Fish that can tolerate not-so-perfect water??

[Tayles]

Bettas are great for any water condition so I've heard... and seen. I was wondering if there's any other kinds of fish that can put up with like hard water situations or not so great water, tough fish as I'd like to call them =)

Any ideas? They must be able to get along with a Flounder (Already flattend out) and a pleco. Thanks for any help!

 

[FroggyFox]

depends exactly what is "not so perfect" about the water. Every fish has their ideal/breeding preferences for water...but a LOT of fish can be acclimated to different water conditions. My lfs reccomends Swordtails, platies, danios, white cloud minnows...for starter fish, meaning that starter fish are more able to keep up with more adverse conditions than say some tetras or other types.

Pretty much it comes down to what kind of water parameters you have...what/if anything you're willing to do to change those parameters...and what kind of fish you want to keep. I would research and think through those three variables.

 

[Tayles]

Hmm... Well the water conditions are the way they are because we have no money/transportation at the moment to do pH/ammonia/nitrate tests on the water, it is a 5 gallon tank, with a non-underground filtration system. It comes with a bio-wheel and a blue covered carbon filter cartridge. We use "Aqua Safe" whenever doing a partial water change, and feed the Flouder frozen Brine Shrimp. This is my girlfriend's tank as she takes care of it, the bio-wheel is supposed to turn bad bacteria into neutral bacteria that get taken out with a partial water change. I asked her if she had been putting the "Easy Balance" which is supposed to stabilize the pH and alkalinity, and the ammonia would be fixed by the bio-wheel. She said she hasn't been putting the "Easy Balance" in because she thought the bio-wheel took care of it all. The reason I'm asking this is that she had 2 Gourami's in there 1 blue large gourami, and 1 dwarf red gourami, and well the blue one just up and died about a week or so ago, and this morning she found her dwarf one dead too. But the flounder and the pleco are doing just fine. So she wants to know what kind of fish can handle the spacious, brine shrimp/tropical flakes diet, and apparently not so great water that she's got in there.

 

[FroggyFox]

Well does she do water changes?? And how long has the tank been set up? If the tank hasn't been set up for more than a month or two then it might be cycling...meaning that the levels of ammonia or nitrite could be too high. Screwing with the ph level can hurt the fish more than just leaving it alone. If she isn't doing enough water changes vaccuming gravel etc then the nitrate level could be going too high.

I am guessing by the no transportation thing you mean that you can't take a sample of the water to a local store that sells fish and ask them to test it for you? Most will do it for free if you don't have the money to buy the kits.

The biowheel on the filter actually houses good bacteria which turns ammonia into nitrites and some other bacteria that turns the nitrites into nitrates.

It also sounds like for a 5 gallon tank, it might be full with just a couple fish...especially if one of them is a pleco. Is it a common pleco or another kind? Common plecos can get VERY large...and I don't know much about flounders...actually thought that was a saltwater fish. A general rule to follow is one inch of fish per gallon...though its not written in stone because some fish need more space, some fish produce more waste than others etc.

 

[Tayles]

She says she's been doing a water change about once a week, using a gravel cleaner, taking out 20 - 50% of the water depending on how dirty it is, the tank has been set up about a month and a half now, I have another question about bio-wheels, she accidentally put some "MelaFix" which is an antibiotic sort of, to help reduce stress etc... and the problem is she put it in while keeping the bio-wheel in, when I told her about not having it in she took it out for the remainder of the 'de-stressing' period. She seems to think that the bio-wheel will be fine even though it has been through that little episode, and thinks the bio-wheel will regain the bacteria that got ruined or whatever would happen. Will that be true or will it stay damaged and that could be part of the problem? The pleco we have is average, pretty much stays out of the way attached to the water spout of the filter, or the many walls (it's a Hex aquarium)... The Flounder is a brackish water/fresh water fish, they just prefer a little more salt than other fish, apparently. But I've read that aquarium salt won't hurt the fish (it'll burn them if it lands directly on them though), so don't think that could be the problem. Well that's really all I can think of to say about it... it doesn't seem over stocked because the flounder stays suctioned to the wall or buries himself in the gravel and there's nothing "swimming" around in there so that's why she added the Gourami's, and they did fine for a while then just up and one night the blue one didn't eat and was dead by the end of the night and last night the red one didn't eat and was dead this morning. By no transportation, we don't have any testing kits, any water heaters, and no car or money to go get some (Finances tight here). So we're pretty much stuck with what we've got until the car gets fixed and we can go replace the filter cartridge or get some testing kits.

 

[Leopardess]

well, let's see here....


I am fairly sure melafix can be used with your bio wheel still in place...let me look, i have the box...yes, it says right on it "will not harm the biological filter" so, you didn't need to take it out in the first place, because if it dried up, then everything is dead for sure. oh, btw, the melafix is an all natural antibacterial agent made from tea tree oils and the like

second, bio wheels dont need to be replaced. The worst thing that could happen would be that all the bacteria dies and it just has to recolonize...

do be careful about how much salt you add because too much salt can harm freshwater fish. If it didn't, there would be no distinction between freshwater/brackish/saltwater.


also, bear in mind, that how much fish a tank can maintain doesn't really go by how much room it looks like there is to swim. It goes by how much waste the fish make (bigger fish make more waste, so they are the equivalent of many little fish)

just curious, how warm is your water if you don't have a heater...because that is a big deal...as are the test kits.

the thing to do would have been to get the heater/test kits, etc. when you set up the tank, or before there were fish in it since it is necessary to monitor the water parameters, but thats not an option anymore, now is it so the best thing to do is keep up the water changes and maybe add some stresscoat if you have it and keep your eye on things. Also, if you replace the blue filter as well as the biowheel, you will remove almost all of your biological filtration = that is where all the good things live.

 

[Angelfish]

You need to get the pleco out of the 5 gal. and probably not add any more fish to it until you have test kits and are sure you can provide a good environment for the fish, otherwise they will die and it will be a waste of money. The blue gourami needed a 20 gal. tank at least and with all the fish in a 5 gal. especialy a pleco your amonia levels probably sky rocketed.
I think your 5 gal. would make a good home to 2 cories, and one dwarf gourami, they are not very expensive (you could even trade your pleco in for one) and should be easy to keep.

 

[Tayles]

ty for the advice I'll be sure to pass the word on =)