Polly44 wrote:Earlier this year me and my mum decided to buy a fish tank and a couple of fish. We don't have room for anything huge, so we have a 28 Litre one. It was a nightmare to cycle. The first time we did it, we did everything correct apart from giving the tank some food to provide a bit of ammonia for it to buid up the bacteria. So it didn't work very well, but we thought it had, so we went and got 6 fish. Four Platies of varying genders (I didn't know how to tell then, so i have no idea) and we got two Swordtails. (A male and a female.....well she was supposed to be.....but, ah wasn't so very female as time went on. And i am sure they were gay, as when she was very obviously a male they swam next to each other all the time, lol.)
At fist things were okay, then the Ammonia problems started. We lost one Platy to ammonia i think. But managed to keep all the others alive, then one of the other Platies had a gimpy fin and died. So then we got two Guppies, which both died i think. So we got two more Guppies, one died, but the other lived and we got two Shrimp. We sorta solved the Ammonia, then they all got White spot and died. And the medication we tried (too late) killed the Shrimp. xD So that was a bit of a disaster, which was a huge shame, as they were all lovely fish. The two Swordtails were gorgeous, they were called Spike and Amber, but i later had to change Amber to Tyke, when she became a male.
So we emptied/cleaned and re-cycled the tank (properly this time) and got two more Platies and two more Swords (who are definately male and female) and everything was going fine until a few weeks ago, when white spot showed up again. But we spotted it quick this time and saved them all (touch wood) but we had to take all the decorations out as the medicine stains it and now one of the Platies is really clamped and sulky, cuz she was getting bullied. She came out a bit earlier though, so hopefully she is feeling better now. But i think i overfed them a bit, as i gave them a treat earlier, but i think it was a bit too big, as the one Platy and Sword are looking quite fat. xD Hopefully they will be okay though, the Sword seems okay, but the Platy is just hanging out at the top now, so i think he might be a little bloated. Will fast them for a couple of days, though i'm a bit worried about the other (really clamped) Platy as she hardly ate anything.
(Yes, i know now that the tank is too small for the fish, but we cannot get a bigger one as we don't have the room. The fish store told us several times that it was fine for the fish we wanted, but apparently not. So not sure what we are going to do, as the other three seem really happy.)
Sadly we lost all the fish, except for the sucker fish we bought a while ago. Who is also my favourite- we refer to him as Spider- fish and he is as mad as a box of frogs. So we bought 6 Endler fish a few months ago. Three males and three females, we lost one of the males a few weeks ago for some unknown reason. Then we had White spot (again) which we have just finished treating them for that. But we lost one of the females for an unknown reason a few days ago. So we bought two more today, male and female. Though an extra tiny female was additionally caught by accident so we have an extra teeny tiny female, who just got stuck behind the heater. Good job i spotted her and we rescued her, then lost her under the log. But she was getting bullied, so we've put her in one of those floating fish hatchery things, to keep her seperate. But we are wondering if anyone knows how long we can keep her in there for?