[Chief]

Hey there guys, would like to introduce myself. My name is John, but everyone calls me Chief. Glad to be here. Did the 10 gallon with goldfish thing when I was little. Got re-interested when I was about 18, went tropical, but fairly beginner-ish. Then got re-interested again about 4 months ago. Would love a Saltwater tank, would love it to be a local species tank since I live right at the ocean, but my apartment does not allow for any tank that large(would want at least 55 gallon).

I have a question. Ok, so I had one of those cheap "all-in-one" 6 gallon set-ups. I have had bigger, but in my apartment space is pretty limited. I had originally started it up, gave it like 3 days to get started. Then I adjusted the Ph to 7, waited another week, then got 2 fancy guppies. Waited another week, and got 2 Danios. Waited another week, and got 2 more guppies. I waited another week for a little algae to build up, and got a small1.5" albino long-tail pleco. Tank ran great, had a few spots of algae, but did fairly little other than fed 2x a day, change the filter, and add water. Had it for about 3 months, didn't lose one fish, didn't have a single problem. One of my guppies got prego. Spit out a few(dont know how many, happened overnight) 3 were left by morning. Anyway story goes on and I ended up getting a long short dresser in my room instead of the tall thin. So I got a 20 gallon-tall tank. I ended up giving the guppy babies back to the store. Kept the males and gave back my females.

Started the 20 gallon tank and transferred these fish at the same rate as the first, just a few more guppies than before. I waited another week after like 3 fish per week, and bought 2 columbian(?) rams. Not the german blues. Also bought a blue dempsey. The blue dempsey only lasted maybe 4 days. He wouldn't eat anything. I tried everything, flake, pellet, veggie discs, baby brine, little tiny living bloodworms. NOTHING. Oh well, fish die, can't dwell on it. Running about another 2 weeks and noticed one of my danios was getting HUGE. Well apparently I had a male and a female(both looked exactly the same until the female started to swell). One good sign I am getting from this, is that my general theory is that if they are breeding, the water quality is pretty good. Will be bringing the female back, as I don't need any more babies. But in the last 3 or so days since she spewed her eggs, there is like white slimy stringy stuff all throughout the tank. It has attached itself to my plants and decorations, and not sure what it is. Is this a byproduct of the eggs? Is it some kind of slime coming off my fish? The water has also gotten a little cloudy. I don't think I am over-feeding. I have 8 male guppies, 3 just BARELY showing that they are male. The 2 rams, 2 danios, and the pleco. I am feeding about 1/4tsp of flake food, 2x a day. None of my fish have gotten sick whatsoever since I have had them, except for the blue dempsey.

Anybody have any insight? What's going on in my tank? I did notice this happening in the 6-gallon tank, but it did not seem as bad, especially since I had it for so long without it really happening much at all. What changed?

 

[IMIGHT]

WOW, long story *pc. Without a pic of the offending white stuff i can only guess at the problem your having. I personally only feed once a day and in that small of a tank wc should be done every 3 days. I know ppl who only feed every 2-3 days, which is not uncommon in the wild and can actually be benificial to keeping a healthy tank by avoiding overfeeding. Also, Mikogeophagus ramirezi ( blue ram ) are endimic to the orinoco river basin in Columbia and Venezuela. Commonly called the german blue ram (german ram comes from when Mikogeophagus ramirezi were bred in germany for the aquarium trade, german blue ram is incorrect as well as columbian ram( just to clarify ).Oh, welcome to the forum.*w2

 

[petlover516]

Welcome to the site!
The white stuff might even be the eggs.

WOW, long story *pc. Without a pic of the offending white stuff i can only guess at the problem your having. I personally only feed once a day and in that small of a tank wc should be done every 3 days. I know ppl who only feed every 2-3 days, which is not uncommon in the wild and can actually be benificial to keeping a healthy tank by avoiding overfeeding. Also, Mikogeophagus ramirezi ( blue ram ) are endimic to the orinoco river basin in Columbiaand Venezuela. Commonly called the german blue ram (german ram comes from when Mikogeophagus ramirezi were bred in germany for the aquarium trade, german blue ram is incorrect as well as columbian ram( just to clarify ).Oh, welcome to the forum.*w2

That doesn't make any sense. They're from Columbia, but calling them "Columbian Rams" is incorrect.
To Chief- I did some research, Columbian rams are the same thing as blue rams. Do you mean bolivian rams?

 

[Chief]

Well, yes, that is what the pet-store sold them to me as. I have had german blue rams before, and these ones looked similar, but a very little blue and more like a gold color.

Looking at them, about 2-3 hours after I put the light on, they really brighten up and look IDENTICAL to german blue rams. It's wierd, sexing them by their dorsal fin and their sex organ, or sex pipe near their anal opening(or maybe one and the same) It seems like I have a male and a female, and I don't know if it's because of dominance, or what, but seems like I have one bolivian and one german blue. Wierd. But I looked at my receipt, and it says bolivian rams.

 

[Chief]

Here is the offending white stuff. Seems like it deminished a bit in the last 2 days, but if you look, it is hanging off the fake bamboo.

I took all my readings, my nitrites were a BIT high, about .5, but my ammonia was through the roof, roughly 6 ppm. Did a 70% water change today, will do another of about the same size tomorrow to get my ammonia down. Water was on the soft side, but not horrible. I am using Distilled water for the water changes, is this water generally very soft?

 

[petlover516]

You can't really see the white stuff in the pic you have. see if u can get a clearer pic.

your ammonia should have killed everything in your tank by now-especially the rams. sounds like your tank is going through a mini-cycle for some reason.

The way you describe the rams makes them surely bolivians.

 

[Chief]

Well, since the ammonia was so high, I moved the rams to the older established tank. They aren't so happy there either. Lost some of their color, and one is hiding, could be from stress of moving, its only been 2 days.

Did 2 successive 70% water-changes. I stuck the bubbler in(never had one before) because the ammoniafixing medicine said to add extra oxygen, and other feedback has said that the ammo fixing stuff locks up oxygen.

I now have bubbles at the top of the tank. The water cleared up considerably with the 2 successive water changes, but is now starting to cloud again. No smells, no dead fish, the white stuff is growing back. My digital camera is pretty cheap, but I will see if I can get anything better. The best way to explain it is that it looks like stringy algae, but it's pure white. I really am at a loss. When I dumped the water for the water changes, I used one of those plastic pitchers used for making powdered iced tea. It was brand new, so no worries about soap or anything. When dumping it into the 5-gallon bucket that was then dumped down my sink, the force of the water created about 2" of "foam" after every pour. This foam took JUST ABOUT 20 seconds to dissipate, about the same time for me to reach in and get another scoop, and dump it.

THANKS AGAIN for all your help.

Don't want to sound like a dum-dum, what does CUC stand for?

 

[Chief]

just uploaded my latest photos to my profile. These seem like they came out 100x better.

 

[petlover516]

Clean-Up Crew. For FW, it usually consists of a shoal of corydoras and a shoal of otos(or 1 big pleco in larger tanks). For SW, it consists of a few hermit crabs, a few snails, and a cleaner shrimp.