gills opening, tetras lesser and the what nots, please guid

[cupric]

hi guyz, any one willing to teach an amatuer whats happening to his tank?

Observation No. 1: rummy noses gills starting to curl outwards. issit due to ammonia concentration getting higher?

Observation No. 2: 1 rummy nose has this problem of a nearly white tail including the "meat" above the tail.issit a disease or an illness? issit contagious?

Observation No. 3: my cherries are destroying my PLANTS!!!!! they have been deforesting my little jungle...whats wrong?

Observation No. 4: the tetras are dying one by one though i didnt notice it till juz now. intial number : 35, current number: 20+. what is required for them to live properly and heathily?

Observation No. 5: the thin water surface of my tank has got smudge like tingy above, resembling oil poured into water, that type of feeling. whats that anyway.

Observation No. 6: my shrimps has eggs about 1 wk ago. then suddenly, i saw that allllll the species of shrimps are not carrying any eggs at all! what happen to the eggs? btw are tiger shrimps suppose to carry brown eggs?

okie, think that's all. i seriously have no idea of my ammonia and nitrate level. how much issit to buy 1 set each? please help, i really wana save my hard work. thx.
[]

[robin]

can you tell us your tank perimeters (KH, PH, Po4, No3, temp) and size, lighting, co2, frequency of water change etc? telling us what you dose and on what frequency also helps
We need that to further assist you

Robin

[cupric]

hmmm robin, regarding the KH, PH, Po4, No3, i really have no idea cos i haven got the apparatus yet. but as for co2 wat do u mean? these little fishes are living in a 3 ft tank of about 25-28ºC. as for water changes, i do it every 2-3 wks. last water change is about 1 wk ago.

hmmm.. wat do u mean by "...what you dose and on what frequency..." do you mean medicine for the fishes? if its dat, den i haven put any cos i dunoe whether it is disease or not.

[PeterGwee]

Cupric, I presume your tank is newly setup and is going through the nitrogen cycle. How big is your tank by the way (US gallons)? You mention that your tank has some plants...is it heavily planted? Basically, what you can do for your tank is to get some mulm aka dirt either from fish tanks that your friends keep and add it to your filter (more the merrier) or from the lfs that you bought stuff from..I think they would not mind giving some dirt to you from their filter. [] The mulm would help speed up the cycling process but if you add lots of plants to your tank and inject CO2 to optimize their growth, you are not likely to detect any presence of ammonia as it is readily taken up by plants as soon as it is being produced (that is provided your stocking level is light to moderate and your plants can keep up with the uptake of ammonia). In the meanwhile, just do daily water changes until you get the stuff I mention in place.

[cupric]

hmmm thx guyz, the water has more or less stable down oredi and in anycase, there are indeed alot of plants. and i'm actually tryin hard to find out the names of the plants but its really hard cos plants more or less look the same to me.

anyway, gd news frm mi. the water has no longer has the oily feeling on the top of the surface of the water. and thx peter for the info regarding the mulm.. eee... well i tink the cherries are havin a great time themselves whenever a fish die.cos they wud all gather and have a feast of a lifetime! lol!

regards,
royston