Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: susie58 on June 05, 2014, 07:40:44 PM
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Hi. I am new to keeping fish as I only bought my first tank (biorb) in April this year. I have a 60 ltr biorb with 7 platy's 1 danio and 2 ghost shrimps and a 22 ltre heated tank with 1 male betta (red) called Kai. I have had problems with getting the biorb to cycle and have visited this site to learn all about ammonia/nitrates/nitrites etc. I have made a few classic mistakes (overstocked the tank too quickly) which caused the loss of 3 danios in a week. I seem to be on top of things now though - bought a water test kit and mastered the art of small, frequent water changes. The little platys in the biorb seem to be doing really well and the water has improved (ammonia 2.0/Nitrates 2.0 and Nitrites 2.0) but I can't seem to get the biorb to cycle as well as Kai's tank did (Ammonia 0.5/nitrates 0/nitrites 0).
So I have 2 questions please:
1. Is there anything I can do to get the levels down in the biorb (am adding a drop or two of filter boost daily as recommended by pet shop
2. One of the platys keeps 'shadowing' the others all the time - won't leave them alone even when they're being fed. He/she looks pregnant to be and is bigger than the rest, with a red underbelly. Is is a pregnant she or a rampant he?
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Platies first.
Do you know if you have males or females? If you don't know, the way to tell is by the anal fin. That's the one on the underside just in front of the tail. Have a look at the photo in the fish profile here (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/platy.html). There are five fish in the photo. The two at the bottom (yellow on left, red on right) are females. Their anal fins are the normal fan shape you'd expect of a fin. The other three are males. Their anal fins are not fan shaped, but rod shaped. This is called a gonopodium. You can see it best through the panel of writing on the red and black fish top left.
Male livebearers like platies chase females constantly. It is recommended to have at least twice as many females as males so that each female gets time off while the males chase another one.
A red underbelly could be a pregnant female. In this case the red would be above the anal fin where the babies grow. But if it is a male it could be a sign of something wrong. If it looks fat, look down on it from above (I know that won't be easy with the narrow opening of the biorb). Do the scales lie flat against the body or do they stick out like a pine cone?
Now the cycling. With ammonia and nitrites at 2 in the biorb, you need to be doing water changes to reduce the level. Change most of the water; leave just enough for the fish to be able to swim in then fill back up with dechlorinated water at the same temperature as the water you took out. Warm it with hot tap water if you have a combi boiler or with hot water from the kettle if you don't. Then do water changes as often as necessary to stop either of them getting above 0.25.
The betta's tank - the ammonia is a bit high. It will be OK as long as your pH is 7.5 or less. But again, water changes will lower it.
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Thanks for the help Sue.
Have changed the water in both tanks today:
Biorb PH 7.8 Ammonia 0.25/Nitrites 2 Nitrates 40 45 litres changed
Betta PH 7.8/Ammonia/0.25/Nitrites 0/Nitrates 0 10 litres changed (50%)
I had a look at the platies and I think the one with the red belly is a female. She seems fine, nice and active and not too bothered by the big water change. My little danio seems stressed though, he's racing round the outside of the orb, seems a bit panicked to me.
Last night my betta was flicking around the tank and rubbing up against the sides and ornaments. Also not as sociable as he usually is. This morning he had white spot down one side of his face and spreading under his throat. I've done the water change and added the prescribed dose of white spot treatment (removed the carbon filter first). I've also turned his lights off and he seems to be resting and not too stressed now. Is there anything else I can do to help him? 2nd dose of treatment is on Tuesday - do I just keep an eye on him now? (Also added some aquarium salt to the water when I did the change). The PH was 8 when I tested it - this is too high for a betta fish isn't it?
This fish keeping lark is quite stressful - am scared I'm doing them more harm than good :(
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Don't worry about the pH for now. Treating the whitespot and keeping the ammonia and nitrite under control is more important. Just to check, did the betta look as though he had salt grains on him? And since you've had to remove some filter media (carbon) you will also have removed some bacteria so monitoring those levels is now quite important.
Is there anything in that tank that could be increasing the pH, other than the whitespot treatment? Anything such as shells, limestone rock, coral?
You do need to do more water changes on the biorb, I'm afraid. Nitrite at 2.0 is still way above the danger level of 0.25. Even a 90% change will only get that down to the upper safe-ish limit.
I've just noticed that in your first post you mention having a biorb and then a heated 22 litre tank for the betta. Is the biorb heated? If it isn't, that explains the slow cycling as the filter bacteria grow better at higher temperatures. And you will probably need a heater in winter unless you can guarantee the room never drops below 18 deg C on the coldest night.
The danio is probably stressed because they are shoaling fish and it is alone. But it is not a good idea to get more while the tank is cycling. More fish means more ammonia made even faster, and converted to more nitrite.
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He did have spots like sugar granules on his face and throat but they look better this morning (although he's still not as active as he was) I've only had him 10 days.
There's nothing in his tank like shells or coral - he has 5 small live plants (broad leaved and grass type) and a little bridge to hide under and a floating heart that's all.
How often do you think I should change the water in the biorb? Happy to do what it takes but does it not remove more of the bacteria from the sub strata each time I do it? Also, I will look at what heaters I could use in the biorb for the winter nights.
If anybody was to ask me if I recommend the biorb I would have to say no. Wish I'd bought a nice tank instead as I have had no bother with the betta's tank (maintenance wise and temperature control etc)
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Water changes do not harm the bacteria unless you forget to dechorinate the water, and even then when the colonies are mature that does little harm. It's when the colonies are first growing, like yours, that you have to be sure to use dechlorinator. Though the fish don't like chlorine much either.
The filter bacteria grow tightly bound to the biofilm. The biofilm is tightly bound to all the surfaces in the tank. The bacteria prefer to grow in the biofilm on the filter media as that has the best water flow though it bringing food and oxygen. In most filters, the media is also in the dark which the bacteria prefer, though with the biorb's biomedia being the substrate that doesn't apply in this case. It is not easy to dislodge the biofilm, though hard scrubbing of things like filter sponges can do so, especially with immature media. With the biorb's bacteria being on the substrate, you'd have to really scrape it hard to dislodge the biofilm.
As long as the new water is dechlorinated (to protect the bacteria and the fish) and warmed to the same temp as the tank (so as not to shock the fish) it is safe to do a 95% water change. That's just about as much water as you can get out while still leaving enough to cover the fish.
Whitespot will disappear from the fish but it doesn't mean it has gone from the tank. It is a parasite with a three stage life cycle. We first see it as the white spots on the fish. It is attached to the fish inside a coating, and feeds off the fish's skin. It is on the fish for a few days before each parasite grows big enough to see. The coating protects the parasite and medication can't get at it. Once the parasite has eaten enough, it falls off the fish and lies on the bottom of the tank, still in its coating, and multiplies. The medication still can't get at it in stage 2. Finally, the coating splits open and releases free swimming baby parasites which set off looking for a fish to infect. Stage 3 is the only one where the medication can get at the parasite.
There will be some of each stage in the tank at any one time. It is important to keep adding the medication as the instructions say to make sure there is some medication there when every last one gets to stage 3. If the instructions say to turn the heater up, that's because this lifecycle goes faster in warmer water.
If you need to do a water change on non-dose days, add the amount of med needed to treat the volume of the new water you put back in to replace the amount you've taken out.
I've heard that comment about biorbs before :-\ They can be nice tanks as long as you are prepared to work with their limitations.
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Thanks Sue. I feel more confident about the water changes now - have just done 25% change in the biorb and syphoned out a dead shrimp :( I haven't tested the water yet but will do that this afternoon.Will do 25% every other day for the biorb until the levels are fine, then 20% each week for both tanks.
The 2nd whitespot treatment is due for my betta on Tuesday, then I replace the carbon filter 7 days later. He seems quite alert but am keeping an eye on him.
I've also reduced the feeding in both tanks to 1 feed per day (temperate flakes in biorb and betta micro pellets for Kai) I was feeding twice a day and giving them both frozen bloodworm every 2nd day for the evening feed but somebody told me that bloodworm can actually cause whitespot??? Do you think this is what I did wrong? Or was it just the fact that he's a new fish and maybe stressed with the move etc? The platies really seem to like the bloodworm so would be good to continue with it if you think it's safe.
Sorry for bombarding you with questions but it's great to have advice like this and I feel more in control than I did last week :fishy1:
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are you sure it was dead shrimp and not just a molt from a shrimp they can look the same sometimes mine very often scare me with that little trick as for the white spot i am not to sure but i think that if blood worm could cause white spot its more likely to be live blood worm not the frozen version , i feed mine frozen blood worm often and its been ok they soon eat it all up :fishy1:
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AS Chris says, the dead shrimp could be a moulted skin, but invertebrates like shrimp are more sensitive to ammonia and nitrite than fish are, so if it was a dead shrimp that's likely the reason.
With the water changes, you need to do as many and of a sufficient volume necessary to get ammonia and/or nitrite below 0.25. Once you get them that low, you should keep them under 0.25 by doing a water change every time they get near that level. With fish-in cycles it's not changing x amount of water every y days, it's about doing water changes as big and as often as necessary to stop ammonia or nitrite ever getting higher than 0.25. That means testing the water at least once a day, and doing water changes if the results show you need to.
Once both have been zero for a week without you having to do any water changes, the tank is cycled. Then you can go to weekly water changes. Depending how heavily stocked the tank is, 20 to 25% is usually fine. Though with small tanks I find half the water has gone by the time I've cleaned the bottom.
The only way bloodworm can cause whitespot is if there were some of stage 3 (free swimming baby parasites) or stage 2 (the cysts where the parasite is multiplying) in the bag with live bloodworm. If frozen, the freezing process should kill the free swimming ones, but perhaps not the cysts. Freeze dried won't have any viable whitespot parasites, but they aren't good for bettas unless they are presoaked.
Don't put the old carbon back in after the treatment has finished. Carbon gets full and if it was in the filter for more than a week, it won't absorb the med. You need new carbon, and throw it away after a couple of days as it will be full of the med by then.
You don't actually need carbon in a filter full time. It's main job is to remove meds when treatment has finished and to remove the brown colour that comes out of bogwood. Once you've got rid of the med, I would put some filter sponge in its place. Any make, cut to fit.
Feeding fish once a day is good. And fasting them one day a week is also good for them. Bettas particularly can get bloated if fed too much.
You platies would enjoy some veg too. Next time you have peas for dinner save a couple; squeeze the insides out of the skin and chop it up small. The betta would also enjoy a bit.
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It's totally impossible for bloodworm to cause whitespot. To make it possible to produce enough bloodworm to sell, they have to be bred in special pools where, of course, there are no fish since fish would a) eat the bloodworms and b) die from the low oxygen conditions in which blood worm thrive. Since whitespot can only be present where there are fish, clearly it cannot be introduced with bloodworms. Just another loony idea circulating among fish keepers.
I think it's vital to always remember that fish diseases come from other fish. Yes, there are also dangerous physiological conditions that can be caused by poor water quality, but any true disease caused by bacteria, fungi, protozoa, parasites or whatever ultimately has to come from another fish. That's why introducing new fish to a tank is a much more risky procedure than one may think, and why so many of the "Help!" questions here often arise shortly after the introduction of new fish. Sometimes the new fish get sick/die, sometimes it's the ones already in the tank which may have no resistance to a newly introduced disease. Very close observation of your fish after new introductions is essential if quarantine isn't possible. It's also important to take remedial action as soon as possible, by the time a fish is on its last legs (last fins, perhaps?) it may have already infected all of your other fish. Even more so if you leave it to die and the others start to eat it...........
We shouldn't always blame the shop either, because their fish may appear perfectly healthy to them but have a low level infection of whitespot, for example, which might only appear later as a result of the stress of moving into new conditions in your tank.
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Wow! Thanks everybody for the brilliant advice. I'm so glad I joined this site.
Chris - unfortunately it was a shrimp (minus the shell) and considering I had 6 and now only have 1 live shrimp in the tank you can imagine the guilt..thanks for the advice about the bloodworm, I have the frozen stuff and they all seemed to really enjoy it so I can now carry on feeding them it (but only once a day and no more evening snacks)
Sue - I tested the water every day and it wasn't changing (ammonia 0.25/Nitrites 2.0/Nitrates 20) so I've bitten the bullet and done a massive water change tonight - at least 50ltrs with the prescribed amount of aquarium salt, stresscoat and filter boost added. You wouldn't believe the cr*p that was in that tank...I feel so bad :( Bits of shrimp and goodness knows what else going up the tube from one particular spot..horrible, really horrible. I'll go down to Petsathome on Saturday and ask them for some filter sponge for Kai (betta fish). He seems to be doing well (touch wood) and has picked up nicely again (following my finger and coming out from his den for a nosey) I haven't done anything with his water tonight as he's still on meds for his white spot and his readings are good compared to the biorb's. I'll give them all some peas in a couple of days when they've all settled down, have heard about that before but didn't really want to try it without an expert saying it's ok.
Richard - I don't blame the pet shop at all, I've made some terrible mistakes and take full blame for what has happened to my danios and shrimps. I overstocked the tank before it had cycled properly but the fish were all healthy when I bought them. If any new people on this site ask questions about whether it's too soon to add new fish to the tank I honestly feel that I could tell them worst case scenario now.
I'll do another water reading tomorrow night and let you know whether the fish survived the ordeal or not (sorry Sue, gave them a little compensation feed as felt guilty
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This fish-keeping is a very steep learning curve. We've all been there and made similar mistakes (even Sue *sharp-intake-of-breath*) but we've all been willing to learn from them. It'll be fine in the end..... but it does seem to take six-months or so to settle down. Stick with it - it's worth it. I've just spent the last hour or so sitting with a glass of wine (or two) and watching my tank. It's great once it all comes together - it really is.
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You really don't want to hear the list of things I've done wrong over the years. They include wiping out a whole tankful of fish, twice :-[
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I just typed an essay and lost the whole lot? So in brief:
Colin B - I'll be on the sofa tonight enjoying my little fishies with a glass or 2 of wine (most welcome after last night's drama)
Sue - Guess what?:
AMMONIA - 0
NITRITES - 0
NITRATES - 0
I'll be testing every day and am not scared to go in with the big guns now if I need to - 95% water changes? Pah, piece of cake!
Kai (betta) has had his 2nd dose of meds and (apart from swimming around in electric blue water) looks ok. I think I saw another couple of white salt/sugar grains on him before I dosed the tank but could just be being neurotic.
They're all going to get a nice bloodworm breakfast in the morning too now that I know the frozen stuff is fine for them.
Thank you so much for your help. I'm sure I'll be back on here soon with yet more questions and will keep visiting too as I like reading all the posts from other people.
Oh and Sue - sorry to hear about your disasters...if you need any advice just let me know - I think I'm a bit of an expert now :cheers: :cheers:
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Please visit; Even if you have nothing of consequence to add.
It may have escaped your notice, but there are people on this site, regular contributors, who have no respect for the serious nature of this web-site; Annoying sods O:-). It would be a nice change to have someone who is sane here. Oh and don't mind the inmates, they are "Mostly Harmless"
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Exactly... don't just pop-in when you've got a question, you can start helping out other's who are having the problems that you've coped with etc, etc.
Perhaps you could make the coffee each morning....
....or the bikkies :rotfl:
(http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/dont-panic-were-mostly-harmless-1.png)
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Perhaps you could make the coffee each morning....
....or the bikkies :rotfl: - See more at: http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,995.15.html#sthash.dtHZZMWZ.dpuf
why stop at bikkies a bacon sandwhich would be so tasty ::)
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Sorry guys, too busy watching my lovely little fish in their crystal clear water to make coffee/bikkies/bacon sandwich
Water in both tanks now testing nil for everything :raspberries chuffed to bits.
My platy still has a red belly though ??? Think it's just her colouring after all.
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Any chance of a photo of the platy? Then we can see what we think.
Keep testing the water until you are sure everything stays at zero. It should only take a few days to confirm it.
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Sue - have you ever tried taking a pic of a single fish in a tankful of 7 (who is always harrassing another fish so you get 2 every time) in a biorb??? Talk about a challenge!
Anyway, with a bit of help from my son, I managed to get a photo of sorts. You can just make out the red belly if you squint. I'll attach a photo of the biorb and one of Kai so you can see them in a mo (new phone so still downloading them all)
I've noticed another couple of platies are starting to act same way (shadowing other fish until they can get out of the way) but this one is the worst offender.
She doesn't seem aggressive - more of a nuisance to them really...differenet partner every time I look - tart!
The levels are all still nil in both tanks (although Kai's is looking horrible because of the dye in the white spot meds) Hope this is not too good to be true :)
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I do know how hard it is to photograph fish. Have you seen any of my attempts in the gallery section ;D
I think your platy is just that colour. It doesn't look like any disease I've come across.
Fingers crossed your levels stay that way.
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Here's Kai..handsome little thing isn't he? The water/ornaments look a bit weird still as stained from the white spot meds but the levels are all still at nil so I'm leaving well alone until I do a water change on Sunday. Do you think I should do a big change or just 25%? I've left the charcoal filter out and am going to the pet shop on Saturdays so will buy some filter sponge as recommended.
Glad she's not pregnant - don't need maternity scares on top of everything else this week :rotfl:
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It may have escaped your notice, but there are people on this site, regular contributors, who have no respect for the serious nature of this web-site; Annoying sods O:-). It would be a nice change to have someone who is sane here.
:P :raspberries :raspberries :raspberries
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Hey Susie, that's a good lookin' Betta you've got there.
I see Resa has lost non of her eloquence, she always has the most apposite and beautifully structured responce. :)) :))
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Glad she's not pregnant - don't need maternity scares on top of everything else this week :rotfl:
Errrmmm, she will be if she's ever been in the same tank as a male. Female livebearers can store sperm for up to 6 months.
And Kai is a lovely betta :D
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Kai is gorgeous! I really want a betta hmmm
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Thanks everybody. I agree, hHe's really is a gorgeous fish. He's so nosy and he follows your finger round the tank as if he's playing with you. He goes nose to nose with my little 6 year old granddaughter. If I had room for another tank I'd definitely have another one.
Sue - if my red belly does have babies, won't the other fish eat them?
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Yes, they will.
It will save you from having a very overpopulated tank. A lot of people try to save every single fry, but by the time you've given the first few away you'll run out of recipients, and because they are so cheap from the wholesaler not many shops will take them off you even for free.
And don't forget that every female fry you save will start having lots of babies as soon as they are old enough.
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Oh. Got it thanks Sue...let nature take it's course then.
I've just done another 50% water change in the biorb (ammonia rose to 25 again) and have noticed a red ulcer on the side of one of my platy's face. I don't think it's whitespot but he is 'flicking' and favoring the bottom of the tank.
I can't catch him to get him out (and even if I did I don't have a 'hospital tank'. Do I leave him in there and see what happens; try to get him out and put him in a 5 ltre bowl with whitespot treatment or treat the whole orb for whitespot? It looks more like some kind of angry sore with a white centre than small granules like the others had.
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With whitespot you have to treat the whole tank as there will be some parasites in stages 2 and 3 as well as stage 1 on the fish.
But whitespot doesn't usually have red ulcer-like lesions. There are other things that cause flicking - anything that is making the fish's skin itch, so everything from ammonia in the water to parasites/skin infections, to just having an itch. It's continual flicking that indicates something wrong, the odd once or twice is nothing to worry about.
As for the red ulcer, I don't know as it's not some thing my fish have had. Google suggest a bacterial or viral skin infection. The best treatment for bacterial infections are Myxazin by Waterlife and eSHa 2000. There is nothing to treat viruses. Since you don't have a quarantine tank, you'll need to leave the fish in the biorb and treat it there. The problem with a bowl is the lack of filter to keep the water clean. Ammonia build up can make a skin infection worse by irritating it.
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Thanks Sue. The biorb has a filter in the middle and I put a new air stone in when I cleaned the tank today. I'll keep an eye on him, he looks ok now, quite lively in fact. I've been using aquarium salt and stress coat when I change the water each time so hopefully it will settle down. I'll also keep a close eye on the ammonia levels (have been testing every day so I can see the moment it starts to rise)
Do you think maybe there's too much aquarium salt in there now? I read that it doesn't evaporate but I only every put the correct amount in.
Also, I looked on Amazon for a heater for the orb but the reviews are all really poor - one poor guy had his fish fried in the small orb and they nearly all say the heater doesn't stick well in the bowl and can't cope with the 60 litre size I definitely wouldn't recommend a biorb if anybody asked me - and certainly not to a newbie just starting out.
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Aquarium salt is not needed in freshwater tanks full time, though it can be used to help with certain diseases. It is actually just plain old sodium chloride, table salt, in expensive packaging. It is another hang over from days gone by; they didn't know why it worked to keep their fish healthy but we now know that it mitigated the effect of nitrite. Back then they didn't have proper filters so there was ammonia and nitrite in their tanks.
Having said that, platies are able to tolerate some salt. But the best thing to do is stop adding it and water changes will slowly remove it. Slowly being the word; big changes in anything are bad for fish. This doesn't mean big water changes are necessarily bad as if they are done regularly the water in the tank tank doesn't have time to change much from tapwater, it's when water changes are infrequent or when chemicals are added (like salt) that makes tank water different from tapwater.
When you say you've been adding the correct dose of salt, how have you been adding it? The correct way is to add enough for the whole tank at the beginning (though adding a small amount over a few days rather than all at once is better) then at each water change add enough to replace the amount in the water you just took out. So a 10% water change, add 10% of the full dose.
I'm afraid I can't help on the heater question as I've never had a biorb.
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Susie have you looked into other heaters for your biorb, ie ones not by the biorb company? (Whatever their name is)
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Hi both. Thanks, will stop adding aquarium salt unless I get another outbreak of white spot or anything. Kai's tank too I suppose? (I did wonder why I was adding it when he's a freshwater fish really) Don't worry Sue, I was only adding the relevant amount to the amount of water I was addingsto the tank, not calculating 60 ltres worth each time.
Puffin - I hadn't looked into a different heater as everything else about the biorb is so flippin' exclusive (you can only use their substrate/filters/lights etc but I will ask on Saturday.
The fish all look fine tonight - except that the one who had the red 'spot' is being hassled by one of the gold platies. I wonder if she's a female and the red marking is something to do with her being ready to mate or something? He's sort of flicking up against her face and won't leave her alone. What with red belly still stalking the others and now this I guess I should have bought all females. (All of this is assumption because I still can't tell for sure what sex they all are)
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Platies, and livebearers generally, are pretty easy to sex - just look at the anal fin (the last one on the underbelly before you reach the tail fin). If it's pointed then it's male, if it's a 'normal' fin, e.g. a bit like a fan, then it's female.
When the male is being amorous it will come up alongside the female and you'll probably see it, well, waggle the fin around to get it in the right place.
I bet Colin will be able to provide some pictures......
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Just looked on eBay, typically for them... You can buy a Biorb heater kit for £14.99 plus p&p or £819.95 depending on which seller you choose!
But I'm sure I saw somewhere that you can just use any make, it certainly looks like a normal heater in the pictures. The biorb one is only 50W so a bit small for your 60l.
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I bet Colin will be able to provide some pictures......
'ere ya go..... Platy naughty-bits:
(http://thefishbowlwebsite.weebly.com/uploads/6/8/4/6/6846742/7996099.jpg?354)
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Et viola!
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I bet Colin will be able to provide some pictures......
Oh my God :yikes: I dread to think what he'll find :o
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Phew!....that's a relief...I thought for a moment we were gonna get some sort of fish porn...or at the very least, platies with censored bits :rotfl:
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Phew!....that's a relief...I thought for a moment we were gonna get some sort of fish porn...or at the very least, platies with censored bits :rotfl:
Sort of 'Fifty Shades of Grayling'?
(http://www.goflyfishinguk.com/images/grayling-fly-fishing.jpg)
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Sort of 'Fifty Shades of Grayling'?
(http://www.goflyfishinguk.com/images/grayling-fly-fishing.jpg)
That shouldn't be allowed, even after the watershed :yikes:
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Sort of 'Fifty Shades of Grayling'?
(http://www.goflyfishinguk.com/images/grayling-fly-fishing.jpg)
...groan...what are you like?
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hahahaha - it is funny though! I think you're all a bit crackers but I like it :vcross:
Anyway - on a more serious note: I've just checked the water and the ammonia is still at 0.25ppm? Nitrites and nitrates both nil...and the little platy with the red spot is still hiding and not mixing with the others...although he/she seems ok in general (apart from the red spot). I don't want to introduce any more chemicals into the tank so have decided to wait and see what happens there.
As for sexing the fish - even with the marvelous advice, they won't stay still long enough to have a good gander (and my son thinks I've totally lost the plot as I keep lying on the floor looking up at fishes bums). It's because they're magnified down one side of the tank but tiny up close.
I'm going to ask about a sensible heater for the biorb on Saturday but now I have another question - will the platies who have been used to room temperature find it too warm if I take the temperature up to 25 degrees or so? And if I do that and they're all happy, can I put a couple of little tropical fish in there with them? Or should I just get a few more danios so my lonely little survivor can shoal with them?
So many questions, so much to learn.
And I won't be buying any new fish until the tank is stable. No way am I doing that again!
Thanks for your great advice everybody (and the laugh)
Susie
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I'm going to ask about a sensible heater for the biorb on Saturday but now I have another question - will the platies who have been used to room temperature find it too warm if I take the temperature up to 25 degrees or so? And if I do that and they're all happy, can I put a couple of little tropical fish in there with them? Or should I just get a few more danios so my lonely little survivor can shoal with them?
Platies will be fine at 25ºC.... just make sure you increase the temperature slowly.... 1º per day sort of thing.
Is there any reason you want the tank at 25ºC? I run mine at 22º and everybody's happy.
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I agree - platies don't need 25 deg, they are happier a bit below that. But not as low as an unheated tank in winter.
Hmmm, I think we had a discussion in another thread about the fact that we keep our house a lot cooler than everyone else, so I tend to think what our house is like forgetting others won't be that cool. But 20 deg is the coolest I would keep platies.
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I was reading on Amazon about a man who was trying to heat his 60ltre biorb to 25 degrees and the heater couldn't cope. Another man said his fish had been cooked in the baby biorb so I guess I had 25 degrees in my mind. My house is kept warmer than most day and night as it holds it's heat really well and I hardly ever need to use the central heating overnight.
I might just wait until autumn then buy the heater but keep it at 22 - the heater should be able to handle that surely!
Am really embarrassed as I was looking at completely the wrong part of the fish to see what sex they were - I was looking for another fin/pole at the end of the tail!! Now I can see easily what I have - and guess what.....red belly is a boy :rotfl:
So the original question has now been answered - it's just his coloring. How funny is that? Thanks for the educational picture ColinB.
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Am really embarrassed as I was looking at completely the wrong part of the fish to see what sex they were - I was looking for another fin/pole at the end of the tail!! Now I can see easily what I have - and guess what.....red belly is a boy :rotfl:
Whoops! ;D
Sounds like you were thinking of a Swordtail (picture borrowed from fish profiles):
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Susie, there are tales of people's fish being cooked. Heaters can fail in one of two ways - they can stop working altogether, in which the water gets cold; or they can stick in the on position so the water gets too hot.
Most heaters have a thermostat which turns the heater off when the water reaches the set temperature (except when they fail in the on position) but they are usually badly calibrated, meaning that although you might set it to 22 deg it could turn off at anything between 17 and 27 deg. The way to set a heater is to set it low and turn it up 1 deg on the dial every few hours and measure the actual temp of the water with an internal thermometer. When the thermometer shows the temp you want, that is the heater setting you want regardless of what the dial says.
I say an internal thermometer as those that stick on the outside don't give an accurate reading of the water temp.
At least you know what sex your platies are now. Do you have any females at all or just males?
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Hi Susie!! :wave:
Nice to meet you!
Just wanted to say that I had (until two days ago :() a tank with 4 male platies in. I deliberately avoided getting females as I didn't want babies!! ;D
The main things I have found with having a) all males and b) a tropical tank are:
My boys did lots of chasing and pecking each other. Pedro (who I've just lost) was the worst and he would follow the others all over then tank, without let up, either shadowing them and shimmying frantically at them (sort of swimming on the spot and rippling, if you can picture that) or chasing them and pecking them if he caught them. He on a couple of occasion caused my others to get patches or spots where either he had managed to inflict some damage or where they knocked against tank décor whilst fleeing from him. They were always posturing at each other and waggling their gonopodiums (naughty bits!!) at each other!!! :D
I have noticed that platies kept in a heated tank are much more active than platies kept as cold water fish. My sister has cold water platies and they are slow swimmers and barely move about, where as my boys fly around the tank (even when they are not being chased!!) which is heated to 240C. I am wondering if they might be a bit hot though having read the rest of this thread!! :-\
I recently moved them in to a 54 litre tank and sadly two of them have died but the remaining two are getting on fine. They swim about together and surf the current created by the filter together and seem generally more companionable. :fishy1:
Another thing I wanted to mention is that flicking (scratching) can be a result of Ammonia or Nitrite poisoning. My boys do this all the time and have done since I got them, because my tank was not fully cycled when I introduced them and I had problems with getting my ammonia down for quite a while. Having said this, I am currently experiencing serious health issues (hence the deaths of Pedro and Peppa)and suspect that they may have a parasitic infection of some kind. Hopefully my treatment will arrive tomorrow and I wont have to watch the poor little buggers suffering anymore!!! :-\.
Hope you get your heater sorted and everything and that you don't mind me 'dropping in' on the conversation!! ::) :))
FC
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Hi FC - nice to meet you too :wave:
I know what you mean about the platies chasing and pecking - red belly is a total thug! I thought he was a pregnant female at first but he's just big, fat and bossy. He's currently stalking pale skin (female - the one with the red spot on her face) Now that you mention it, I wonder if the red mark on her face was where she's scratched herself on an ornament trying to get away from him (Sue - the mark is going down now and she's very active so glad I watched and waited).
I know what you mean about ammonia levels - I overstocked my tank before it had cycled and paid the price for it (lost 4 danios and 5 ghost shrimp in a week) Lesson learned for both of us I guess? I really want to get some more danios as I only have 1 left now and he's looking really lost and lonely. But I'm not going to do it until my tank (stupid biorb) has cycled properly
Sue - ammonia still at 0.25ppm but nitrites/nitrates both nil - isn't the ammonia supposed to turn into nitrates then nitrites? I'll do another 25% water change tomorrow and see what happens.
FC - The only bit of advice I feel qualified to give you is to listen to Sue...she had me totally freaked with her massive water change recommendations. But she was right all along, the levels only started to go down when I took her advice and did a massive water change. Have your 2 platies got a 54 ltre tank all to themselves or do you have other fish in there too? The pet shop told me that they prefer cool (but not cold) water so maybe you're right, maybe it is a bit warm for them at 24 degrees?
Sue - the 3 gold colored platies are all males. Then I have the 4 'speckled' platies. 2 are male and 2 female. For some reason the gold colored ones don't bother the ladies as much as red belly and 2 spots (both speckled) do. Do you think they recognise that they're different - or is it just that they don't get a look in? They seem quite happy swimming around in their own little trio. And I've decided to wait until the autumn to get a heater - then get a good one and aim for a constant 22 degrees
Ain't fish fun ;D
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Oh, and dbaggie - thanks for rubbing it in but you're correct, that is where I was looking :-[ what a muppet I am!
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Oh, and dbaggie - thanks for rubbing it in but you're correct, that is where I was looking :-[ what a muppet I am!
Apologies :-[ wasn't trying to rub it in, quite the opposite actually - just showing how easy it is to get mixed up with fish anatomy!
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My two male platies seemed to get along really well..... until they hit fish puberty, then they started to beat the cr@p out of each other. I had to separate them and put one in my quarantine tank, and he's been there over a year now, happily swimming round with his remaining guppy friends.
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ammonia still at 0.25ppm but nitrites/nitrates both nil - isn't the ammonia supposed to turn into nitrates then nitrites? I'll do another 25% water change tomorrow and see what happens.
Ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate
When you have enough bacteria and are doing weekly water changes, there should be no ammonia or nitrite but nitrate will build up. One of the reasons for doing water changes is to remove the nitrate.
With a fish-in cycle, you start with no bacteria. Ammonia is excreted by the fish and builds up, that's why you have to do water changes to keep it low. Slowly ammonia eating bacteria grow and they convert ammonia into nitrite, so as these bacteria grow nitrite starts to build up so you need to water changes to keep that low as well. Once there is nitrite, the nitrite eating bacteria can start to grow and they convert nitrite into nitrate.
It takes a long time for enough of both types of bacteria to grow, and the nitrite eaters can't even start until the ammonia eaters have made some nitrite for them to eat. It does sound wrong doing water changes to remove ammonia and nitrite but even a trace more than the current number of bacteria can eat will stimulate them to multiply. Eventually you will have just the right number of bacteria to eat the ammonia made by the fish and the nitrite made from that ammonia.
Re your tests:
0.25ppm ammonia could be a false reading as some people never see the yellow colour of zero. As long as that doesn't go over the 0.25 colour, I'd regard that as being zero.
Nitrite is easier to see the zero colour. With the API test if it is blue it's zero; if there's a hint of purple, it's not. With several fish in your tank if there weren't enough ammonia eaters I would expect to see your ammonia reading a lot higher than 0.25. Since you obviously have a fair number of them, they will be making nitrite. And again, if you didn't have enough nitrite eaters I would expect to see a reading for nitrite.
Nitrate is trickier. That should go up if you have both types of bacteria growing. And it is very unusual in the UK for there to be zero nitrate in tapwater. And you did report nitrate of 40 in the biorb in your earlier posts
Have you tested your tapwater for nitrate? Unless you have a heavily planted tank, you can't get the tank nitrate lower than the tap level by doing water changes with just plain tapwater (plants use nitrate as fertiliser which is why it can be lower if you have a lot of plants).
And just to check - you are shaking one of the reagent bottles, the instructions will say which one. All makes of tester have a reagent bottle with a chemical that settles out on the bottom. the shaking is necessary to redissolve it.
You have 7 platies, 5 male and 2 female? Unfortunately that is not a good combination. The recommendation is to have twice as many females as males as males will harass females and with more females each one gets time off while they chase another. Yours are probably quite young at the moment, but as Colin says once they reach puberty, things could change.
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Oh help - what do I do? Buy more females? Please don't ask me to get rid of the males as I've got to really like them now...and I don't know anybody else with platies who would take good care of them. I know what you mean though as the males are constantly hassling the girls and they're not getting any rest from it!
Regarding the water testing: I do shake the bottles before I test and the ammonia is such a pale green it is almost yellow really. N.
Nitrates and nitrites are both nil so if the ammonia is a false reading, could it be that the tank has finally cycled? The fish certainly look great (apart from the sexes being biased in favour of the boys)
Sue - do you think I should buy some more female platies to even up the numbers; buy some danios to keep my one survivor company or get another small tank (25 ltr ish) to keep some of the danios apart? Not keen on the 3rd option as I don't really have space for another tank.
Or do I just scrap the biorb and give it to my daughter and get a big tank that will hold all my platies and some more females, more danios so they can shoal? That's the way I'm heading at the moment....I see what you mean about bigger tank syndrome but I really hate that biorb now.
dbaggie -- i know you weren't trying to rub it in, I was only joking :D
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If you got more platies, you'd need rather a lot of females. For 5 males, you'd need 10 females, that's another 8, and 15 platies is somewhat overstocking a 60 litre biorb. One option would be to rehome the two girls.
Danios actually need quite a big tank as they are very fast swimmers. A lot of people say 4 ft is the minimum tank length. I would not keep them in a small tank like 25 litres. I would seriously think about rehoming the one you have rather than get more.
Or you could give the biorb to your daughter......
Given your ammonia and nitrite, I would say you are cycled if it wasn't for the nitrate. What is the level in your tapwater?
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Hi Sue - Nitrate is nil in the tank, it's the ammonia that's stuck at 0.25ppm. If I get a bigger tank I've got to go through the cycling palaver again - with fish in it, which I'm not keen on doing as I think they've been through enough...Am having a think and will let you know what happens next .....
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It's the fact that the nitrate is nil that's worrying me. It is virtually unheard of to have zero nitrate in a tank that is cycled. In almost every case where nitrate is zero, the tank is NOT cycled.
Nitrate is the last stage in the nitrogen cycle, and as there are no bacteria to remove it in the typical tank, it builds up and we have to do weekly water changes to remove it. There are bacteria that eat nitrate but they don't grow under typical tank conditions.
If you mean nitrite is zero and you have a reading above zero for nitrate, that is what I would expect.
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I tested the tap water for ammonia and it came up with exactly the same readings as both kai's tank and the biorb - 0.25ppm. So it looks to me as if I'm never going to get nil for ammonia. But both tanks are reading nil for nitrites and nitrates - confused.com! Honest, I promise - nitrites and nitrates are both zero and ammonia is 0.25ppm (same as the tap water)??????