Ok, I'm not really a beginner, but I haven't had a tank in about 10 years so I'm considering myself one. Never had many problems with fish dying back then. Here's a discription of my current tank...
#1. I have a hand-me-down 55 gallon fish tank from a relative. It came with a magnum 350 and an under gravel filter. I have both filters running. The under gravel filter is powered by two Aquaclear 50 powerheads. Prior to him giving it to me, it housed some huge eel like creature (freshwater)
#2 I originally set the tank up about 3 years ago. All but 2 fish died in a very short time. I can't remember everything I had but the two that survived were a pleco and a java loach (I believe). I remember most of them having what appeared to be fin rot. I did regular tests and water changes and it seemed as if everything was ok with the water quality.
#3 I was so ticked after the problems with the fish tank that I just started to ignore it. After all, it just had the two fish in it. I occasionally fed them and occasionally topped off the water and the two did great! Lots of room for the two to play in 55 gallons :-) Neither have grown very much. Probably due to not feeding them very often.
#4 I now have moved the fish tank to a better spot so I CAN'T ignore it and have been slowly introducing new fish to it. I kept as much water as I could in it while moving it so I didn't have to start from scratch with the cycling process. I have been doing 20% water changes weekly and always adding the
chlorine remover to the water before adding it to the tank.
#5. The tank has about 4 inches of gravel in it. Some places are deeper.
#6. I originally had tiger barbs in it for the first two weeks of the new setup and then went to the store and get some African Cichlids. The Cichlids were rather small and the guy at the
LFS said that they should be fine with a school of tiger barbs. (Don't know if that's true)
#7 So far in the last week, I've had two fish die. One tiger barb and one cichlid. No signs of fin rot or any other problems. Fins looked good. Both fish hung out near the bottom until they died. Their color was good. I did notice that the cichlid was breathing kinda heavy. Looked like he needed a burping.
#8 My parameters are:
(Mardel Master Test Strips)
Temp 78
nitrate 20
nitrite 0
Hardness 120
alkalinity 120
ammonia 0
pH 7.2
#9 I have the light on a timer. It's on for about 10 hours a day.
#10 I have 1 pleco, 1 java loach, 7 tiger barbs (was 8), 3 cichlids (was 4), rainbow shark, and a small yoyo loach.
Questions:
1. I've heard that under gravel filters are a thing of the past. Should I remove it?
2. Is there too much gravel over the under gravel filter?
3. How important is it to raise the PH for cichlids? Are my parameters ok?
4. How much should I be feeding them. I usually feed them twice a day.
5. The guy at the store said I should skip one day of feeding to help keep the tank clean. Is this advisable with such hungry fish?
Ok, thanks. I think that's it
