Help ! New Fish Owner , Very new to it all , want my black moor to live!

HI the name is cookie22,

Hello all I'm very new to owning fish and was very misinformed to be honest. Hate to break the ice with a million questions but now I have the little guy (1 black moor) and have read up on him and fish care I really want to make him as healthy and happy as possible Any and all advice will be greatly apprectiated . I do hope to get to know more of you and spruce up my profile but for now my main concern is my main fish Specs

So on to Specs back story and such :

About a week ago me and my boyfriend went into walmart and decided a little pet between us would be nice thing to share so we went over to the fish counter and bagged us Specs , a tiny black moor fish bronze/black in color. Not having much experience in fish keeping (only what my mother had done when my brother and I were little and my bf has never had a pet) we bought a " starter kit bowl set" . Shortly after arriving home and setting him up google informed us of the errors of our ways.

Panic ensured,
After reading up on his kind and fish care (cycling etc.) we quickly went out and brought him a 10gl tank to set up which then ended up leaking, so Specs ended up spending about 3 days in the bowl. We did daliy water changes about 25-50 percent , feed him enough but little and luckily he's still here . On Monday we got the working tank, set it up with start Zyme , Start Right ,Correct PH and also Tera Aquasafe , let run for about 5~6 hours and put him in ( I know that's not enough time but the tank seemed better then bowl). So he's been in there since Monday .

I brought Jungle testing Strips Weds and his stats have been the following since :

Nitrite~0
Nitrate~0
Hardness~ very soft to soft (25~75)
Total ~ Moderate to Ideal ( 80~120)
P.H~ 7.2 ~7.8

Then I brought Tertra Easy strips for ammonia yesterday and that has been testing ideal 0 ,

My questions now are : does anything seem wrong or dangerous ? R we still doing things wrong besides our obvious newbie mistakes ? Should we do a water change now even if his test don't seem so bad ? How often should we do water changes in this new non cycled 10gl tank with one balck moor in it and how much of change ? He seems to be slightly less active is this a bad sign ?

Sry for such a long post and many questions just very concerned

 

Hi!

Right now, everything seems fine!

What might happen soon is your fish will make ammonia rise in the tank...

... that is not very good, but having only one fish go through that is better than... well... a bunch!

After a while, beneficial bacterias will install that will transform ammonia into nitrite.

Then another gang of beneficial bacterias will join to transform nitrite into nitrate.

Ammonia and nitrite are rather toxic, nitrate much less.

When you'll see ammonia and then nitrite dive back to 0, and nitrates slowly rise, then you know you are onto something good!

In the mean time, because the process might take a few weeks, a few things you should know:

1- A product called Tetra Safe Start will accelerate the proliferation of beneficial bacterias in your tank.

2- If you decide to take the long run, frequent water changes are mandatory.

3- In any case, do not over feed your fish, as it will make the ammonia spike worse.

4- You should get yourself a liquid test kit, because strips are not that reliable, and you would not want a disaster on the account of a false reading.

Sorry for the long post!



Good luck!!!

 

Thank you so much for the reply ! I will go out and get liquid tests as soon as I can , I want him to be as safe as possible so you don't think he needs a water change right now ? ( sry to keep asking questions !) I'm still not quite sure how many I should be doing right now or how often if the tests could be wrong but don't wanna stress him out to much if he's doing ok :0

 

Thank you so much for the reply ! I will go out and get liquid tests as soon as I can , I want him to be as safe as possible so you don't think he needs a water change right now ? ( sry to keep asking questions !) I'm still not quite sure how many I should be doing right now or how often if the tests could be wrong but don't wanna stress him out to much if he's doing ok :0

As for the water changes...

... unless you use Tetra Safe Start, because I believe they recommend not to change the water to help bacterias settle in...

... you cannot go wrong with daily water changes...

... I would say at least 10%...

... but people here might say more!

Right now, unless your test strips are really wrong, it is not an emergency, but you will want to be very active in that matter when ammonia and nitrite start to rise!!!

 

what kind of water dechlorinater are you using? I suggest Prime , it works great and once ammonia starts to come in it will change it to ammonium...your black moor , if its still tiny now can live fine in a 10 gallon but once it starts to get bigger and produce more waste you will most likely have to upgrade to a 20 gallon the rule for goldfish is 20 gallon for the first once and +10g for every goldfish after that , gl and keep us updated =)

 

Well we used Jungles Complete water care kit to start him up which included:
Start Zyme: to add beneficial bacteria and kick start new tank cycle

Start Right: to condition and dechorinate tap water

Correct ph: will adjust and maintain healthy oh levels

And also terta aquasafe

I don't know if that works as the the terta product metioned

We haven't water changed him since adding him Monday

The women at the pet store said we should place him in a same container while we do the water changes , add the aquasafe , wait 15 mins then place him back in then tank , is this true?

He is very small at the moment but when he does grow we plan on moving up the size thank u all so much btw !

 

Question; you said the first 10G tank leaked. Did you get another 10G, or did you get a larger tank? Hopefully you got a larger tank... from what I'm reading about the Black Moor it's going to get approximately 10 inches in length. I'm thinking a 30G or larger tank would be more suitable for this fish. But don't panic. He should be ok for a short time in a smaller tank until you can get a larger one set up and cycled.

PH. It's been recommended not to use any products to change the PH since a lot of fish will adjust. Quick changes in PH is what you want to avoid, and if you start to put in additives to change it, you're always going to have to put in additives. An extra cost you may wish to reconsider. A nice piece of Malaysian driftwood (read up on how to prepare it before it goes into the tank) will naturally lower the PH (it took a few weeks for it to lower in my tank, but it did so very gradually).

A note about Seachem Prime and the API Master Test Kit: Both are amazing products! However, you may wish to also invest in a secondary ammonia test kit (I recommend the Salifert Ammonia Test Kit). When using Prime along with the API ammonia test there's a high possibility of false readings (you especially want accurate readings while trying to stabilize your new tank). Read up about this on the Seachem FAQ page here.

When you can get a liquid test reading of 0 ppm ammo, 0 ppm nitrIte, and 5.0 or so nitrAte then you know you're on the right track (0 nitrAte isn't good).

You can always tell the tank is healthy if the water smells like freshly turned soil. This is the only problem I personally have with the Fluval C series of HoB (hang on back) filters... they filter out smells. Honestly if there's something wrong with my tank, I don't want the filter masking out the smell. That's just me though.

A word of caution: This is an addictive hobby. You may only have one tank now, but soon you will have more.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to invest in a quarantine tank. I didn't have one in the beginning, and ended up getting my first 10G tank infested with Ich. Lost almost every single fish. I ended up adopting out the Tiger Barbs (my newb mistake - semI aggressive fish in an un-cycled tank that was way too small) and turning the 10G into a QT tank.

Last thing I'll leave you with: Research, research, research, research, and research s'more. I'm still new to the hobby, and still researching.

 

Thanks for all the great info we do plan on upgrading to a larger tank but right being so new to it all keeping alive and happy lol

 

Sry for the short reply on the way out to work am greatful all the same

 

The women at the pet store said we should place him in a same container while we do the water changes , add the aquasafe , wait 15 mins then place him back in then tank , is this true?

Generally I syphon 25% of the water out of my tank into a 5 gallon bucket, dump it, fill the bucket with tap water, add dechlorinater, leave sit for 30 minutes, then slowly add the water in using a small pitcher. As long as you syphon carefully and add water back in without disturbing the water too much (by just dumping the bucket in for instance) it should be OK

Edit: You should get a new bucket for this, one not touched by chemicals or soap.

 

So u keep the fish in the tank and just slowly add the new water (after you've taken some out) ?

 

Hi! Yes he will need a bigger tank in the future but for a 10 gallon should work for just him for a little while First 2 products I highly suggest are the API liquid master test kit and Prime (a decholorinator that makes ammonia, nitrite and nitrate safer for you fish ) Prime will give you a false ammonia reading for the first 24 hours using that kit so I just don't test with in 24 hours of using it lol. If you use Tetra Safe Start to cycle your tank you cannot do water changes for 2 weeks I will find the Q&A with Tetra about Tetra Safe Start and put a link in this post. Also with TSS make sure if you are using it and Prime or anything else that binds ammonia you wait 24 hours to add the TSS you can also do daily water changes until the tank has cycled but that can take weeks.

When I do water changes (I do 50% every week on all my tanks) I remove the water and I add new water and Prime at the same time (I use a water changer which adds water from the tap directly to the tank like a hose) but you can put the dechlorinator into the bucket and add it. I don't know why you would have to remove him as long as you added it slowly and gently so he doesn't get pushed around

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/q-a-with-tetra-about-tetra-safestart.58116/ There's the link for TSS

 

Thanks for the reply :} we did a small water change yesterday and now I'm a little worried , he seems to be hanging around the bottom of the tank a lot he tested the same for everything as above which makes me think the test are reading false could his lethargic behavior just be resting?