Tropical Aquariums – How To Deal With Common Problems

Now you’ve installed and stocked your fish tank aquarium you will want to enjoy your new hobby. Aquarium care is reasonably straight forward, however a few problems may come up, particularly in recently set up tanks. Everything looks fine at first then slowly algae starts to flourish and overtake the fish tank, the fish start to die and your newly set up tank no longer looks sparkling and clear. So what did you do wrong? What can you do to correct it?

First of all don’t panic and certainly don’t rush off to the nearest pet supplier, buy chemicals and toss them in your tank. This will inevitably compound the problems! Something else that inexperienced fish keepers tend to do when panicking is to dump everything that is in the tank to start again. This is completely wrong as any helpful bacteria that you worked hard to encourage in the tank will be completely destroyed and you will have to do the recycling again.

You need to identify what went wrong and gradually put it right, without the use of chemical products which could change the the balance of the aquarium further.

High Concentrations of Deadly Chemicals

The worse occurence is sudden fish death. Did you cycle the tank properly before before adding you fish? The most common reason for fish dying suddenly is a build up of nitrites or ammonia that are produced by the fish. You’ll need to buy an aquarium test kit to see if this is the problem. If the tank wasn’t properly cycled there will be too few beneficial bacteria to cope with with these toxic chemicals, especially if you have a lot of fish.  Is your tank too crowded? This will over stress the bacteria dealing with the waste and lead to an increase in the levels of ammonia and nitrite.

Fish Bullying

Do you have the correct assortment of species in the aquarium? A few fish may be fine when immature but will become bullies when mature. One example is the Tiger Barb. Bullying fish are best taken out of the tank and given away!

Not Enough Water Changes

Have you done partial water changes weekly? Although nitrites and ammonia are processed by the beneficial bacteria, they convert these into the less toxic nitrates. Still ‘less toxic’ is not ‘non toxic’.. Should nitrate concentrations become too high they are able to harm the fish and the only way to lower the nitrate levels is to partially change the water.

Adding Chlorine Contaminated Water

All tap water be contaminated with chlorine which you can remove by leaving the water to stand for a day or two. Some tap water also contains chloramines which you can’t remove so easily. If your tap water does contain chloramines, or you don’t know, you must add a chemical treatment to deal with them them before putting the water in the fish tank.

Overfeeding

Overfeeding is a frequent problem and results in the excess food decaying. This then releases noxious chemicals that add to the burden of the bacteria. The effect is a swift increase in these chemicals that will more than likely harm your fish. When you are feeding your fish make sure you only give them what they can clear up in roughly 3 mins. If you see food sitting on the the gravel you are overfeeding!

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