# My first tank, and My first Problem... need advice.



## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Hello All,

Got a bit of a situation with my new tank, and I'm not sure what to do.

I got my first tank from a friend, from what I could figure it's a 35-40Gal, so to be safe I called it a 30 Gal. After lots of reading and harrasing the local fish stores, I set up the tank. I cycled it for a week and a bit.

*The Setup*

I then added my first fish:

2x Gold Gouramis
4x Zebra Danios
6 x Platys

Everything was going great for a week, they looked happy, and played nice together.

* The Problem *

While I was at work, my wife added a "FEW" fish to the tank. They were a gift from my sister-in-law.

They added:

3x Bleeding heart Tetra's
1x 8" long sucker fish (don't know the name) it's brown and looks like a catfish. 
1x 3" long asian sucker fish, golden colored.

* The Bonus Question *

My sister-in-law called and explained that the aquarium they took those fish from now has an infestation of "ghost shrimp".

* The Extras *

1. I will be getting a second 30gal tank this weekend.

2. The water in the tank, seems to be getting slimy. It's hard to describe, there is no cloudiness, it just looks like the water is getting "thick". Bubbles have a hard time rising...

Any advice?


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## Grey Legion (Mar 20, 2006)

Hello, 

Nothing to worry about the ghost shrimp

As for your tank simply do a 20 - 30% water change with dechlorinated room tempature water and continue to do this at least once a week. Tank go through many cycles when they are being set up.

Cycle one - started when you added your first fish

Cycle two - is now under way due to the extra fish being added

Make sure to keep a stable temp and to keep up on water changes they tend to be your best friend in times of worry.

Lastly DO NOT add any more fish/plants/snails/shrimp to your tank, people tend to try to 'fill' the tank with fish and this simple does not work in any sized tank.

Water changes a deep breath are all you need at this stage in the game.

Keep us posted


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

What kind of filter are you running?

That slimy water is going to start smelling bad until the beneficial bacteria begin to develop on your filter and on surfaces of your tank.

Ask your sister-in-law to squeeze her filter sponge/media into a bag of tank water so that you can dump that into your tank - this will instantly cycle your tank.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Hello, 

Thanks for the insight:

@ Grey Legion: No worries about adding any more fish, those late additions were a surprise to me. The tank now has a big padlock on the hood... haha

@ Brian: As for the filter, I'm using an aquaclear 300, if memory serves me right. The filtration is three staged, sponge at the bottom then layer of carbon, followed by small ceramic looking tubes... I was told that it is for bacterial growth.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

That's good for a 35 gal but you only cycled it for a week and I assume it was a fishless cycle. Essentially, all you did was age your water... your filter had no biological filtration in it until you added your fish and now the bacteria is just starting to build up but there isn't enough yet.

If you do what I advised, the slimy water thing will go away really quick and you won't have to go through the smell that it brings.


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## Grey Legion (Mar 20, 2006)

Brian said:


> That's good for a 35 gal but you only cycled it for a week and I assume it was a fishless cycle. Essentially, all you did was age your water... your filter had no biological filtration in it until you added your fish and now the bacteria is just starting to build up but there isn't enough yet.
> 
> If you do what I advised, the slimy water thing will go away really quick and you won't have to go through the smell that it brings.


Good advice, I have set up so many tanks in 15+ years of keeping fish, I tend to forget or break more rules than I can remember. The cycle will be complete in a few days to a week, keep your feeding to once a day 6 out of 7 days a week to keep waste down and pull the carbon out of your filter and throw it away, will do you no good at this stage of the game. Weekly water changes is the best way to keep a tank happy and healthy.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Good Morning, 

Yes, it was a fishless cycle, I will remove the carbon. The filter water might be a problem since they dumped the tank as soon as the fish were out. 

When should I add the carbon back in? 

The water changes are on track, 25% ish percent every week. 

All I need is to find a place to hide the bucket of water as it warms to room temperature. My son found the bucket yesterday morning and proceeded to dump most of it on his sister.


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## Grey Legion (Mar 20, 2006)

Shattered said:


> Good Morning,
> 
> Yes, it was a fishless cycle, I will remove the carbon. The filter water might be a problem since they dumped the tank as soon as the fish were out.
> 
> ...


Get one of those buckets that have a snap fit lid, that may help

You will actually never need to add carbon to your filtration, if you keep up with maintenance, the only real use of carbon to most fish keepers is to remove medications form the water after a treatment cycle.


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## Brian (Mar 14, 2006)

If your tank starts smelling like crap, throw the carbon back in. I have a hunch that it will smell really bad since your tank was fishless cycled... one sign is the slimy water but you might be lucky and the smelly stage passed.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Woah, I don't even know where to begin telling you where things go wrong here.

I think it is just the start of a dying cycle. Don't be supprise if your fish starts to die within the next few weeks and your tank becomes a death tank.

Where did things go wrong?

1) A fishless cycle takes about 2 weeks to 1 month to properly balance. And that's no adding fish in it.
The question here is, are you familiar with how to cycle a fishless tank? Because it doesn't sound like you do.
You have to add ammonia (or equivalent bacteria food) into it every day or every other day to grow the bacterial. It doesn't take 1 week to cycle a fishless tank as there is no way that's enough time to even grow enough bacteria to support that kind of load.
When you cycle a tank and are add ammonia, you have to take out the carbon from the filter. This is because the carbon will absorb the ammonia and undo the purpose of adding ammonia to feed the bacteria.

2) If you did not feed your tank. It's just a tank of water that have been sitting there for a week or so. No cycle happened. So when you eventually add your fish, that's when the cycle start. So now, it's fish cycle, not a fishless cycle.

3) For a 30Gal tank, you should only be adding 3" of fish per day. This will prevent sending the tank into another cycle. What you just did, even if the tank was cycled, you would've sent it into another cycle. But then your tank haven't even cycled yet ...

4) 8" fish don't belong in a 30 G tank. They need a bigger tank.

5) Ghost shrimp infestation! Haven't heard that. But it's not a problem as your gouramis will soon be happily eating baby ghost shrimps everyday. As long as there are platys and gouramis in your tank. There is no way you will get a ghost shrimp infestation. Just make sure that they are infact ghost shrimps though.

6) When there is some thing funny going on with the water, the first thing you do is do a water change. Screw the timely water change schedule. You do water change every two days if it takes and even every day if you have to keep the water clean.

7) Did you dechlorinate your water? Sitting your water around to age them don't work anymore. This city have changed our tab water to use chloramine which can sit for 1 week and still contain traces of chlorine which will kill of your benificial bacteria and hurt your fish.

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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

I can't believe I've made so many mistakes. Is there any way that I can prevent having what you call a "death tank"?

I thought I was doing the right thing by following the "experts" directions at BigAl's. When I asked about properly preparing the tank, I was told to fill it, add a double dose of "Bio-Support" (the bacteria), follow the directions on the bottle and run it for a week. At the same time I was to add water conditioner.

Now I'm worried, how do you recommend that I properly monitor the situation? Should I try and find my fish a safe haven, until I relearn and properly cycle the tank? Since I bought my fish from BigAl's is there a way I can get some bacteria from them, ie: filter water, gravel etc.. from an established tank?

A few points of clarification:

points: 1+2+3: I understand, that I created the situation, that I was desperatly trying to avoid.

4: The pleco and C.A.E are currently accepting applications for a new homes.



5: I just spoke to my brother, he gave me a description. They looked like very small see thru clams with shrimp tails. They lived in the gravel at the bottom of the aquarium. Google-ing the description I found pictures of "seed shrimp" that match the description.

6: Understood

7: I sure hope that I do. I add the water-conditioner I was recommended at BigAl's. I let the water sit, not to age, but to cool down/warm up to room temp. I have an older home, with two water temps, either scaldingly hot or iceage cold.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Hi, I am sorry for getting back to you so late. I've been busy as hell lately. So didn't have time to logon.

OK.
Then it looks like maybe your tank was partly cycled after all. I don't believe one week is good enough. As you did add a big load of fish into the tank. This will definately send the tank into a cycle.
I think it would be safe to do a %20 daily water change just to make sure that there won't be any build up of harmful chemicals.
Now that the deed is done, I think you can only bit the bullet and do damage control.
Things you need to watch out for.
1) fish breaching on the surface. That is most likely due to ammonia poisoining. Do a %50 water change to when you see that.
2) fish scratching itself against the glass or gravel. That is also an ammonia poisoning as well as nitrite poisoining. Again more water change.
3) As the other have mentioned. Feed very little, it's not like the fish is in the mood the eat when they are sick. Feed once every 2 days for 1 week will help lower the amount of poop.
4) Fish out any dead fish right away.
5) Keep changing water until the tank water doesn't stink.

Keep us up to date on what happen. You'll have to rough it through. But just hang in there for 1 or 2 weeks and your tank should be relatively cycled. Then you can go back to your regular routine.

Oh and one more important thing. Don't add the bacteria food in anymore because your fish is production a whole lot of poop and stuff that will feed the bacteria. Use your carbon if you suspect a spike in chemicals. That will help absorb the bad stuff.

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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Hello, 

Thanks for the reply, I was starting to think that I had been shunned.  I'm currently waiting for my next paycheck to pickup up a test kit so that I can monitor the water levels. 

Here is the latest update; 

1. The slimyness is gone, and there is no smell as of yet. 
2. I have reduced feeding to once every two days. 
3. No dead Fish, yet. 
4. NO red gills, scratching, breaching or even faster breathing. 
5. I have been doing 15-20 % water changes daily. 

Should I try to find an airstone, to increase the aeration of the tank? 
Is there a guide that explains how to properly condition the water and add it to the tank?
Would adding any plants help?


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

This is good to hear.
To be honest with you, I was secretly thinking that this would turn into a disaster for you when I type the above post.

From your discription, things are looking pretty good. I think an air stone would help your fish as well as help the bacteria to grow faster. But it's not a must, only when you find the fish trying to breath air. Then it becomes a must.
As for conditioning the water. There isn't much to it. I know alot of people are very picky about it. I'll try to hight light some of the things I've heard here.
Basically, your objective is to just fill your bucket with hot and cold water to a confortable temperature and add your declorinator and let it sit for 1 min or so. And then dump it into the tank.
Now here's where things differ:
1) some people don't use hot water as it might contain hard chemicals that can harm your fish. Their reason is that if you don't drink it, then don't put your fish in it. These people usually sit the water for a day to warm it up or boil hot water to add to the bucket to get the right temperature.
 - I usually run my hot and cold tab water for 30 sec or so to get rid of the old water that's been sitting in the pipe. I do use hot water and it helps save me a bundle of time and space that I don't have. I have yet to experience any problem that I can trace back to hot water as being the cause.

2) Dechlorinator is important. I use the best out there and that's Seachem Prime and Chloram-X. Other dechlor works, but I would sit the water for 10 mins after I add the dechlor before I dump the water into the tank.
- When I use Prime or Chloram-X, I can usually dump the water in after waiting for 30 sec.

3) Some people who use the python kit. They add enough dechlor to dechlor the entire tank and then just pump tab water straight into the tank. I personally don't like this method as I did try it out and found that my fish would jeck away from the tab water. This is a clear indication to me that this is not how to treat your fish, but alot of people claimed that their fish is fine. What ever the term fine means to them.

As for the plants, no adding plants at this point would help little. If anything, you risk introducing desease brought in by the plants and this just makes it worst.

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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Hello, 

I'm glad things are looking good, I just wish the boss would get back sooner so I can get a bit of coin for my test kit. 

I'll carry on, with what I'm doing till I'm sure I'm in the clear.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Just a quick update, finally got a test kit; 

Ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrite - 2.5 - 5 ppm.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Hmm ... Looks like you are at mid cycle. Make sure the nitrite doesn't get above 5 ppm. Do you have a nitrate test kit?
When ever you get:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - something less than 5 ppm.
That means you are at the end of your cycle.
There may be a few more mini cycle after wards, but those you can solve with a %20 water change.
Now, try to aim your tank to the above readings and you'll be fine.
If your nitrate keeps getting above 5 ppm. That means your tank is over crowed or your filter isn't doing it's job very well.

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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Time for another update: 

The pleco and CAE have found a nice home at the local BigAl's. I even got a store credit, that I used to pick up a nice filter for my 12gal. 

Ammonia readings are a constant: 0
Nitrite are 0-2 ppm. 
Nitrate are below 5ppm. 

I'm changing 35%+ water every three days now. 

All my fish are alive, one gourami started breaching, so I immediately changed the water and he was fine. 

I have one tetra, is always swimming on an angle. His whole body is never up and down, tilted to the side. (shaped and color like a bleeding heart, but has three vertical stripes instead). 

I also have one platy that is always hanging out alone at the bottom, I think it's because she's the only female in the tank, with 5 males.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Summary post; 

Tank is now reading; 

0ppm Ammonia
0ppm Nitrite
10ppm Nitrate


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