Newbie..need advice for irr. shark and poss. sickness

Hi everyone....this is my first time on a fish board, but i found this doing a search on irr. sharks. Here is my situation and questions...
Right now i have a 10gal. tank with a 5in. irr. shark who is all alone. Up until a couple days ago, he was living with an albino clawed frog(approx. 4in.), a green barb and a black LF tetra. The frog, the barb and the tetra all mysteriously died the other day. My husband had woke up and found my frog drying up on the kitchen floor, put him in a dish of water, added some stress coat and let him chill out for awhile and clean off before we put him back in the tank. Everybody seemed fine all afternoon, but later that night i looked at the tank and everybody but my sharl was dead. I immediately fished out my shark and put him in a separate container with clean water. I VERY THOROUGHLY cleaned out my entire tank, filter and rocks. I reset up the tank with fresh spring water and a new filter cartridge, set the Ph at 7.0 and threw in a little salt. When i initially removed my shark from the tank, it seemed as tho his skin was peeling or something, but after he was in the different container, his skin cleared within a few hours. The only thing i can think of that happened, was that maybe my frog picked up something off of my floor that poisoned the fish. My shark seemed really stressed the last couple days,understandably, and he also hasn't eaten for 4 days, so i am very concerned. I am aware that this tank is small for him and hope to upgrade soon, also i've been reading about the warnings of buying these fish and size and all that. The shark was given to me with the tetra by someone who was going to flush them if no one would take them and a 10gal was all i could do at the time. My sister had one at 1.5 ft that was around 15 yrs old, so i figured he might take awhile to get super large anyway. I'd rather not try to pass him off to a pet store where he may wind up in a similar or possibly worse situation. So i guess the questions i have are what do i do now as far as leaving him alone in the tank or adding friends and what kind to add...and what possibly could have killed my other fish and frog??? Also, how do i get him to eat?? Any help is appreaciated. Thanx!

 

have you cycled your tank?
and you have way to much in that size of tank

 

For starters, that tank is no where near being large enough to house an iridescent shark. They get over 4 feet long, are very active, and prefer to be in groups so they shouldn't be housed in anything smaller than 1000 gallons. If your friend's shark is only 1 1/2 feet long and 15 years old, it's severely stunted from being in a tank that's too small.

With all those fish in a 10 gallon, chances are your water parameters where horrible which is probably what killed the other fish.

Honestly, you'd be better off taking him to the LFS and letting them deal with him. By completely cleaning your tank and replacing the filter, you killed off all of your beneficial bacteria and the tank is going to cycle again. The shark is already too much bioload for that tank added to that the fact that the tank is going to cycle again with him in it, chances aren't good that he's going to survive. And even if he did survive, unless you could afford to have a 1000 gallon tank custom built, he's quality of life isn't going to be that great. I commend you tor trying to rescue him from being flushed, but I think you took on more than you where prepared to handle.

If however, you do plan on providing him with a proper home, you're going to have to buy test kits for ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte. Test the water every day. As the tank cycles again, you will see an ammonia spike, then a nitrIte spike, then both of those will level off at 0 and you will start seeing nitrAtes. Do water changes at least once a day in order to keep the ammonia and nitrIte at 0 (anything above that is very toxic and can kill fish).

Also, what was your pH before you adjusted it to 7? I most cases, you can do more harm than good messing with pH so you should just leave it alone.

See what you're getting into?
http://planetcatfish.com/images/full/pa ... mus/12.jpg

I hate to sound so negative, but these fish have no place in this hobby. They shouldn't be sold because 99% of aquarium owners are not capable of properly caring for them yet they're one of the more commonly sold fish (even Walmart carries them).

-Chelle

 

Yah i agree with chelle ID sharks should be left in the wild. I made alot of mistakes when i first started keeping fish tho to. The worst thing about ID sharks is they call them sharks and they are reallly cheap so alot of people who are new to the hobby buy them.

 

I'm aware that the 10gal tank is more of a puddle to him than a home, however my options were limited at the time and i do hope to upgrade soon. If i did come across someone willing to give him a better life in a huge tank that would promise to keep him through his life span or at least making sure he passed on to decent conditions, i would gladly give him up, i just don't know anybody with that big of tank. I also agree that there are many, many animals out there that are sold as pets that never should be, but for now he has been born into this situation along with many like him and i can't undo that. I admit i'm not anywhere near the most knowledgable fish person in the world, my passion is rats, but please understand that i was in a panic at the time when i decided to clean my tank. I added some Stress Zyme to the tank yesterday, i hope that wasn't bad also. My biggest immediate concern is now that he won't EAT. I have an ammonia and a Ph test kit, so i will have to pick up the other 2. So far the ammonia is still 0 and Ph 7.0. I put in one of those proper Ph packets to set it there before i put him back in the tank. I know most of you probably think its better to just let my LFS handle him, but i've had more than 2 years experience working in pet stores and animal shelter. In my experiences, the majority of employees working at pet stores are kids in HS that aren't taught half of what they are expected to know about the animals they sell, nor do most of them really care who they are selling them to and under what conditions they will be living. Knowing that, i can't see how he will be in better hands there or for how long. I only ever kept bettas before i got him and i know i took on a lot by saving him....are there such things as fish rescues? I really do like this little guy and i don't want any more bad things to happen to him either deliberately or by mine or someone else's ignorance. Would even one small friend encourage his appetite? Other than not eating, he seems to have gone back to his normal swimming patterns.

 

Fish can go a long time without eating. Generally when they stop eating it's due to stress or illness. I'd just keep an eye on him for now Offer a very small bit of food once per day and if he takes it great if not try again tomorrow. Adding more fish to your tank will not help him right now.

Try to find an actual fish only store, not a pet store. These shops generally have adequate knowledge about fish and should take him off your hands and be able to give him a better home. Lots of fish shops have large display tanks that they will put so called "tank buster" fish in. Just explain your situation, I'm sure a shop out there can help you

 

The last thing you should be doing is adding more fish to the tank. As I said before, the tank is alread overstocked and it's cycling. So adding more fish will only make it worse. Just get those test kits and keep up on water changes. The stress zyme won't hurt, but it likely won't help much either. In my experience, it does nothing to help speed up the cycle because all the live bacteria it claims to contain are all dead by the time you buy it. But it shouldn't hurt anything.

On a positive note, I just noticed that you live in Florida. Since it dosn't get really cold there, tropical fish can actually survive outside during the winter. That means you could probably build a pond for your iridescent shark to live in. You could build a 1000ish gallon pond for a lot cheaper than you could build/buy a 1000ish gallon aquarium. So your shark could have plenty of swimming room, you could even buy him a couple more shark friends (they're social and prefer groups), and chances are he'd survive the winter. The only problem would be iridescent sharks tend to be jumpers, but you could probably rig up a net/pond cover to keep him from jumping out. It's somethig to think about anyway.

And until you can get a larger aquarium or pond, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a large storage bin (you can get 50 gallon ones for $15) and use that as a temporary tank. It won't look too pretty, but it will be a lot better than the 10 gallon in terms of water volume to dillute the ammonia he's producing. And his liklihood of him surving the cycling process will be greatly increased.

-Chelle

 

Thank you all for your tips and suggestions. He's still swimmin' so far. The storage bin is a great idea for now, thanx a bunch! However, i may try what tina1 suggested and look for a place accepting tank busters. I live in an apartment and no place for pond building anytime soon. It will probably be at least another year and a half before my husband and i start looking to buy a house. And my poor sharky, i know you are all going to gasp when i say this, has been in this 10gal tank for a whole year now. But calm down, i've had a super crazy year with moving twice, new marriage, fostering kittens and birds, and school. Anyway, i've been giving a lot of thought recently to my shark and i think i'm going to start actively looking for a new home for him. Large tank setups are expensive and if you are all telling me 1,000 gals is all he'd be good in, well i don't think i'm ever gonna get anything even half that big, and even so it will be awhile. Sorry to upset you all with the news of his suffering, but the alternative wasn't happy either. Anyway, wish me luck on figuring out his new living situation. Thanx for all the replies!