>I used Ammonia clear tablets. It claimed to (get) rid of ammonia completely, and quickly. It only made my tank worse, the brand name is "jungle" or Tank Buddies" I can't tell brand names.

Jungle Tank Buddies or Jungle Ammonia Clear Tablets are the brand names. So you can tell brand names! :)

Jungle claims that the product "reduces ammonia stress in fish and reduces high ammonia levels caused by overcrowding, fish waste or decayed food." They don't say it got rid of it. We several times on Guppylog have noted that most ammonia treatments (unless they are a resin, which does absorb the ammonia into the Polyfilter or whatever filter insert) simply put the ammonia in a chemical bond for a few days. (That is a bit like sweeping dirt under the carpet.) The ammonia is then gradually released. Hopefully water changes and the nitrogen cycle will dilute it or process it into the somewhat less poisonous nitrites. Jungle also advises "Before treating for ammonia, a 25% partial water change is recommended. Maintain strong aeration for one hour after use" They understand that it is a quick fix.

Some merchandisers do intimate that it gets rid of the ammonia forever. That is called salemanship... or lying. :(

< The cloudiness was really strange, I saw no material floating anywhere, just cloud.

Ammonia is crystal clear. So are a number of other materials which can be poisonous. The cloud, as mentioned in Immediate Help under cloudy water, are tiny bacteria feasting upon the ammonia and multiplying like crazy.

> I used Tetra Aqua clearifier, and something else called crystal clear. When I added them (I added them seperately at different times) I would watch to see if somthing clumped up and floated to the bottom. But both of these had the same reaction when entering my water, it would go down a few inches, then turn brown and spread around my tank. Thus, making it even worse. I've been having high maintence ever since the water change.

Again something is lumped together. Tetra also sells a product called EasyBalance® with Nitraban. I'm guessing that there is a bacteria addition which speeds up the multiplication of the bacteria which "eat" ammonia and turn it into the slightly less toxic nitrites. Another set of bacteria will multiply and convert most of the nitrites into nitrates.

In time the less toxic nitrates will also kill fish. See nitrate poisoning in Immediate Help or Google Guppylog for several examples of nitrogen or nitrate poisoning. If you don't believe what is said here, check out aquarium chemistry books or carefully sort through what you get when Googling Nitrogen Cycle, nitrogen poisoning, nitrate poisoning...

>My ammonia is now completely at zero, and the water is crystal clear. My gouramis are even begiining to come out and say hi again.

That is terrific. If you get a chance measure the nitrite and nitrate levels. Keep up the good work - in a week do a 50% partial water change.

>I don't know what kind of fish Gino is, but I definatley know he's not a true shark (if he was there's no way I'd let him in my tank).

Of course not. A saltwater fish would die rather quickly.

>He has whiskers and will grow to be about 6 inches long. However, he's seems to be acting quite nice to the fry I just added a few days ago. I'm going to look up their behavior and how aggresive they are, but he's not a schooling fish I'm sure.

Is he a catfish or some sort of Cyprinid? How big is his mouth? If he has big eyes he probably is a night feeder and there may be curious disappearances of tetras and guppies. If he is one of those Labeo, now Epalzeorhynchos, species he will do ok by himself. But they are very territorial towards others in their genus. Many of them have a barbel or whisker on each side of the mouth.

> Oh, and here's a quick update, the other day, my butterfly fish somehow got passed my filter, heater, and heavy glass lid and hopped out of the tank. Mom came in with her fat lab, Ducky (I don't let the dogs in my room just for this reason), she turned around and dDucky began sniffing around. Ducky walked out of the room. My sister noticed that Ducky had taken something from the room and told to spit it out. Well, Ducky spat it out all right. Out popped butterfly fish, dead and torn up. Of course upon hearing Rachel scream "butterfly fish!" I ran over (busy on the computer). After seeing that Ducky ran off with my beloved butterfly fish, that I got from guppyfreak for my birthday, I cursed and cried and screamed. Mom, now owes me a new fish :

Did you have that fish in a tank with a power filter? It is hard keeping an African butterfly fish for their 10-year life expectancy because they need clean water but are essentially freshwater flying fish and can sail up to 6 feet out of any opening as big as they are and that makes using a HOB or hang on the back power filter very dangerous for the butterfly fish.

Did you or your Mom decide to use the power filter with the butterfly fish? Whose fish was it? You may owe her an apology. ;)

African butterfly fish have a mixed record when it comes to feeding. Wild ones need live foods. So yours was either domestically bred or trained very young to take flakes. Sometime they leave other fish alone. Sometimes they have killed larger fish They have been blamed for the "mysterious" disappearance of a school of tetras, one each day. What could they do to guppies who make the mistake of going near the surface?

Some say a butterfly fish needs only a 10 or 15-gallon tank. Others will suggest that a 20-gallon long would be better.

>What? Were you expecting something funny?

Mostly this makes me very sad and unbelievably depressed. I don't think losing fish is funny. I understand the temptation of buying fish without reading up on them, but by junior high I understood how disastrous that could be.

Nor do I think that merchants fooling teenagers into being mislead and buying products that don't do all they have been lead to believe the product will do is funny. I don't think that buying a fish and not knowing what it is or what its needs will be is funny either. Not knowing that a fish with a large mouth can take the little guys is downright sad. And what do you think we should call buying an animal, which should live for a decade, if the buyer isn't prepared to see that they are properly cared for over that ten years?

Please find out what your new fish is. It is ok if you distrust what I have to say. Google search for any of the following fish and look for yourself. For what it is worth, here are a few nominees for freshwater aquarium "sharks":

If you were to Google Guppylog for shark you would get about 85 hits for shark and 27 hits for Bala shark.

Silver shark, Bala shark, Tri-colour shark, and Malaysian shark are all names for Balantiocheilos melanopterus. Here is a little more info on them:
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/silver.htm

Except for size, they sound like pretty good aquarium fish. And each blurb on them talks about keeping five or six or more together (that social, schooling thing) in a tank of 4 feet or longer! Might do for 30-gallon for one And a 150-gallon tank involves good floor support for that aquarium of nearly a ton. They can live for 10+ years. They don't seem to have barbels, though relatives of theirs do.

They have even larger relatives in the same genus. Many are endangered, but they are often now being raised on fish farms as a food fish. Fry are sold off to any aquarists they can con.

Fishbase suggested that they are Cyprinids and I at one time, a few years ago, actually though they were open water catfish! Again, I too have got a lot to learn. Those "sharks," along with the others we have mentioned on GL such as the Black Shark, Labeo chrysophekadion, the red tail or Red-Tailed Black Shark - Epalzeorhynchos bicolor (formerly Labeo bicolor) can live 5-10 years.

One might also want to get a 25-gallon tank to house a rainbow shark (Labeo erythrurus), Epalzeorhynchos frenatus and some dissimilar tankmates. Evidently all of these are freshwater, egg scattering, teleosts (they have a bone skeleton and backbone). None of those things are characteristic of the marine sharks. As Cyprinids, they are relatives to the minnows, Barbs, Danios and carps.

There is at least one catfish labeled a shark too. Called Columbian Sharks or White Tip Shark Cats, Hexanematichtys seemanni, formerly known as Arius seemanni, is a marine and brackish water fish, which will enter freshwater. They really do best with at least a tablespoon of salt per gallon added, They can grow to 14"/36 cm and exceptionally to 24" 61 cm. One might be started in a 29 but a minimum of a 75-gallon tank will be needed as it gets older. If one gets stuck by one of their spines that can be painful indeed!

The following a neat article talking about fish, which get too big for smaller tanks like a 10 or 20-gallon aquarium. The lady that wrote it also shows how those fish should be cared for.