"Liisa Sarakontu" wrote in message
6...
"Reel McKoi" wrote in
:
Do you have a flow through system to keep nitrates below 20mg per liter?
Nope. Just 30 % or so weekly changes with clean (no nitrates or other
nitrogen stuff) tapwater, quite a lot of living plants and most important:
not too many fish and no overfeeding.
The tank is a 55g ... I recently added 8 Neons,
2 small pearl graumies, 5 platys and the two corys (one died).
There were several ottos, 2 clown plecos and a reg pleco in the tank.
Anything called "regular pleco" is far too big for a 55g.
I know this and when he gets another inch longer he'll have to go back to
the pet shop like the other one did. Right now he's not that large.
Other than that one fish, the tank doesn't sound overcrowded although it
is
a bad idea to add new fish to a tank with high nitrate level, and it is
also a bad idea to add lots of new fish at the same time as the bacteria
doesn't multiply that quickly and you can kill your fish with ammonia or
nitrite even if the tank is old (like yours is).
This is well known and good advice. The ammonia is at zero this morning. I
didn't check the other parameters.
Cory cats are schooling fish, and it is not right to keep them in groups
less than 5 individuals of same species.
I was starting with two because funds are limited. I'm retired with no
income at all and my husband is semi-retired.
Do a 50 % water change (not 90 %, it is not a good idea to change water
quality too much too quickly) and test nitrate immediately after that.
Wait
for 5 days or so and feed the tank normally and test nitrate again. If it
had gone up again, you have clearly too many fish and/or feed far too
much.
In that latter case it would be good to test for nitrite too, just in
case.
And test with a drop test, if possible, not with paper slips as they are
not that accurate.
The last test kit using drops was over $20. I'll see what the other store
has........
--
RM....
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
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