New tank

[snaggle]

I still dont know why the fish died, every other fish in the tank looks healthy right now.

I am going to swich from tap water to sore baught water and try and find some of this stuff from Kent Marine

Black Water Expert.

and also get some of this Liquid Discus Buffer.

I think whn my daugter is older I am going to set her up a larger 75g dicus tetra planted tank :hey: .

Brad

[snaggle]

I am going to go to Camrose next Tuseday I am going to look for some more cardnial tetras or rumynose tetras :smokey: . should I get some melafix and primafix for when I add the new fish?

Brad

[skinless]

i'd skip all those chemicals and just get a test kit for starters.

i cringe whenever i have to add some sort of potion to a tank (like metro, dang!).

it's gonna be tougher to balance steady.

i try to qt with melafix any new additions. smells nice

[snaggle]

i'd skip all those chemicals and just get a test kit for starters.

i cringe whenever i have to add some sort of potion to a tank (like metro, dang!).

it's gonna be tougher to balance steady.

i try to qt with melafix any new additions. smells nice

If I had an extra tank I would just qt my new fish. I want to get a qt system but some one needs to talk to my wife for me :pff: .

Edited November 3, 2006 by snaggle

[snaggle]

I got some new fish over the last week or so, I got 9 flame tale guppys and a lot of plants from a Capt at work for free :bow: , and I bought 2 mre corys to bring the school up to 4 I want to get two more corys of a diferent type. I ordered a bristlenose pleco from the local store here in Wainwright I wil get it on thursday next week.

I lost all my cardnials now I have no clue why the water tets fine and I saw no sing of desies that I could recinise :grr: . I will be going to Lloydminister this week to see what they have for tetras to replase them with.

I also found wht looks like a catapiler in the tank I have no clue what that could be? I tryrd to take a couple pics of it but the did not turn out at all . oh well, it looks like a grees furry catipiler that you would find in your yard, it had two leaes that it has atached to glass some how. It looke like it was eating one of the leaves. I have no clue if it is bad or not should I kill it?

And last but not least new pics,

Front of the tank

Side of the tank

Some close ups

Guppy kiss

Brad

[Vallisneria]

Wow! Your tank is looking great!

[Shai]

Fantastic setup! The aquascaping is very well done.

Sorry to hear about the fish losses. I don't know how experienced you are but I'm going to supply some info anyway. : ) With a new tank, you should have stocked over the course of several weeks or months, only adding a few fish at a time. This would have helped preserve the stability of the water and avoided too much pressure on the nitrifying bacteria. Since you added a whole whack of fish all at once and then added another group close after, your tank probably experienced a minicycle, and that's probably why those fish died. Too late now, but good to keep in mind for the future. You might also find this article and this article useful for the future.

Since you're planning on adding yet more fish you could be in for more deaths. The tank needs about half a year or more to fully mature. I'd recommend you wait a few weeks at least before you add anything else (perhaps the pleco can stay at the store for a bit?). I know it can be hard to stay patient!

The pleco can grow to 15cm and can also be very territorial. They are also poo machines so take care to watch your water quality.

You don't need to buy water from the store. Your tap water will be fine. Just add a conditioner such as Prime before adding the water to the tank. In addition to removing chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia, Prime also detoxifies nitrite and nitrate. If you buy a large bottle (better price per fl. oz) you'll need a clean eyedropper to properly dose the water, because a capful will be way too much. When testing, Prime can give you a false positive on ammonia but if you're keeping a good maintenance schedule you shouldn't have to worry.

Something else to keep in mind: if you didn't get all male guppies, they will quickly start breeding and will overrun the tank. Most of the fry will probably get eaten by the other fish, but undoubtedly some will survive to procreate even more. This will put pressure on your bioload. If there are more males than females, the males might start harrassing each other and/or the females, potentially causing death from stress.

The catapiller thing is probably a parasite of some sort that hitchhiked in on a plant. I'd go ahead and remove it. If you're going to add any more plants in the future, rinse them in a bucket of conditioned water before you put them in the tank. This will also help avoid hitchhiking snails. Snails aren't bad, but if you are unlucky they can overrun the tank too.

I read that you want the plants to fill in the back of the tank. This is a great idea, however I would still put a flat colored background on the back of the tank to fill in the gaps that you will still have. Dark blue or black are great choices and will help the color of the plants and fish "pop". A background will also help keep the light inside the tank, which helps draw attention to the tank instead of the nicely-lit up wall behind it.

Good luck! I hope you have a lot of success. It's a beautiful tank, I'm sure others in your future will be just as gorgeous.