BettaFishMommy

i do large changes with a 5 gal bucket to empty and a 2 gal tub to fill. yeah, takes a while and a lot of weight lifting! lol. but worth the workout for my finkids

the beneficial bacteria die off fairly quickly if they don't have a food source (ammonia from fish waste), so keeping substrate in storage and then using it is exactly the same as starting fresh with new, never used substrate. if i was dealing with sand that had glass and crud in it, i'd just toss it and get a new bag of sand from home depot. they carry 'Quickrete' brand play sand and it works well in a tank. you do need to rinse the heck out of it before you put it in the tank though. because you have all new filter media and the equivalent of all new substrate, do large volume water changes daily. the small (10 gallon or so) changes won't do much to change your parameters (ammonia/nitrite/nitrate, etc), since you are really only switching out 20% of the old water with new, which equates to only removing 20% of the nitrates and such. to make an impact on those parameters and ensure the health of your fish, you need to do big water changes.

it's possible he picked up a bacterial infection from the feeder goldfish, and that is what's causing the issues. feeding goldies isn't a good thing, they are so disease riddled. if this were my fish, i'd try a round or two of API General Cure (metro and prazi combo). When my paratilapia polleni was having swim bladder trouble (floating sideways, buoyant, etc) which i believe was due to a bacterial infection, i did two doses of the General Cure over a 48 hour period, with a giant water change in between doses, then kept him in the hospital rubbermaid for about an additional week with daily huge water changes. he's perfectly fine now.

i don't have experience with any of the knife fish (would love to have one though!), but if it's a larger fish i think you would run the risk of some plants getting uprooted. a knife would appreciate the cover a planted tank gives though.

how old is the fish? have you noticed a difference in feeding behaviour lately? what are you feeding? the mouth open sounds to me like he may have something stuck in his throat? but you would think he'd be gasping if that was the case. the floating to the surface says swim bladder problem. is he always vertical like that or does he go (float) on his side?

your black shark in there is likely to uproot any plants you put in, IMO.

i was VERY tempted earlier to grab the huge juicy worm i saw to the side of my condo patio, and feed it to Gus and Chuck. but then i remembered that the condo board had somebody out less than two weeks ago to put fertilizer and pesticide on the lawn

daily large volume water changes are your best friend right now. i'd be doing minimum 75% and overdosing the Prime (dechlorinator) to neutralize the ammonia and nitrites that you will be seeing for a while, until the tank cycles. as for albino rainbow sharks, they are usually aggressive towards their own kind, so best to only have one in the tank. you've stocked your tank pretty heavily from the get go, so keep a close eye on those ammonia and nitrite readings and do a huge water change if you see any readings other than zero on either test.

mixing it would be good, that way you don't waste the old food, and it may entice the fish to be more enthusiastic about the nls flake? i feed the same nls flake to my fish. they love it! then again, the tank is full of little gluttons that even try to eat me when i stick my arm in the tank, lol.

Home Depot carries GE silicone. you want to ensure it says 100% silicone on it and does not contain any mold or mildew inhibitors.

if you are planning on putting a lot of rock or slate in your tank, it's a good idea to lay down 'egg crate' (those square plastic grids that go over fluorescent lighting). this will eliminate pressure points on the bottom glass. lay down egg crate, arrange your rock work, then put in substrate. Canar is a good place to go for rocks and slate. they are located on 75 street, just north of Roper Road.

how long has the tank been set up? i have a hunch you are over-cleaning, and destroying the colonies of beneficial bacteria. the 'fogging' is cloudy water, and that means the bacterial colonies are trying to re-establish themselves. when you clean your filter media (sponges, etc), do you rinse them in tap water or do you use water from the fish tank?

white sand doesn't stay white too long, lol. one thing i found when using sand was that the oscar would get all unruly and boisterous near the tank bottom, sending up big clouds of sand and clouding the tank. now your oscars are still small, so that may not be a concern now, but when they get to the same size as my Gus (about 11 inches including tail), it becomes just a 'bit' of an issue, lol.

he may be gulping air as he eats food off the water surface, and that is what is causing the bloat. as for the buoyancy, when a fish eats too much it can put pressure on the swim bladder, causing problems. i'd try a sinking small pellet instead of a floating one. as well, feed frozen foods to add variety into the diet. frozen bloodworms are very well liked by bettas! brine shrimp, not so much IME (i've been enslaved by 9 bettas over the past almost 4 years, lol). as for peas, you need to do a little prep work to feed them. nuke just one or two peas in the microwave for 10 seconds or so. take one pea between your thumb and index finger and give it a squish. the innards of the pea should slide out nicely. mash the innards into little bits and feed that to your betta. flake isn't really that hard to control feeding amounts on. just a little pinch between your fingertips is all that is needed. my current betta is fed flake (NLS) at least 3 or 4 times a week and does wonderfully on it. in addition, i feed frozen bloodworms, teensy bits of silversides, a homemade 'crumble' mix i picked up off a friend, and the occasional mushed up pea innard. hope that helped!

Welcome to the forum!!! i'm not that experienced with shrimpies, but i do know you shouldn't mix different species of the neocardinia (spelling?) family together. shrimp can be fed just about anything you feed your fish, and they don't need fed much. they are grazers that go about the tank all day and night, picking bits of food off everything.

i've switched my big guys' tank over to bare bottom, and i find it induces me to do a small water change more often to keep the crap from being visible, lol. i originally had gravel in there, but like your situation, the crud seemed to accumulate much too easily. i switched to sand, but ended up being happier with bare bottom after a few months. another option is to have a thin skim of sand in the tank. you don't want it too deep or else you can end up with black sand (read: rotten sand) and gas pockets. 1/2 inch or so would be a good depth, and when you do water changes, don't stick your gravel vac in the sand, just swirl it a lil bit above and it will create a vortex that sucks the poop up and not the sand. also give the sand a little stir when you do water changes, to ensure those gas pockets don't form. Home Depot sells play sand (Quikrete brand). you have to rinse the heck out of it before you put it in the tank.

my Gus gets NLS pellets, shrimp pellets, earthworm pellets, frozen silversides and bloodworms, and i'm trying to make him realize that peas and other veggie bits are a good thing, lol. small bits of banana are ok too, and Gus's tankmate Chuck (paratilapia polleni) likes banana sometimes. one thing i find that helps with getting them to eat pellets is to soak them in garlic juice. fish LOVE garlic! i feed once a day, sometimes skip the odd day (but not often).

i probably have it the best out of all of us, lol. i live in an apartment, so water and heat are included in rent. in the winter i crank my 'free' heat up and keep the tanks warm that way, and in the summer i run a heater in the tanks that are closer to windows/doors on cooler days/nights. the one tank that doesn't have a heater sometimes gets down to 72/73 but the big fish in there don't mind one bit. never having to worry about a variable/changing heat or water bill is so nice! and my power bill usually runs between just 50 and 60 dollars per month, so factoring in all the lights and filters on the three tanks and the bit of power used for the sporadic heater use means a small amount of the power bill is fish tank related IMO. i do also run an air conditioner in one bedroom on a regular basis, for my chinchilla buddy one of these days i'm going to ask my neighbour, who lives on his own but has a large tv and stereo system, what his power bill is. he has no tanks and his suite is about the same size as mine. would be interesting to see the difference in our bills!

when i moved my two 55 gallon tanks in fall of 2009, i put all the plants and fish from one tank in one rubbermaid (about 15 to 20 gallon size), and filled it 1/3 old tank water and the rest new dechlorinated water. only filled the tub about half full though. tanks were drained pretty much completely, except for substrate/large decor. ended up having some green shrimp survive the ride in an open truck bed with less than a half inch of water sloshing around, in only plus 10-ish weather, lol! the bigger fish (oscar, angel, paratilapia polleni, african cichlid) from my other 55 all got their own 2 gallon bucket with lid. i didn't want to take any chances on anyone spazzing out or fights en route with them. they sat in their buckets until i got the tanks filled back up, then plopped them in before i set to putting filters/lights back on. their individual buckets water was pretty much 100% new water. i'd say all my fish were in the rubbermaid or small buckets for at least a few hours, if not longer, as i was trying to get my tanks set back up and wrangle my kiddo, and make my new apartment live-able for the first night, all at once! lol. everyone fared fine, no casualties, no problems. as for location in the vehicle, i put the rubbermaid at my feet, front passenger seat. the 2 gallon buckets went on the floor at the back seat. vehicle was a huge 'rig pig' style truck, with crew cab. we didn't run air conditioning or heat in the truck. filter media - for hob media, i tossed the sponges in a 5 gallon bucket, along with any biomax (in netting bags). my canisters i just ensured were full of water and hauled them to the new place that way, and fired them up as is at the new place.

you want to aim for at least 1 watt per gallon for healthy plant growth, so the first thing i'd look at is upgrading your lights. T5 (High output or just plain old t5) would be best. i'm running only 40 watts total of T8 over a standard 55 gallon, without lids, and i'm seeing decent (but not stellar) plant growth on my swords, crypts, java fern, vals, anubias, etc. all low light/easy care plants. would love to get better lights on that tank but it's just not in the budget right now. my 20 long has a coralife 65 watt bulb on it that is 50/50 actinic (actually a saltwater light, lol). grows the swords and java ferns nicely, without causing algae at all. i keep lights on all my tanks for about 12 hours a day.

for more rare or expensive species i'd be all for a breeder 'loaner' type situation, but for guppies i say it isn't worth it.

.

or instead of tearing it down, you could enjoy a plant only tank, with no livestock.

from my reading and chatting with other fish nerds, using Prime in an unfiltered betta bowl is not advised, but using it with bettas in a filtered tank is perfectly fine. since i switched to Prime, i've kept two bettas in separate tanks with no issue, and i'm a 'tad' heavy with the Prime when i do water changes, lol. i've also kept shrimp (green and red cherry) in tanks dosed with Prime, and no issues there either. i would agree with laurensdad, there could be something leaching out of the miracle grow soil that is harming new shrimp, whereas the older shrimp are acclimated to the conditions in the tank. your bioload is also quite high for that size tank. i'd consider moving some ottos and snails out of there. as for zero nitrates, there should be some showing on your test, especially with that bioload. unless your tank is chock full of plants and has little for livestock, you will have nitrates. in regards to the proper procedure for the API nitrate test, you have to shake bottle #2 really well for 30 seconds, not smack it against something.

to heck with Tide, go with the power of Prime! hahahaha!!! another thing with Prime, if it dries on a surface (kitchen table, counter, whatever), and you go to wipe the table with a wet cloth days later, you'll have lovely Prime aroma wafting up at you instantaneously. bleh.