kerryve

Yeah, When you get an ammonia reading, do a 10% water change, and test next day, if it rises to .50ppm do 50% water change but as soon as you get nitrites your ammonia will decrease, dont do an immediate w/c when you get nitrites, although try to keep them below .50ppm. when you get nitrAtes your nitrites will decrease, and then all harmfull toxins are gone but be aware that your nitrates must not go above 40ppm. but it will take a while cos you only got 4 little danios, try some biospira or something to kick start the process.

shollia

Is the biospira safe to use with my fish? I mean well of course it's safe to use since you suggested it... just wondering if it's gonna do anything to them that I'll have to watch for.

kerryve

To be honest with you, ive never used it cos we dont get it in South Africa but its bacteria in a bag. It seeds itself in your gravel and filter. I really dont think it will harm your fish at all. but make sure ask Chickadee, or Butterfly, I think they have more experience with the product.

shollia

Ah ok heh.... well I'll read up on it to see if it's safe to use with fishies

Golden Fish

Whats the word on the Biospira?
BTW, your art work is amazing! That would be a cool theme for a tank, no?

shollia

Thanks Golden I dunno about my artwork theme heh... if I did do that though I'd have to draw something just for my fish Maybe in the future heh.

Well, we weren't able to get to a petstore tonight. Dinner went on longer than expected and the petstores here close at 9.. so it was too late to head to one.

We should be going tomorrow though. Least I hope so :P heh
I'm reading about Biospira now on it's website. It sounds like it's safe to use with fish. I'm not sure yet b/c I'm still reading about it though.

shollia

Just updating (not sure if there is an actual section for that)

Our Danios are doing great. They are such little oinkers!! They'll play nice when the flakes are still at the top and floating down, but as soon as those are all gone and they start eating the bits off of the rocks... BOY does Bully earn his name! If he spots any of the other 3 trying to find the scraps that fell, he chases them off at the speed of light :P heh NM that there is probably enough for them all down at the bottom... oh well though. They're all getting fed enough. I know they've gotten bigger since we've gotten them, b/c it's getting harder and harder to distinguish Bully from another one. The other 2 are easy to identify though. One has a slight tear in his back tail. Pretty sure he was like that when we got him. And the other is still pretty tiny.

Anywho... we didn't have any luck finding BioSpira today. I'm gonna try to convince bf to go to this other place tomorrow. I found it on the web when looking for places that might carry BioSpira and it looks promising since it's an actual LFS instead of a large petstore chain.

Golden Fish

You could definitely draw a cool background and then trow in some twisted roots and stuff. yeah. anyway keep us updated on the biospira. i am interested in how well it works.

shollia

Heh.. I'll think about it :P If I can come up with something to draw I'll do it.

Anywho... I did a water change today.. about 20%. The ammonia readings were between .25 and .5 so I decided now was a good time to do a water change.
Boy the danios didn't like that at all.

That's not the big news though.. the big news is that when I put the replacement water back in.... to my surprise I see 2 mystery teeny tiny little.... things swimming in the water.
I was watching the water picking out hair that might've gotten into it (my dogs & cats are major shedders)... and I saw something moving.. I thought it was just some debri from the bottom, but oh no.. whatever it was was swimming!!

It was very very small... had a clear tail, kinda bulgy little body and 2 black eyes. I fished one out (saw 2) but put it back into the tank thinking that if it was some sorta bug larvae then the fish would see them eventually and eat them (which they did for one of them)....
It's just weird thinking that those might've come ut of our tap water.

shollia

Alrighty Golden Fish... I've decided to draw a backdrop for the tank... I haven't decided on what though, but I'll post it when I'm done


Anywho.. I was thinking.. maybe those tiny things I saw in the tank earlier were fry? They didn't really look like bug larvae.. but I dunno where they would've come from.
Did I not get the species of my Danios right?? I'm sure I have yellow danios.. and from what I understand, the female yellow ones actually have a blue color to them? Or are there other danio that have yellow coloring for both male and female?

My bully and another one of them are pretty fat while the other 2 are kinda skinny.... could I have 2 fems and 2 males on my hand?

I just saw this picture of a zebra danio fry.... those things did look alot like that http://www.bio.nagoya-u.ac.jp/englis...g/mb5_fig1.jpg

Doh if those were bebeh fishies!! I'm most probably just freaking out over nothing though* I guess we'll soon see if I spot anymore in the tank. I doubt any will live for long though with how much the oinkers eat!


EDIT:
Oh CRAPPOLA!!! Dangit! I think they are Pearl Gold Danios! I just went to a site that had pics of different types of danios, and the one that I thought it was.. well.. it sure didn't look like it! The ones that I thought they were are much fatter and more silver in color... oh.. BLEH.
So I guess this means that it's quite possible that my fish have laid eggs and I probably due to the water change today made some of the babies (quite possibly the only survivors) pop up and get eaten.
Dern... I'm gonna have to see if there are any more tomorrow and if so... go out and get one of those fry thingies to stick in the tank to hold them.

shollia

After seeing a few more pics of danio fry... I'm now about 80% sure that that is what I saw in my tank.
Oh I feel so terrible! I just let my oinkers make a snack out of them (or at least the one that I saw one of them swallow)*

I'm still not 100% sure but if I see more, I'm making sure they're gonna be safe from my piggies! If I see more tomorrow I'm gonna try to take some pics of it. I doubt I'll be able to though since they're so tiny.
It'd be really exciting if they are fry though! I did want a couple more! heh

Golden Fish

awesome!
Fry uh? Thats cool. Good luck. How are the Danios (oinkers) doing? They will get used to the water changing.

shollia

My piggies are doing great it seems! The 3 girls were SUPER fat last night.. specially Bully, but this morning when I woke, it looks like some might've dropped some eggs b/c they're looking a bit slimmer.

I'm gonna try to fish out some more "fry" if I see anymore.
We went and got one of those breeder net things from Walmart last night and I put one of the "things" that I scooped out into it. It looks like it's doing ok for now :P heh

0morrokh

Glad to hear they're doing well! That's pretty sweet if you have fry.
You know...if you keep them in a breeder net, they will soon be very cramped and not have enough room. Also you would have to feed them special fry food which I don't know if you have or not. You might be better off leaving them in the tank. Fry can take care of themselves and a few may not get eaten. They will find their own food and get nice and big before you even know they're there. (happened to me with Guppies once) Also idk how fry will handle being moved.

shollia

OK.. if I end up doing another water change tomorrow... I'll do as I did today, but if I find any.. I'll put them back into the regular area... I'll try to make sure they're put back into either one of the fake plants or as near the rocks as possible to reduce their chances of being eaten.

0morrokh

You know, I had Guppy fry and I didn't even know I had them until they were too big to be eaten and came out of hiding. Fry are super fast too. If they've survived a few days I don't see why they shouldn't continue to do so.

shollia

Time to resurrect my first thread b/c I have questions! heh

Alrighty.... so it seems my tank is finally cycling.
I've been doing water changes almost every day now. Usually about 10-20% with a 40-50% about once a week.
However.. with me doing those frequent water changes.. the ammonia lvls have been staying at a constant 2.0-3.0 for about a week now and I'm just worried that this is going to harm my fish.

Should I be doing larger water changes? Would ammonia at that lvl be harmful to my fish?
With me doing water changes that frequently.. about how long would it take for me to start seeing a drop and start seeing more nitrites? I need to go get a liquid nitrite & nitrate tester so I'm not sure if we do have any now or not since those strip tests aren't vert reliable.
And yeah... I have more questions but I've forgotten them :P

kerryve

ammonia at any level is harmfull to your fish, but, at that level your nitrite will rise with in the next two days or so, do a small water change, (this is what ive done and my fish are healthy) your ammonia wont change too much but the fresh water helps out alot, as soon as you see a nitrite reading your ammonia will start to drop on its own. nitrites will remain high for about a week. but just do lots of small water changes, bigger ones dont allow the bacteria to grow.

you still have 0ppm Nitrite?