My first try at keeping tropical fish was rather disastrous. I had an Aquaview 360 3 gallon tank given to me by a friend and tried to keep 2 male guppies and 1 ghost shrimp in it. The guppies were dead within a couple of weeks. The ghost shrimp lived a while longer, but eventually he too kicked the bucket.
After a while I decided to try again. This time I did a little reading and decided on a 10 gallon starter tank with black sand substrate, a few fake plants, and a small volcano bubbler (naturally dubbed Mount Wannahockaloogie). I started out with an apple snail and glowlight tetras until I had the minimum recommended school of five, then added a ghost shrimp and 2 male guppies. One day one of the guppies simply vanished from the tank, I never did figure out what happened to it.
About this time I also decided to re-setup the 3 gallon tank. Since I really liked the low maintenance of Super Naturals sand substrate, I removed the filter plate that came with the tank and super glued the riser tube to the bottom of the tank centered on the LED light under the tank. The seal is not perfect, but good enough that very little sand gets in to interfere with the light. I set up the tank with white sand, and some mostly pink decorations - not exactly a natural theme. I put a red platy in it but he didn't seem happy, spent most of his time hiding, so after a couple of days I added him to the 10 gallon tank, where he immediately began swimming around with the remaining guppy. I tried keeping glofish and ghost shrimp in the 3 gallon tank, but none stayed alive very long, so I replaced the fake plants and decorations with real plants and a balinese lantern decoration and made it a betta tank.
Eventually the second guppy in the 10 gallon tank died as well, and I replaced him with a dwarf gourami which I named Whiskers. Whiskers was a beautiful fish and my favorite in the tank, but sadly, he died today. I'm not sure why, the tank seems to have been stable for several weeks now. I added an albino cory catfish a few days ago to (hopefully) eat the baby apple snails that had appeared in the tank, but all the water parameters were still fine. This morning I found Whiskers lying on his side in the tank. Every so often he would try to swim around, but he'd always end up listing. I did a 25% water change, even though the water checked out fine, and went to Petsmart to see if they could suggest anything since Google wasn't much help. The thing they suggested was aquarium salt (often used as an all-purpose tonic) since I didn't see anything on the fins or scales that could be diagnosed, but when I came back, he was dead. I removed the snails from the tank, one of which was also dead, and added only half of the recommended dose of aquarium salt, just in case the other fish might need it. I don't think so low a dose will harm any of the fish, though perhaps it might kill off the little baby snails.
I don't usually get attached to fish, except perhaps bettas, but I am rather sad that Whiskers died. It's just so baffling since I can't find any reason for it, but doubtless there are many fish ailments I've never heard of. I read that dwarf gouramis are rather sensitive though, so I will be waiting to get more until I have moved and gotten the 36 gallon tank I plan to get setup and cycled.
I don't see temperature discussed - could it be that your temperature is not steady? And do all your fish like the same temperature? So sorry to hear about Whiskers - and w/ regards to your text, I do think waiting for new apartment on 36 gal is a good idea. While there are ways to transport larger tanks, it's easier to not stress them out by just waiting. Patience and consistency are two things that are absolute necessities in the world of an aquarist.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been monitoring the tank temperature regularly, but whenever I check it's around 76 to 80 degrees. Right now it's 82, so I cranked up the air conditioning and turned off the light. According to Petsmart all the fish I've had need the temperatures to be 72-82, another site says 75-82.5 or 77-82.5, with guppies at 75-85, so I guess they all like more or less the same temperature range. I don't have a heater in the tank because it's always so warm in my apartment anyway, except for when the A/C is working TOO well. I'll try monitoring the temperature more closely for a couple of weeks and see what it does. As for the text, I was thinking more about how it would stress ME to carry 36 gallon jugs of water up 3 flights of stairs! ;-)
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