I know. I'm sorry. My bed time was an hour ago. Someone said last night this site is addictive, and it is! Y'all are really awesome. I really need to get to bed. I will leave the pics open for suggestions. Thanks, Effingham. I appreciate it.
I freaked out!
- Thread starter HeatherE
- Start date
I know. I'm sorry. My bed time was an hour ago. Someone said last night this site is addictive, and it is! Y'all are really awesome. I really need to get to bed. I will leave the pics open for suggestions. Thanks, Effingham. I appreciate it.
Hey! That looks great! That's what I'm looking for for mine. I know I have two Oscars, an algae eater, another kind of algae eater, a parrot fish, a jack dempsey, and a couple I can't remember. And someone is breeding. I have my suspicions, but I can't prove it. I have no idea on the sand. It came with the tank.
ok well just to let you know a breeding pair of cichlids can get aggressive. if you can get pictures of the fish you dont some one will be able to tell you. IMO the first thing on the list should be finding out your stock after that everything will fall into place. and it looks like your tank is cloudy because of the sand. if this happens to be the case you might eat up your filter with sand particles. once everything settles if you can put your hand into the tank and pick up the sand and it makes your tank cloudy then it is your sand. your oscars will dig all day long; well mine do any ways. but taking sand out is actually not to hard if it comes to it. well hope this helped and cant wait for pics of the unknown fish
I think your tank is cloudy because your filter was down, which means your biobacteria are having to build back up and you're likely having a bacterial bloom. It looks more like the cloudyness cycling tanks get than from sand.
I dunno if anyone suggested it, but you should get some amquel or prime and start dosing for ammonia and nitrites until your filter catches up so your fish don't get stressed and sick. And you're gonna need a liquid master test kit to test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to know when it's stable again. The nitrates test is a little tricky, but it's less important than the nitrites and ammonia which are really easy tests.
In the meantime you can add a little salt, 1tbsp per 5g should be plenty, which helps detoxify the nitrites.
And sorry, but I had to giggle at you freaking out over the dead fish
. We've all had fish sucked into the intake and sometimes not even know how.
My when my husband was cleaning a tank once the strainer fell off and a danio swam in ...then three of his brethren swam in after him, and they all got chopped up. I've had fish seemingly commit suicide on purpose by getting stuck in powerhead intakes, even when they had to of used quite a bit of effort to wedge their head in there...
And I've also found fish living in my filters that I had no idea could get through the strainer, in a few cases they'd even grown in there. My MIL had a whole colony of baby bristlenose plecos in her canister filter and accidentally washed most of the down the drain since she didn't have her glasses on and thought they were dirt at first. :\
Others have similar stories. There's been whole threads about it.
I dunno if anyone suggested it, but you should get some amquel or prime and start dosing for ammonia and nitrites until your filter catches up so your fish don't get stressed and sick. And you're gonna need a liquid master test kit to test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to know when it's stable again. The nitrates test is a little tricky, but it's less important than the nitrites and ammonia which are really easy tests.
In the meantime you can add a little salt, 1tbsp per 5g should be plenty, which helps detoxify the nitrites.
And sorry, but I had to giggle at you freaking out over the dead fish
. We've all had fish sucked into the intake and sometimes not even know how. My when my husband was cleaning a tank once the strainer fell off and a danio swam in ...then three of his brethren swam in after him, and they all got chopped up. I've had fish seemingly commit suicide on purpose by getting stuck in powerhead intakes, even when they had to of used quite a bit of effort to wedge their head in there...
And I've also found fish living in my filters that I had no idea could get through the strainer, in a few cases they'd even grown in there. My MIL had a whole colony of baby bristlenose plecos in her canister filter and accidentally washed most of the down the drain since she didn't have her glasses on and thought they were dirt at first. :\
Others have similar stories. There's been whole threads about it.
Oh, man, I feel a little bit better, lol. That's crazy about the fish growing in the filter! I'm glad I'm not the horrible fishkeeper I thought I was. I still feel really bad though. My kids love those baby fish. Ok, salt I can do right now. The testing, I will get to asap. Thanks so much for the advice. I'm not freaking out so much anymore. 
I had some previous knowledge before I came to this site, but was no where near the knowledge that some have here. This community is probably one of the most relaxed and informative forum communities I have ever been on. You came to the right place for help. As for your tank, The cloudiness will eventually clear up once you get the filter back on track. Keep up on the water changes and watch your parameters and your fish will come out happy. Cloudy water is not what hurts the fish, its the ammonia levels and nitrites you need to watch.
And we have all had fish "accidents", some avoidable, some not, but all a lesson we learned. I had 2 fancy gold fish and a Black moor in a 20 long at one time and the Fancies ended up knocking off the filter intake cover. The Black moor, ironically named Emo, ended up swimming up into the intake and got shredded. Pretty sure was quick but I felt bad about it for quite some time. Now I ensure that all my intakes are secure, but it ended up happening again to my glofish community. Had 9, then one day looked into the tank and only had 4. Opened up my filter housing and sure enough, it ate 5 fish. Surprisingly 3 survived the trip thru the impellor and were living in the filter.
And we have all had fish "accidents", some avoidable, some not, but all a lesson we learned. I had 2 fancy gold fish and a Black moor in a 20 long at one time and the Fancies ended up knocking off the filter intake cover. The Black moor, ironically named Emo, ended up swimming up into the intake and got shredded. Pretty sure was quick but I felt bad about it for quite some time. Now I ensure that all my intakes are secure, but it ended up happening again to my glofish community. Had 9, then one day looked into the tank and only had 4. Opened up my filter housing and sure enough, it ate 5 fish. Surprisingly 3 survived the trip thru the impellor and were living in the filter.
