hey this is my first thread. i got an old bowl from around my house and its around 2 and a half to 3 gallons. i went to LFS and got two guppies(male) there were doing totally awesome. one guppie was a black phantom delta guppie one was a green cobra guppie. considering im short on funds this was the best i could afford at the time. i got my sudden taste to want an aquarium from watching a snakehead and red belly piranha river monster episode and this was all i could for the time being. anyway the black phantom was really skiddish from the beginning and the other one was much bolder. anyway i wake up one morning(fish been in my bowl about 2 weeks now) and the black phantom guppie is gone and the green cobra(usually very bold) is extremely freaked out and wont even come up for food for the rest of the day. that was about a week ago. now he just swims at the left side of the bowl constantly and barely comes up for food. any ideas on were the black phantom went? my grandma thinks it died and the other one ate it( no way in hell that happened since they were the exact same size and my brother saw both of them 4 hours before i woke up) and my pop thinks he jumped out. i searched everywhere in my room and hes not to be found. sorry if i seem like an idiot but im new to the hobby
my guppie bowl (its apparently magical)
- Thread starter hfs3
- Start date
well one, did you cycle the tank before putting the fish in? if not, then that's probably why your current guppy is acting weird and why the other fish jumped (if it did - most likely it did). Guppies are small and when fish die, they shrivel up, most likely its hiding somewhere or if you have a house pet it probably picked it up.
do you have a cat? thats all i can think of you'll probablly want to atleast get some netting rubber banded on the top but with still your holes for your filter and aerators. it might be a good idea to just get a 10 gallon tank they're pretty cheap and they make hoods for them so whatever happened to guppy #1 won't happen to guppy#2. plus its easier to maintain a bigger tank and you can fit in more fish and eventually breed 'em
Nope we don't have a cat. I changed water today and he seemed to act better. When I get back from my trip next week I'm getting a bigger tank and hopefully a few more fish. Thanks for the advice
hfs3;4211523; said:
READ!!!!AND LEARN!!!!PLEASE
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224559
And for anyone else who reads this, please do not berate him. I'm sure he's new to fishkeeping and everything, and he should be reading the articles above.
Yea, cycling is definitely an important part to keeping fish, when I was first interested in fish I didn't think it was a big deal until I started reading up on it. It really helps to keep your fish happy and healthy and lets you do waaay fewer water changes and keep more fish in a tank.
Cycling is best done with less fish in a tank, so keep that in mind before you go to buy more fish. After the beneficial bacteria are established you can add more, keeping in mind the final size of each fish is sometimes way larger than the purchase size. For example, a common pleco can normally be found at 1.5-2 inches long at a store and get get to two feet long. Just research any fish you intend to get before you actually get them and you shouldn't have any problems.
Cycling is best done with less fish in a tank, so keep that in mind before you go to buy more fish. After the beneficial bacteria are established you can add more, keeping in mind the final size of each fish is sometimes way larger than the purchase size. For example, a common pleco can normally be found at 1.5-2 inches long at a store and get get to two feet long. Just research any fish you intend to get before you actually get them and you shouldn't have any problems.
Pepito;4211707; said:
This isn't entirely correct. The point of cycling your tank is not to do fewer water changes. The cycling of your tank is the process which happens when you start with tap water and intruduce fish/fish waste and start to establish a BB colony. When the cycling is happening there is an increase in amonia, nitrites and such. If you have fish in a tank that isn't cycled this amonia can be deadly. Some people use feeder fish to help cycle their tanks but you should never put fish into a tank which hasn't been cycled at all. Please read up on it. There is a lot more to it that I'm not going to type out for you.
Lissaspence;4211751; said:
I'm simplifying it for someone who is inexperienced. Yes, you can do fewer water changes because the bacteria break up the ammonia into nitrites and then nitrates which are less toxic to the fish than the original ammonia. A betta in a bowl, for example, will have to have many more water changes just because the beneficial bacteria aren't present. If the betta were in a cycled tank you'd need to do fewer, and only partial, water changes.
You can put hardy fish into a tank to start the cycling process. I cycled my first 10 gallon tank with 3 zebra danios. Sure, you can cycle a tank by only using fish waste or by purchasing ammonia form the store, but doing it with actual fish is much easier, especially for someone who's cycling a tank for the first time.
Checking the water quality regularly will allow to see if the ammonia levels are getting dangerous. If they are you can perform a partial water change to alleviate the problem. Partial water changes might slow the cycling process, but I don't see that as being a big deal. It's just a different way to do things imo.