I have always liked tropical fish. When I was about 7 or so, we had a fish tank and I remember staring at them for hours on end, transfixed as they swam back and forth in the ten-gallon tank. I even got some fish of my own when I was about 13.
A while back, I went with my girlfriend Mary to the fish store where she was going to get some new fish for her aquarium, and it all came back to me... picking out which ones we wanted from the dozens of tanks of brightly colored specimens. Mary offered me an old ten-gallon tank that she had and I decided to get some fish of my own. She gave me the tank, a filter, gravel and a lid, so I wouldn't have to spend very much to get it going, maybe $30 or so on fish, food and a heater, and I'd have the relaxing fun of a fresh-water aquarium in my own home. Fish were supposed to be good for relieving stress, and I was under a lot of stress at work at the time, so it seemed like the perfect solution.
I carefully washed out the tank and strained the gravel for the bottom, and then I filled it up with water and started the filter to prepare the water for the fish I wanted to get within the week. All seemed to be going well, so I prepared to buy the fish the next day. The water should be ready by then.
After work, my friend Tom and I went to a place called Pets Plus to get all of the things I needed and some fish for the tank.
I picked up a heater, a thermometer, some plants, a glow-in-the-dark skull, extra filters, food and water conditioner. Tom urged me to purchase a plastic cinder block with a big American flag on the side of it, but I have a rule not to spend more than $5 on tacky things and this was $9.
They had a good selection of fish, even though a lot of the tanks were mislabeled. After trying to get the attention of the gabbing salespeople for fifteen minutes (and sweating profusely because it was 80 degrees in there and I was wearing a big leather coat), I got the attention of a caustic young lad who was very knowledgeable as well as very cocky. I had selected six neon tetras, two algae eaters, two tricolor sharks (not really sharks, they just look a little like them) and two Pearl Gouramis. After he put the fish into bags, we noticed one of them was leaking. Quickly, we gave it back to him to replace, and he leisurely sprayed his co-workers with the water from the bag as though it were urine. They all got a good laugh about this as the water level in the bag dropped a little, but it was still plenty to get them home OK.
After he put it into another bag, he in-formed me that I need to get algae for the algae eaters I had just bought ($7). I went up to the register and paid for it all and we went outside to find that it had started raining.
We got into the car and started driving and after about five minutes Tom screamed that something inside the bag was leaking a lot and we had better get home quickly. It was at this point that I realized that the heater in my car had stopped working and I couldn't see anything out of the windshield because of all of the moisture emanating from us and the ruptured bag. So I had to stop and wipe the inside of the window as best I could as I rushed home because a rather large puddle was forming on the seat Tom was sitting on. He desperately tried to keep the paper bag together as I searched in vain for a plastic bag to put everything in. I should have seen this as an omen.
We pulled up to my house and I helped him get out because the bag had become a big soggy mess. We ran into my apartment and I quickly pulled everything out to find the same bag that had been leaking earlier was now practically empty and squashed on the bottom. I put it into the tank, and the two tricolor sharks inside seemed to be a little freaked out, but fine. I put all of the other bags into the tank and put in some water conditioner to make sure there wasn't any remaining chlorine and I installed the new plants after a good rinsing. Tom tried to dry out the huge wet spot on his pants with my hair dryer in the bathroom.
After a little while, I released the fish and they seemed to be happy in their new home. I took Tom home (he sat in the back seat) and returned to watch them for hours in fishy bliss.
I came home from work the next day to find that two of the neons had died. I called Mary and described the symptoms of the remaining fish to her (because I didn't have a book about fish) and she said that it appeared to be a lack of oxygen. I then called my brother-in-law (whom I had given all of my old aquarium stuff to years ago) to see if he had an extra air pump. I went to his house and got one working and one non-working air pump, some tubing and an air rock to aerate the water.
While I was out, I went for a walk in the park, where I picked up a few rocks for the tank. I took them home and boiled them to make sure there wasn't any bacteria on them. I went to stir them (because it didn't seem right to boil something without stirring it) and I discovered a horrible black substance on the bottom of the pot. I quickly dumped out the water and rocks to find a layer of scorched tar on the bottom of the pot that didn't want to come off. After soaking for several hours and working at it with an S.O.S. pad and a butter knife, though, I finally got it out. I threw away the rocks.
Meanwhile, the new aeration equipment I had installed seemed to help the remaining fish, who were acting a bit oddly. I continued to feed the fish three times a day in accordance with the instructions on the food container.
Two days later, despite everything I know about keeping an aquarium, I bought four swordtails, bringing the total for a ten-gallon tank up to 14 (you're supposed to have one fish per gallon). In addition, one of the fish I bought was pregnant.
When I got back from this store, all the fish seemed to be rubbing against things in the tank, and a quick phone call to Mary revealed that this was a classic symptom of alkalosis (or water that is too alkaline). I quickly went to a nearby supermarket which has an amazing selection of fish products, and I got a test kit and some stuff to adjust the pH level.
When I got home, I tested the water and found that the pH level was too alkaline and I tried to adjust it. Each time I put the stuff into the water to lower the alkalinity, it would not change, and only seemed to irritate the fish. Perplexed, I went to bed.
I came home from work to find one of my neons apparently suffering from Ick (or "Ich"), a common tropical fish disease. I watched as it weakened and died before my eyes.
Mary and I went to the aquarium store to try and find out what was wrong with my tank. I asked a few employees, but they didn't seem to know any more than I did. I bought some big pills that were supposed to automatically adjust the pH to 7.0 (which is neutral), along with some Ick treatment and a book about fish diseases. Mary also lent me her book about tropical fish because she got tired of me calling her and describing the symptoms my fish were suffering from.
I went home and dropped in one of the big alka-seltzer-like pills to stabilize the pH, and I tested it when it was done to find that it still was at 7.4 for some reason. I also started treating the fish for Ick, which involved removing the activated charcoal from the filter because the carbon removes the medicine from the water. Meanwhile, the pregnant fish seemed to be getting larger and larger.
The fish seemed to be doing better, but I started to notice that the water smelled funny. I put the carbon back into the filter in the hopes that it would help clean out the water. I bought a nursery for the pregnant fish to ensure that the mother didn't devour her young when they're born, as swordtails are inclined to do.
I also read that I may need to use two of the big alka-seltzer-type things if I have hard water, so I put in another one. Subsequent testing revealed the level was still 7.4-- hard water is resistant to pH level changes.
I decided that I needed a new tank, since the first one wasn't really mine and I was going to soon have a bunch of baby fish from Betty, the pregnant one. I went out and got another ten-gallon tank, with a hood, gravel and a filter (actually, I got a really good deal on all this stuff).
I also read in the instructions for the new filter that you're supposed to feed fish as little as possible when establishing a new aquarium. This came as quite a shock to me as I was feeding them three times a day to help them assimilate to their new home!
I had bought some stuff that was supposed to clear up cloudiness in the water, and I put some of that in the tank because the water had been a little cloudy for a few days now, but it only made it worse. I learned that this meant that the tank probably had high levels of ammonia.
That night, I set up the new tank with the intention of putting Betty into the nursery the next day in case she was to soon have her young. All the fish in the first tank seemed to be swimming to the surface and gasping for air. I checked out the book about fish diseases to see if this was a symptom of ammonia in the water, and indeed it was. The book also mentioned that ammonia is more toxic if the pH level is high and that secondary diseases (such as Ick) often occur in fish that are suffering from ammonia poisoning. Since it was too late to get anything to fix this, I decided to get some stuff the next day.
I awakened to find Betty, the pregnant fish, dead on the bottom of the tank. The water smelled terrible and was all foamy at the top, consistent with an ammonia problem. I tried to catch all of the remaining fish to put them into the new tank, but they hid everywhere and darted away from my net. After fifteen minutes of chasing the fish and removing decorations and plants, I managed to get them all into the new tank where they seemed to be safe and I left for work ten minutes late.
When I returned home from work, I went out to the aquarium store and bought chemicals to stabilize the ammonia, an ammonia test kit, something to soften hard water and a new pH test kit, since mine had only ever registered 7.4 and I was beginning to suspect that it wasn't working right (subsequent tests with the new kit showed a level of 7.4 also).
By now the water in the new tank was also starting to smell like ammonia too, so I tested it, and it registered above normal. The instructions on the ammonia test kit advised not feeding the fish for 24 hours and using a special kind of carbon that removes ammonia from the water. I installed the water softener pillow in the filter to start the process where I would be able to lower the pH level.
I drained all the water that had been in the first tank, a really disgusting task since it now resembled urine more than anything. I washed out the tank, strained all of the gravel and filled it back up with tap water, though I was unsure if setting it up was necessary since the whole reason I had bought a second tank was for the baby fishes. While I was cleaning out the filter I found a single baby fish that had been trapped in it all day. It was near death and I dropped it into the tank with the other fish where it was instantly eaten. I realized that Betty may have given birth before or after her death, but that all of the babies had been eaten. Timing is everything.
By now the frustration of trying to get my aquarium stabilized was having a profound effect upon my mental health. I couldn't even look at the tank without feeling sick to my stomach. My whole apartment even smelled like urine from all the ammonia. I was about as far from relaxed as I could get.
I stopped on the way home from work at the aquarium store to get the special "ammo-carb" that removes ammonia from the water, along with some sea salt to recharge the water softener pillow so it could be used repeatedly.
I installed the carbon and noticed that one of my male swordtails seemed to be behaving oddly, as though it was still suffering from the effects of the ammonia. I moved it into the clean tank in case water in this other tank was making it sick, and it seemed to be doing better, swimming more vigorously and behaving normally. Thinking that perhaps I could breed fish after all, I put in a female of the same species, at which point the male promptly died and sank to the bottom.
I've managed to solve the ammonia problem by feeding them less and softening the water to lower the pH. I also managed to cure my money-spending problem by avoiding aquarium stores altogether. I moved all of the fish into the same tank after stabilizing the temperatures and pH levels, and one of the tricolor sharks instantly developed cottonmouth disease (according to the book about fish diseases, "Once the disease has progressed to the point where external signs are clearly visible, the prognosis is not good"). Treatment for this involves removing the charcoal and medicating them repeatedly for four days. As I write this I'm in the second day of this process and all seems to be going well. I'm checking to make sure that the ammonia level doesn't get out of control again.
I know I made a lot of mistakes along the way-- overfeeding, overpopulating and over-medicating-- despite everything I knew. If I had let the water sit for a week, this may not have happened at all. Hopefully after this treatment is done, I won't have any more problems for a long time.
Postscript: at this time, all of the original fish are dead.
