hi. i'm fairly new to keeping an aquarium (since last august or so) and so far, i think i have done just about everything wrong. but, until a few weeks ago, i had had no major troubles.
started out with a 29 gallon tank. my test strips didn't measure ammonia, and i didn't start testing that til recently. both tanks are reading way too high without any nitrites and only trace nitrates. it's almost as if there was no ammonia reduction going on at all. is this possible? could i have killed off all the bacteria with treatments (see below)?? what can i do to fix this (my LFS does NOT carry Biospira)? (right now the 29 gal has a temp of 82, ph of about 6.75, very soft water, ammonia about 2-3, no nitrates or nitrites - all artificial plants and decorations, two penguin 170 filters - eight tiger barbs, one rasbora, three cory cats, a bushy nose pleco and a raphael catfish)
also added a 55 gallon tank about a month ago (stats: 82 degrees, 6.75 pH, soft water, ammonia 0.25, no nitrates or nitrites - one penguin 330 and one emperor 400, all artificial decorations - two longskirt black tetras, three bala sharks, one raphael catfish). that's when i started having troubles. i had the tank set up for about a week when i added two pimpictus to help the cycling along. they did great. then i added about eight other fish a week later, not on purpose but to rescue them (mom was going to flush them). stupidly, i put a couple of those rescues into the 29 gallon tank too. about two days later, everyone started to die. first there were no real symptoms, just dead fish. then one bala shark got what i now think was hemorrhagic septicemia. other fish started to get white patches, bulgy/white eyes - pretty sure it's fungus. i treated with jungle fungus tabs and melafix, and shortly everything resolved.
now, about a week later, the fish in the 55 gal are getting the white patches, so i repeated the fungus tabs and melafix. everyone in the 29 gal looked fine, but then i came home to my brazilian fw puffer dead at the bottom.
i generally do 25% water changes every 1-3 days, using dechlorinated water at close to tank temp. i have no gravel to keep down the mess.
i'm about at the end of my rope, feeling guilty that at least most of this is the fault of bad husbandry, and now i'm really afraid that i'm not going to be able to conquer this. how can i know if the fungus (or whatever) is really gone so it is safe to add new fish? if all of my fish die, is there some safe way to disinfect the tanks so that i can start fresh and not *#$% this all up again?
sorry for the long post, very upset
thanks in advance
