Newbie - "racist" platies, bad advice, disease, etc

[lauraf]

The male guppy should be okay on his own. And congrats on your fry! A 5.5g tank is okay for growing out a few fry but if you are planning on trying to keep most of the fry from your livebearers you might want to spend the extra few bucks and get a 10g. Instead of using water from your established tank, use some of your filter media or gravel - they contain most of the beneficial bacteria and should help you get cycled pretty quickly if not immediately. What to do with all your fry can pose a problem. You can ask your local fish store if they will take the fry - sometimes they will give you a credit, but they may not. Livebearer fry are pretty commonplace. You can also give them away on craigslist - don't be surprised if you can't actually sell them....

 

[Pisces girl]

Lauraf

You posted this a while ago:

If you are still showing any ammonia after you have nitrates, you should test your tap water too - if your tap water shows ammonia you probably have chloramine in your water system and it will give you a false positive reading (assuming you are using a proper water conditioner to remove chlorine and chloramine).
Cheers,
Laura

I didn't fully understand this - please clarify!

I thought ammonia was well under control a few weeks back but I kept up water changes anyway just to be sure. And now ammonia is up again! I tested the tap water after adding water conditioner, it was sky high! Then I tested some bottled water just to compare and it was 0. Wtf? So all the water changes I have been doing have just added ammonia to my poor fish? They seem ok, or at least most of them. The lemon tetras seem a bit agitated. I just put a capful of prime in to help them. Should we go and buy lots of bottled water for the water changes. And/or should we collect rainwater? We live in S Florida and it's the rainy season now! Please help! This really is like having a baby, the problems never seem to stop (when you're a newbie).

No more fry yet, probably for the best right now!

 

[lauraf]

So it sounds like your tap water has chloramine in it - this will give you the positive ammonia reading. Using Prime will treat for chloramine (binding it in a non-toxic form), but you will still get a positive ammonia reading as most tests react to both the bound and free ammonia. Instead, you can try a product called Ammonia Alert - I think - it is a disk that you put in your tank and it only shows the free ammonia (read: bad) so you will know if your tank has a dangerous ammonia spike. I haven't used this product myself by someone knowledgeable on this site highly recommends it.

 

[Pisces girl]

Ok thanks I will try it, was already considering it. Seachem Ammonia Alert. Might collect rainwater too though!