New guy intro, (further) mistake avoidance and a thank you.

[gonzoid]

Hello everybody,

Just wanted to stop in & introduce myself.  I adopted a few fish through dating last year.  Well, that's when our pet families merged into one household anyway.  I spent most of that time with my now wife's fish firmly in the "she handles it" category.  At some point late last year, I realized we were keeping our 4 yr old goldfish Lt. Shinysides in an undersized, under-filtered tank and set out to fix the problem.  He was in a 5 gallon plastic tank with a hood/filter setup from Walmart or similar.  I wanted better for our pet.  We both think of our pets as our "kids" & she felt bad that she hadn't been treating him properly due to not knowing better.  

I convinced my wife we could afford a 40 gallon & eventually get LT a couple buddies.  I trolled the interwebs for goldfish info & found things to be rather all over the place as far as information.  YouTube & the Google combined to create info overload.  We eventually got a tank/stand & what I thought was decent quality stuff for LT's new home.  I managed to get things setup & made it patiently through a fishless cycle.  We rehoused LT around thanksgiving & he seemed very happy.  A few weeks later, all water parameters looked good & we brought home his 1st buddy from a local pet store.

You can probably see where this is headed...2 weeks later, both fish are "off" and exhibiting flashing.  We have no meds on hand and were trying to handle what I'm now sure was an Ich infestation with water changes and garlic treatments.  Meds are for dire circumstances in our house and our fish suffered for it.  We lost the new fish first.  LT was gone by the 1st week of January.

This left us with only 1 fish remaining.  Loki is a betta my wife inherited from a co-worker early last year.  She was following the care instructions given by the former owner.  This amounted to no water changes, no filtration and topping the 2.5 gallon tank off as needed with dechlorinated water.  While trying to save the goldfish, Loki had been neglected further.  I knew that our betta care just flatly could not be right.  Loki was very muted and grey.  The little gravel substrate in his was doing what it could for biofiltration thankfully.  No ammonia, no nitrite when tested with the API master test kit.  Nitrates were off the chart.  Over the next week, I got the nitrates under control through twice daily 25% water changes.  Loki's color began to return.  

Around this time, I came across AAP and had my mind blown.  I knew I had found a wonderful resource.  My head is still trying to wrap around the amount of information there.  I bought my basic "fish first aid" kit among other things.  Loki has a #1 sponge filter taking up a good portion of his current tank but he likes to hide out between the gravel & the filter. He is now waiting for his new Spec V tank to cycle before moving.

Sorry to be so long winded.  If I'm going to be responsible for the care of these aquatic creatures, I'm hoping this community can assist with my obvious knowledge gaps.  I plan to get goldfish back into the 40 gallon when Loki is rehoused.

And finally to Carl...my sincere thanks to you for the knowledge shared at AAP.  

Thanks for reading my rambling intro,
Gonzoid

[bettarescue]

Welcome to the forum gonzoid! We are all glad to have you!

Unfortunately many of us, myself included, have begun our ascent up the stairs of fishkeeping knowledge in a similar situation. I am so deeply sorry your wife and you lost such a beloved pet and family memeber, and the new addition-in this way. The way I look at it is: if you learn to do better and use this education and experience for another fish to live a better, longer, healthier life then Lt's life was not in vein. You have found the right place for accurate and complete help, sans all the confusing misinformation that is simply opinion that is smeared all over the web.

When I found AAP I knew this was it. I always felt there should be more fact based information backed by science available about fishkeeping, but it seemed all to be jumbled up: the facts and opinions. Carls work and these articles literally saved all my fish (and that means the world bc my fish are my kiddos as well)! I went from fighting velvet, columnaris, fin rot, septicemia... one after another. It's been 7 months since anythings came through my tanks. It's been 8 months since I found AAP! The reading is heavy in the beginning, but the pieces start coming together- ideas connecting from one article to another, and then it starts settling in. lol I'm on my 15+ read of aquarium lighting, digesting little bits at a time!

Any help you need with your Betta (especially disease treatment), you'll see me there Another new memeber cindil is also a great resource for Gold fish help (she's also great with all FW fish disease)! There's a wide range of all walks and experience here! We're lucky enough to have AAP employees of like 8 years (is it?) helping, take a bow devonjohnsgard! There is Richard- childofiam whos incredible with water chemistry and AQ tech of all kinds (and is currently breeding discus)! And of course Carl, the big man himself is always here helping the members!

Again, welcome to Everything Aquatic!

[Carl]

Welcome to Everything Aquatic!



Carl

[devonjohnsgard]

Welcome, welcome welcome and thank you for the kind works about Carl's work. I'll resay what Leah said, so sorry for your guys lose... the light in the situation I guess is that you found the AAP library and this forum! Lots to learn from each other.

If your ever looking for specific information from AAP's library, you can use the Google search bar on the site and type in what your looking for... It will pull up everywhere the topic is discussed. You can also use Google to search Aquarium Answers for certain aspects. Just type "aquarium answers,topic..." or "american aquarium products,topic..."

I've been working under Carl for almost 6 years. Still learning new things and still search the website...lol

I look forward to getting to know you and your fishy pets.

[childofiam]

Greetings and welcome to everything aquatic, the place with information you can count on. Sorry for the loss of Lt and the new one. I made the same mistake in the past of bringing a new fish and putting it in my community tank and then fighting an outbreak. It is always good to have a hospital tank to set up for new fish coming into the home. I am looking forward to seeing your post and it would be great to see a tank blog of your set-up and fish.
Thanks for the complement bettarescue, everything I know is because of Carl and AAP. AAP has made my hobby the most enjoying part of my life. I think I have read the Chemistry article more than a hundred times and still learn something every time I go back through it. You can find it here, www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumKH.html
This articular should be the center piece of all other articles because if your water is wrong then you will be fighting all kinds of problems.

Richard

[gonzoid]

Thank you all for the kind welcome. I've almost got Loki's Spec V cycled. I got some nitrates showing up a few days ago. Letting the temp drop closer to his current home and watching water parameters for the time being. Having some rinsed (in old tank water during a water change) substrate from his current tank made it go much quicker than I expected. Also waiting on some tap water to age 48 hours or so under cover in a glass to get baseline ph/kh/gh levels so I don't unintentionally swing anything too wildly in the tank during water changes. Not sure why I didn't think to do that sooner. Will be asking some questions (hopefully in the right places) as I go forward.

One question I do have is how to proceed with LT's empty tank. Not sure if I need to sanitize/bleach & re-cycle or could be OK after some period of time with no hosts in it for ich to feed on. I've kept the biofilter fed with pure ammonia drops this last month so it still clears 2ppm ammonia to 0 ammonia/nitrites in a day or so.

I also plan on keeping LT's 1st tank (5G) around for hospital duty with the sponge filter that's currently in Loki's tank.  Not sure if I should leave it setup & running or what to do to keep the biofilter fed if I only pull it out for emergencies.

[devonjohnsgard]

Here's ways to sterilize the tank

www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Disease.html#sterilize

[childofiam]

You can use Ammonia purchased at the store to keep the Bio-filter going.

Richard

[gonzoid]

I'm pretty sure the 40g is sterilized. Of note: 24-48 hours doesn't mean 72ish. I ended up eating some overtime & pulling 12 hour shifts. The cheapy sponge filter from amazon flat out melted and is in black tar like particles at the bottom of the tank. The Filter Max prefilter is melted/deflated but still in one piece melted to it's plastic screen. I haven't pulled the filters from the Aqueon 75 HOB yet. I emptied out the tank as best I could, then refilled with tap & like a 5x dose of Prime. I'm positive I'll end up with the tank outside for a thorough wash and possible scraping of any remaining melted plastic.

My mopani is white and quite soggy. It is sitting in a 5 gallon bucket of tap water. I'm curious if it's ruined or not. Waiting for to see some color change. Worst case, I'll get new wood & filters. I already bought a Hydro Sponge Filter 5 with my initial order from AAP. I'm contemplating maybe using it in conjunction wit an internal/UV setup if the HOB is terribly gunked up. I'll only be out the HOB & BioHome media that's in it. I still have a bunch of BioHome left, just not sure what I'd do with it w/o a canister or HOB.

Let it be known that directions should be followed, lol.

Will update on the Spec V for Loki in next few days. Had parameters written down but now can't find them.