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A friend ask me to maintain her two 10 gal tanks. They are both in terrible condition. I have tried to talk to this lady and explain the dangers, but her response is " They've been in there over 2 years. They're fine". The nitrates are off the chart in both tanks, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, PH around 6. She is now dosing with PH increaser. I would appreciate your input on these tanks so I can print them out and show her. She won't listen to me and won't get rid of any fish. She feeds flakes, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, and frog food daily and in very large amounts. Tank 1 stocking consists of one 4" fantail goldfish, one 4" shubunkin, both with badly frayed tail fins, one 6" common pleco, a 5" ACF, and 4 large cories. Tank 2 houses 6 balloon mollies, a 6" pleco, an 8" loach, 3 large cories and another 3" scavenger fish. ( She is upset that her mollies won't reproduce!) I've been doing weekly maintenance, but without changes, I'm shoveling crap against the tide. Please help. Short of kidnapping them I don't know how to get through to her. Thanks in advance for your expertise.

Ye Gods.

Those tanks are disaster areas waiting to happen!

A Common Plec in a 10 gallon? I've seen adult ones that will not physically fit in a 10 gallon ...

First of all, the Fantail and the Shubunkin need their own coldwater aquarium. At 4 inches, the Fantail alone needs 55 gallons, and with the Shubunkin I'd be looking at nearer 75. As for the African Clawed Frog, well that needs its own quarters too - a 4ft paludarium as a minimum setup.

The other fishes - the tropicals - need a radical overhaul too. One, rehouse the Plecs FAST, ESPECIALLY the COmmon Plec, because it's capable of becoming a juggernaut of a fish that should be given a 125 on its own if it's going to lead a happy life - if it's going to live with other fishes (including that 8 inch loach - yikes) then we're looking at 200 gallons and up.

The Mollies and the Corys will probably need a 55. There is NO way on earth that the Mollies are going to breed in their present quarters because with that level of stocking, they won't be swimming in water, they'lll be swimming in silage. When you say the nitrate levels are off the charts, where does your chart come to a halt? If it's anything over 160 ppm, then I'm surprised the fishes aren't pickled!

The "other scavenger fish" amkes my alarm bells go off too. Without an identification for this fish, it's impossible to say what that fish needs, let alone whether or not it's compatible with the others, but given this lady's penchant for picking monsters that belong in 6ft tanks and above, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that this "scavenger fish" is a dirty great Bagrid catfish that reaches two feet or more when fully grown, or a Synodontis acanthomias - though if it were the latter, it would have eaten the Mollies long ago.

It sounds as though the Shubunkin needs some emergency fin rot treatment too.

Someone should really record these details for posterity as an object lesson in how NOT to house fishes. Those aquaria are the underwater equivalent of the Tiger Cages from the Hanoi Hilton - I'd think twice about keeping those fishes in there for two days as a temporary measure while setting up bigger tanks, let alone two years ... in their present condiition, those tanks are aquatic concentration camps ...



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Calilasseia, My Nitrate chart goes up to 160ppm. She lost a fantail last week from tank 1 and simply couldn't understand why! She asked me to only do the tanks once a month because they were too clean and the mollies weren't reproducing. I have a key and have still been going into the office weekly, just to keep them alive. I hate fibbing to her since she's paying me, but I can't help it. When I first went in I literally had to take sheets of algae out of the tanks. You couldn't see the fish! And the filters were so gunked up the brushes wouldn't go through the intakes. The water in the siphon was so black from detrius it made me sick. It kept getting clogged. I had a terrible time. Now the lady sits in her swivel chair and just watches the fish as though everything is fine. She is getting a 55 gallon for Christmas and plans to put everything but the mollies and a couple corys in it. The mollies and balance of the corys will stay in a 10 gallon. I'll print out all the replies to this thread and hopefully something will sink in. Thanks for the quick response. Anyone else want to chime in? By the way, both plecostomus' are the common variety with heads 2" wide!

Ok, the first thing she needs to know is that there is no such thing as a tank being "Too clean". Her mollies arent breeding because they are stuck in water akin to that you take out of your toilet after youve used it. Full of crud and garbage. Mollies need meticulously clean water to be healthy and breed, without it, its amazing they are even still alive.

Fish need once Weekly water changes, not once monthly. Check any online websites, just google "aquarium water changes" and 99% will agree, 35% once a week is the MINIMUM of water changes that should be done.

Goldfish are coldwater fish and are NOT Compatible with tropical fish.
A 55g tank for just the 2 Goldfish ALONE is perfect. These fish need a minimum of 30 gallons per first goldfish and 10g per additional goldfish.
These fish both reach sizes of 10-14 inches!

Common plecos grow to be 24 inches or more long. They need 100 gallons minimum.

The loach also needs 100 gallons, its probably a clown loach guessing by the size, and these guys can reach a foot. They also are a schooling fish, that should be kept in groups of 3 minimum with 6 being better. And that would need a very large tank!

Hopefully this info will help her, and she wont be too stubborn to listen to reason.
If she refuses ask her this - If you have a child, would you only give it water once a month, only bathe it once a month, feed it tons and leave it in the same diaper for weeks?
IF she has a dog, would she only give it fresh water once a month? If the answer to either of these are NO, then why the heck does she treat her fish like this?
They deserve better, and she should take the time to drop her pride out of the picture and learn about the animals she keeps.


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So-Very-Sneaky, I agree and have told her more or less the same thing. I'm going to ask her again to please get rid of the 2 plecos, the loach, and the ACF. The 55 gal. she's getting won't house them. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the frog that was chomping on the goldfishes tail fins. I'm trying to talk her into letting me cycle the 55 and out of getting a UGF for it. She was going to use the gravel and decor from the 10's to cycle the 55! I'll let you know if I make any headway with her. Thanks for your help.

ah! That is a pretty scary tank!

Perhaps suggesting she trade in the fish for fish that look simular and would get along much better in those small tanks would be a good solution. Goldfish are huge and so are plecos and shouldnt be mixed any way. Goldfish are also very messy and will cloud up a tank very easily, especially a small one of that size. Perhaps doing a small livebearer setup, such as a guppy species tank, and then in the other mabey lemon tetras or another small fish that would stay small?

I hope things work out for you!


Inky

Inkling, That's exactly what I'm going to suggest to her. She has that ugly loach in with the balloon mollies and it races all over and under everything in the tank. That's Mr. Whiskers and he'll be the one she won't give up. It looks like an eel with barbels. I'll do my best to persuade her to make the right changes. If she wants the mollies to breed she has to correct the problems. Thanks so much.

Ah, the loach mystery ...

looks like an eel with barbels

That will be Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, the Weather Loach. Which is a pretty ugly fish. It's native of China and Japan, and it's capable of surviving a very broad temperature range - as low as 40 degrees F and as high as 90 degrees F in some cases. These fishes have been sold as 'scavengers' for coldwater aquaria for some time, but frankly, they're more trouble than they're worth in an aquarium, and even in a pond they're a less than happy addition. First of all, in a pond, you can't see them. This is because even when they're resting on the substrate and are nominally visible, they're superbly camouflaged. However, in some substrates, you won't see them at all because they'll be buried in the substrate - in the wild they make their living by homing in on live creatures in soft mud (and will also home in upon dead anmial matter with laser guided accuracy).

These fishes have a habit of going berserk periodically, and this is related to barometric pressure (hence the name "Weather Loach". When they do, they create such an unholy mess in an aquarium (and stress the other fishes with their frantic, aimless dashing about) that they are best left in the wild. The only possible reason for selling these fishes was the scarcity of coldwater bottom dwellers, but I suspect that if someone were to perform the requisite database search, a far better choice would appear.

That loach is another disastrous choice for an aquarium.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

but frankly, they're more trouble than they're worth in an aquarium

Why do you say this? Weather loaches are fabulous fish!
Ive been keeping them in my big tank for years!
I love them! Wonderful fish, eat lots of stuff on the bottom, peaceful as peaceful could be, big and wiggly and tons of fun!
I think theyre cute and wonderful.
A totally suitable community fish for tanks 40 gallons
and up.
I keep mine with Discus and they dont "mess up the tank"
or "cause stress to the other fish" at all.
Im sorry but I totally have to disagree. These fish are
not the holy terrors youre making them out to be,
I would highly recommend them to anyone with a peaceful community tank, including Discus tanks.



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Whoops! Looks like we opened a can of --loaches! I looked up that loach and no variety looks like the one this lady has. Hers is solid silver gray, no markings at all. Is this a varient of the Weather loach also?

They do come in a "black" variety that is often grayish
in color.
Check on http://www.loaches.com/
to find your species.


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Here you go, Misgurnus angullicaudatus, the Weather Loach, on the loaches.com website.

Sneaky, the problem with Weather Loaches is that, yet again, they have been sold inappropriately. In a large enough aquarium, their antics (including their 'berserker' hanbits when the barometric pressure changes) aren't too troublesome, but they end up all too often in tanks that are too small, and which don't give them enough space to strut their stuff without unwanted side effects such as stirred up substrate and other fishes wondering what on earth is going on with these guys. Plus, an 8 inch specimen can kick up a LOT of substrate when it starts thrashing about. They're best given a big pond where they can indulge in their antics in large volumes of water, and where, with the changes of season, they may spawn.

Personally, I think they're butt ugly.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Ok, the first thing she needs to know is that there is no such thing as a tank being "Too clean".

Not true - too clean and there will be no nitrifying bacteria, the ecosystem will be out of balance and the fish may well succumb to infection.

-------------------------------------------------
I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

This all depends upon what you mean by 'too clean' of course.

If the tank is swirling with mulm, then it's in dire need of removal of said mulm. On the other hand, in a planted aquarium in particular, a small amount of mulm left in the gravel not only feeds the nitrifying bacteria after the other bacteria have decomposed the mulm, but of course helps feed the plants. While it is unlikely that most of us will achieve true balance in the aquarium - namely a state where the amount of waste that the fishes produce exactly equals the uptake by the plants - most established aquaria have a nutrient cycle in place. Waste from the fishes is decomposed, ends up as ammonia and various simple carbon compounds, the ammonia is matabolised thorugh nitrites to nitrates by the specialist nitifying bacteria, and the nitrates provide one of the main sources of plant nutrients, along with phosphates from the fish wastes. the simple carbon compounds from the mulm also assist in plant nutrition, along with the carbon dioxide exhaled by the fishes. Understanding that there exists a nutrient cycle migrating from fish wastes through substrate bacteria to plants (and of course in the wild back to the fishes again as some fishes feed upon the plants, and others predate the herbivores) and understanding alongside this that there is a limit to our ability to manage that cycle in detail in the aquarium, is the first step toward keeping the aquarium healthy. Filtration technology helps a lot of course, but even with that in place, we are dependent upon unseen live organisms to keep our aquaria healthy, and keeping those organisms happy is part of the skill of keeping the fishes happy too.

On the other hand, striving to keep the water 'laboratory pure' is not only woefully inpractical, but if it is ever achieved, the end result is water that cannot support fish life. Fishes need certain solutes in their water for life, oxygen being a critical one obviously, but some of the other dissolved substances can play a big part in fish health too. Mineral content of course is a major factor in the case of Rift Lake fishes, which need that mineral content for continued health, while some fishes need humic acids in their water at least for breeding (Cardinal Tetras being a prime example).

Finally, while controlling phosphate levels to a certain extent is a good idea in order to prevent algal blooms (which will take off like wildfire if they have exces nitrates and phosphates together to feast upon), remember that phosphate input into the aquarium via fish food is vital. Phosphates are vital to fishes for two reasons: first, phosphate ions help to hold DNA molecules together, and so are critical to ALL life forms for this reason, and second, calcium phosphate is a major ingredient in bone, which of course means that all vertebrate life forms need phosphates in quantity in the diet to develop bone and repair it when it is damaged. In fact, there are LOTS of surprises awaiting the unwary with respect to the need for various chemical elements in water - magnesium, for example, needs to be present in reasonable quantities because plants require it - it's an essential ingredient in chlorophyll molecules. Likewise, they need iron, to manufacture some of the other unusual porphyrin molecules that assist the photosynthetic process, which in turn is needed by the fishes for haemoglobin. A big surprise that results in some head scratching, given the response of invertebrates to copper based medications, is that quite a few invertebrates (crustaceans in particular) actually need tiny amounts of copper because their blood is based upon an oxygen transport porphyrin that uses copper instead of iron at the centre! This molecule is known as haemocyanin, and a little more about it can be found here.
Copper also occurs in a compound called plastocyanin, which plays a role in plant photosynthesis ... and just to add to the mixture, there are important differences between the plastocyanins found in cyanobacteria, algae and higher plants. There endeth today's lecture.



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002