I'm going to be blatantly honest here, and you can rag on me if you want, but that's not going to fix the problem. I'm aware of what I did wrong, and I don't need to be flamed, I need HELP to save my fish.
I have owned fish for 3 years now, in a 20 gallon tank. Some of the fish I put in on day one after cycling the tank are still alive today.
During the 3 years I kept them I did not do any water changes more than once per year.
Just recently I read you should do water changes for freshwater fish more often than that.
Now my problem is, when I do a water change, all it does is kick up more junk--so much junk that I am scared the fish cannot breathe. I can't even see them in the tank! It's foggy with junk.
I have nowhere to put them when I do the water change so I usually just take out half the water and fill it back up, using my suction thingy to get the stuff out of the bottom in the gravel.
What should I do? Should I just do a complete 100% water change, and see if I can borrow someone's tank or buy one for cheap to put the fish in while I do that?
It's awful. I feel stupid because I looked in my tank and thought, "It's clean!" I didn't know all the stuff was under the gravel hiding.
Please help me--I want my fish to live!