Once you’ve set up your fish tank aquarium you can take pleasure in your new hobby. Taking care of a fish tank is fairly easy, however a number of problems may come up, especially in recently set up aquariums. It may all appear OK for a while then slowly algae starts to develop and take over the aquarium, the fish start to die and your lovely, new aquarium looks nothing like the clear, sparkling fish tanks you see in the pictures. What happened? And more importantly what can you do to set it right?
Please don’t panic and please do not rush off to the pet shop, buy some chemicals and dump them into the aquarium. This will inevitably compound the problems! Another thing that novice fish tank owners often do in a panic is to completely clean out the tank to start over. This is the worse thing to do as the beneficial bacteria that you have managed to culture in the tank will be completely destroyed and you will then have to do the recycling again.
What you do need to do is understand what is going wrong and bit by bit deal with it, without any chemical procedures which will disturb the the aquarium’s balance further.
Increase of Poisonous Chemicals
The worse occurence is sudden fish death. Was the tank cycled correctly before you added the fish? The commonest cause of sudden fish death is a build up of ammonia or nitrites from their waste products. You will need to buy a test kit to see if this is the cause. If you didn’t properly cycle there will be insufficient nitrogen fixing bacteria to cope with with the waste products, especially if you have too many fish. Is your tank too crowded? This will inevitably put a strain on the bacteria dealing with the waste and lead to an increase in the concentrations of ammonia and nitrite.
Bullying Fish
Have you made sure you have the correct assortment of fish varieties in the tank? A number of fish are no problem when immature but will turn into bullies as they mature. Tiger barbs are notorious for being bullies. Fish that are bullies are best removed from the tank and given away!
Insufficient Water Changes
Have you done partial water changes often enough? Even though nitrites and ammonia are removed by the bacteria, less toxic nitrates are produced. Still ‘less toxic’ is not ‘non toxic’.. When the concentration of nitrates become too high they could cause harm to your fish and they must be removed by a partial water change.
Using Chlorine or Chloramine Contaminated Water
Tap water always be contaminated with chlorine which can be removed by leaving the water standing for a few days. Some authorities also add chloramines which cannot be removed in this way. If your tap water is contaminated with chloramines, or you are not sure, you need to use a chemical to deal with them them before you add the water to the fish tank.
Overfeeding The Fish
Overfeeding is a very common problem, the result of which is uneaten food decaying. This then releases toxic chemicals that add to the burden of the bacteria. The consequence is an abrupt increase in these chemicals that will more than likely cause harm to your fish. When you are feeding tropical fish ensure you give them no more than they can clear up in about three minutes. If you see food sitting on the tank bottom you have overfed them!
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