter. Then, very gently, nudge the shut-off valve open just a teensy bit at a time until you get a fine stream of bubbles. You want just enough air to create a stream of fine bubbles. The faster you push air through the air stone, the more likely it is you will end up with big, boiling bubbles. 

    Aquarium Co-Op also has a video on optimizing your sponge filter. 

     

    Thank you so much for replying! I do have the Co-op sponge filters and Ziss air stones in all of my tanks and love them. However, in my 75, I was only running one large sponge and thought my tank could benefit from an additional filter, so I added the Ziss https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/filtration/products/ziss-bubble-bio-moving-bed-filter. This is the one I’m having issues with. Sorry for the confusion! I should have added the photo to my original post.

  10. I bought three female coral reds. I love those fish so much. They looked great when I picked them up and then before long two of them developed swollen bellies. I thought they were over eating and just couldn’t figure it out because I tried to be so careful with feeding. Welp, my 29g is now full - chalk full - of platty fry! The two were pregnant! I was hoping they’d get eaten. No such luck with a well planted and scaped tank. From now on, I will only buy young live bearers to avoid this from happening and I’m crossing my fingers that a LFS will take my males. Otherwise, I’ll buy another tank and put all the males on it. Not sure what else to do. I never wanted babies. 

    • Like 1
  11. Hello,

    installed my new filter yesterday and cannot stop the boiling water type bubbles coming through it. Huge bubbles are glugging out of the top. I’ve taken it out and apart, reinstalled the rigid tubing on the back to ensure it’s straight and tight, and messed about with the air valve and no matter what I do, I’m just not getting those fine bubbles coming out of the top that I’m seeing in other people’s aquariums.

    Please advise.

    Thank you!

  12. Hello, I have been getting ready for a L018 gold nugget pleco for months and while shopping today, could not resist picking up a juvenile. It’s not til tonight that I paused to think about whether this will work long term with my hillstream loaches. This may be a rare combo 🤷🏽‍♀️ Does anyone have experience in this area? I can move one or the other if I need to, but would love to keep them together in my 75g. Thoughts? 

  13. 15 minutes ago, Dawn T said:

    Just ran across a video AC did with Dean about angelfish. I thought of this thread. Dean notes that you can have angelfish in a 29g. Note what he says about water change frequency. Dean is a font of information, so this is a good video.

     

    Thanks Dawn! I also watched this and it had my wheels spinning 🙂

  14. 42 minutes ago, JamesB said:

    If your looking for a feature fish I would go with something like German Blue Rams or Bolivian Rams, just make sure if you do want the german blue rams that you keep them hot (80F at least).

    I thought about German Blues but read they were a little finicky. They’re on my list though! 

    • Like 1
  15. Hello, I have a new 29g tank in the process of cycling. I will likely be placing an order with Aquahuna in the next couple of weeks. Because the tank is so tall, I was thinking about doing two angels - the Avatar blues. However, my LFS has Congo tetras on display forever but none for sale, and I think they are beautiful. Do you think I could do 8 of those in a 29g? It’s not as long as I would like, but I’m hoping they wouldn’t be too cramped. Anyone have these? The other worry I have is placing an online order, there’s not guarantee I’ll get a mix of male and female and I so want at least a couple of males! Tank mates will be 2 dwarf patties, corydoras and cardinals. 

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