About Christy Expertise I can answer some questions regarding freshwater fish ranging from their care to diagnosing common diseases or problems with the fish. I can also answer questions regarding the care and maintenance of an aquarium. I haven't had much luck with live plants, so can't help in that area very much. Not real good with explaining salt water or brackish set ups too well either. Also regarding goldfish, I have some comets, and have a little experience with them but mostly just general info on them. I AM NOT THAT FAMILIAR WITH ANY OF THE FANCY VARIETIES OF GOLDFISH. YOU MIGHT BE BETTER DIRECTING THOSE QUERIES TO AN EXPERT MORE FAMILIAR WITH THEM. If I can't answer or don't know something, I'll let you know, so don't be upset if I reject your question, I'll always explain why. I would just rather not answer then give an answer I'm not confident about.
Experience All personal, first hand, general fishkeeping experience. I've had fresh water aquariums now for about 7 years. I've had tropical/community fish tanks, African cichlids, South American cichlids, brackish water puffer fish, and a lot of other varieties in between.
Education/Credentials None, all personal experience
Question i had my tank for over a month & thought it had supposedly been done cycling & all but not it all of a sudden is reallly yellowish/brown looknig & can barely see the fish in there.i am having porblems keeping the ph stable (its eeems to be very low,even wen i add PH 7.0 from pet store.& with partial changes.my tank is a 29 gallon & i have an aqua clear filter with ammonia remover filter media,filter sponge & charcoal remover media in the filter.it doesnt seem to be helping tho.i have been having fish dying now & then & there is a few left that is alive right now (so far).
The nitrate & nitrites seem to be bad as well.Wat should i do? the ph is wayy to low for my fish (i have kissing gouramie oscar in the tank.)
the water changes don't seem to help & neither does the stuff from the petsore help.they told us to just leave the tank as is & let it run its course.but this dirty water didnt hapeen until last week.please let me know wat i should do.
should i move the fish to another tank until the tank is dont cycling? would that be too much of a shock on them?
Answer Hi Kandee
Have a few questions for you.
Is there any driftwood in the tank? If so, that will lower ph and also cause a brownish tea tint to the water.
How often are you doing water changes? For a normal stocked tank, I recommend doing a 25% weekly water change, along with a gravel vacuum each week. An oscar and kissing gourami is way too much for a 29 gallon tank. Oscars grow very fast, almost reaching full size of 12-14 inches within 9 months. Keeping one in a tank too small only results in stunting, not to mention water quality issues-similar to what you're dealing with. Kissing gouramis grow large as well. I would say to successfully keep those 2 fish for their full potential life span(oscars live over 10 years), you would need to have at least a 60+ gallon tank, probably a 75 gallon would be better. You are constantly going to have issues with water quality in your 29 gallon tank with even 1 of those fish in it. If you can't get a larger tank, then I would suggest looking for a new home for the fish and stocking your tank with smaller suitable fish. For now, I would suggest doing 50% water changes every day, until you get the nitrites at 0 ppm, and nitrates under 20 ppm. Then, 50% every 2-3 days to keep those levels down. This can also be the cause of the low ph. Too much waste or uneaten food can lower the ph.
I would suggest stop using the PH chemical products. They don't work, and actually cause more problems and stress on the fish, even killing them. Also, check your tap water ph. Get a glass and test the water. Leave it sit out for about 12 hours, and re-test it. That should be what's happening in your tank. It is possible it's the water source that's the problem, but like I said, it can also be due to the overstocking.
I would also suggest removing both the ammonia remover filter media and the carbon from the filter. The only thing you really need in a filter, is the filter pad to provide mechanical filtration by removing larger particles, and some biological filtration-your sponge, some ceramic rings or bio balls. Carbon is only really needed in a tank when you need to remove medications. I've been keeping fish for about 10 years now, and I've only used carbon a handful of times-for removing medications. The ammonia removing stuff-I can't even say if it works, but if it does, that's just setting up for disaster. The tank needs to have some ammonia in it for the beneficial bacteria to survive. Your fish are the ammonia source for it. The problem with your tank though, because it's overstocked, there's too much ammonia and the bacteria can't keep up with the excess ammonia. But using those ammonia removing products in the filter is not going to help the problem, only add to it.
Let me know some more info and what you can do with the fish. Then I can give you a little bit better guidance from there. But really, there's no way those fish will survive in that tank.
Hope that helps and let me know if you have more questions.
