New to this, am I doing it right?

I realize that I should have researched this before I got into this hobby. But I was at walmart and saw they were selling puffer fish. I love exotics so I thought since I can't have my turtles or other exotics in my dorm I would try aquatics.

I have a friend that has GSPs and she has helped me a lot but I feel bad always asking her to come over for such trivial things.


I am only allowed to have a 10g max in our dorm. So this is what I have:
10g tank
white and blue rocks
10-15g filter
heater
and a dino that spits bubbles out
A tree stump looking thingy
a rock formation
and a few plants
I have recently added live plants as well




Here are a few pictures of my boys as well. All feedback is welcome.



That is Poofer



This is Crush. He was sleeping.


This is Shark bait. He too was trying his best to sleep.


I will add more pictures if you want. Just ask

I have been putting aquarium salt in with each water change. And so far they leave each other alone. And the sucker fish (though he hides all day). All fins are fine and in tact No missing parts

I have had them for a little over two months now.


I am having trouble with ammonia levels though. Any tips?

Oh I only had the sucker fish to try to keep the tank a little cleaner. lol. I didn't realize it was making it worse...

mcsnapper1;4613869; said:

Have you changed out the pads in your filter? When you do water changes, how much are you changing out? What are you using to test for ammonia? Were your nitrites and nitrates up before your ammonia went up?

Click to expand...

I change the filters once every other week.
I take out 1/3 of the water when I do a water change every other day. I was told to do it every other day until the ammonia went down.

Nitrites and nirates? I didn't know I needed to be checking these. But the friend that was helping me checked all the levels and said everything was great except the ammonia levels. And to check the ammonia level I use the test strips from walmart...