Confessions of a horrible keeper

[lillyandquigly]

My mistake at the start was having two males and two females in the same tank. First male was already sickly so he died, second female got egg bound and died. (After this I seperated the remaining two) Second male got dropsy eventually and died. Second female, the stubborn most hard working to survive fish I have ever had, died last night. At the age of seven. SO yeah, I've made mistakes to. But buying her was the proudest mistake I've made, especially once I seperated them. One time she evn blew a ubble nest, BY herself, and put actual eggs in it

[Shepaski]

ugh, well, currently my progress in caring for these fishes hasn't really improved.

the Female I rehomed to my friends place died awhile ago, though we're not sure of the cause since she looked as if she was recovering from Dropsy, then one day she just became less active and passed on.

the male I had awhile a go caught dropsy as well after I skipped a week on water change as I was busy.
at the moment i got a new fella who's got a really nice personality, it's been 3 days since he's been in the tank and he seems to be doing fine. (though i am a bit worried, he doesn't really display his fins and there're usually folded when i'm not playing with him. but he does swim around and actively follows my finger when he starts to stare at me for too long)

all my other fish seem fine though, i hope there's nothing wrong with my water or gravel that causing this reoccurring illness...
my tanks a 5.9 gal (just found out as its a 30cm by 30cm square cube tank, but online gallon calculators are funny)

would it be a good idea to get a gavel vacuum? i've never cleaned the substrate before(only once when i was replacing it but that was about 4-5 months ago) and i don't really know how since i have 4 corydos in my tank

[Laki]

Sorry to hear about the 2 with dropsy.

Did you clean anything in the tank before adding the new fish?

[logisticsguy]

Originally Posted by Shepaski

ugh, well, currently my progress in caring for these fishes hasn't really improved.

the Female I rehomed to my friends place died awhile ago, though we're not sure of the cause since she looked as if she was recovering from Dropsy, then one day she just became less active and passed on.

the male I had awhile a go caught dropsy as well after I skipped a week on water change as I was busy.
at the moment i got a new fella who's got a really nice personality, it's been 3 days since he's been in the tank and he seems to be doing fine. (though i am a bit worried, he doesn't really display his fins and there're usually folded when i'm not playing with him. but he does swim around and actively follows my finger when he starts to stare at me for too long)

all my other fish seem fine though, i hope there's nothing wrong with my water or gravel that causing this reoccurring illness...
my tanks a 5.9 gal (just found out as its a 30cm by 30cm square cube tank, but online gallon calculators are funny)

would it be a good idea to get a gavel vacuum? i've never cleaned the substrate before(only once when i was replacing it but that was about 4-5 months ago) and i don't really know how since i have 4 corydos in my tank

Yeah you should get a gravel vac. The corys wont mind in fact they need clean substrate to keep infection from their barbles. I use vac every time to remove water. Getting the little poops out is key to keeping ammonia down and bacteria from trying to explode. You have no idea how clean a tank is until you vacuum it as even my clean looking tanks have lots of poops in the substrate. Clean is the best and most affordable way to keep fish healthy and diseases at bay.

[Shepaski]

Originally Posted by Laki

Sorry to hear about the 2 with dropsy.

Did you clean anything in the tank before adding the new fish?

i did a regular 50% water change and scrubbed the very obvious algae out of my ornaments a few days after getting the new guy. though i don't know how to get the algae off my plants, starting to get fuzzy algae bits near the roots on the plants on my coconut husk.

Originally Posted by logisticsguy

Yeah you should get a gravel vac. The corys wont mind in fact they need clean substrate to keep infection from their barbles. I use vac every time to remove water. Getting the little poops out is key to keeping ammonia down and bacteria from trying to explode. You have no idea how clean a tank is until you vacuum it as even my clean looking tanks have lots of poops in the substrate. Clean is the best and most affordable way to keep fish healthy and diseases at bay.

okay, waiting to get my months pay before i go off to buy more stuff for my tank, have yet to get those test kits :s