Need alot of help for my tanks

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
W

wvera05

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 5, 2008
90
0
0
39
illinois
Hi all I have just arrived back home after 4 months away , I asked my family to attend to my Fish tanks while i was away and showed them how to do waterchanges and the products to put into the aquarium but unfortunatly i dont think they held up there side and the tanks look horrible im sooo upset i have a 55 gal and a 20 gal and most of the fish are still alive only some passed , but these guys are in bad shape.
My question now is how much of the water should i change should i do a 50 % water change or more or less and then after that shold i do anther water change tomorrow ,or the following week any suggestion would really help thanks in advance also i know this is a horrible thing that is taken place and some of you want to bite my head of but please just point me in the right direction so i can save their lives that is most importanat right now thanks again
 
i'll use caution: ask your family members to be honest if they changed the water and how often and thank them for even managing to keep several fish alive which is better than having a half filled tank with floating fuzzy balls that stink to high heaven and nothing's inhabitable until the tank's scrubbed clean.....as well as did you pay any one of them to take care of your guys :) Just trying to show you the postitive side to it and I know how hard it is for me to just come back after a week and half to find out that the guy I paid to house/pet sit my house didn't care one bit about my tanks of fish and couldn't read directions that was only for a week and half so not much damage was done but when in middle of breeding project and conditioning them isn't easy.....



anyhow back to the water changes. I would honestly from my experience from avoiding SHOCK- doesn't matter how you treat the water sometimes fish do not handle water changes after few months of neglect from my long experience of dealing with friends, my own tanks, relatives. its something that does radical thing in the tank itself.

Do 25% for now, then 25% tomorrow and do your own judgement on how well the fish are handling the water changes. I even discus keepers do 99 percent water changes thats cuz they do it all of the time not every 4 months.... if I did that in my other tanks where I only do 2 weeks at a time of 25% water changes they would just definely die.
 
Have to agree w/ Proteus. I wouldn't do to much to fast. get an honest answer from your family. don't just make certain assumptions. If they just topped the tank off while you where gone. I wouldn't even do 25% more 'n once 2x the first week or two. Slowly but steadily clean the tanks out. First thing I would do is, check the filters. leave the current filter pads in place but make sure to clean out any built up junk. simply pulling out and rinseing media. If your fish are in bad shape and stressed imo the worst thing you can do is a huge water change which they are not accostumed to and a deep tank scrubbing. You may yet lose a few fish to extended exposure to nitrate/nitrite/ammonia conditions. which is also somethign I would have checked asap. It may look worse then it is. I often times get words about my tanks because they are covered in algae and hodge podge of live plants and driftwood.
 
What are your nitrates? Nitrates should not be allowed to drop by more than 40ppm in one shot ever! If they are over 80, a 50% water change is a BAD idea. If they are 60, you can get away with it.
 
Whatz the tank parameters? do a 10 percent change everyday for 5 days; it worked for my tank.
 
yup like mentioneed above, remember to wash the filter media with tank water or you may kill all the bb. that might kill all your fish after all the stress they have gone through.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom