something is wrong with my aquarium plz help

Hazel.1234 · Sep 29, 2019

Hi everyone!

So I am pretty new to the whole aquarium thing. I was given a 10 Gallon one as a gift. When I got it, there were 5 platyfish in there. All happy and cool. Shortly after, one of them died, but the rest were doing completely fine.

I let the tank sit for 2 weeks before adding 4 more fish to it. 2 guppy and 2 neon tetra. and everything was going well for the past week.

A few days ago one of the platies died with no sign of sickness. I checked the body before discarding it. Looked healthy. The fish was 100% fine the same day!
Then it got worst.... the first guppy got sick. swim weakly closer to the surface of the water, starting to get red at the end of his tail. gills moving fast. and died on the same day.

I noticed another of fish getting sick, so I quickly did 50 % water change. The water test strips showed pH 7 and nitrate 0 and everything else in the normal range. The temperature is also in the normal range.

The second guppy died the day after when he also spent a day swimming reaaally weak close to the surface and losing a lot of his tail in only 24 hours.

Then another of the platy died!!!! He also swam close to the surface before he dies

In none of these cases, any sign was showing on the skin or gills. Only one of the guppies lost his tail, others did not. I did research but none of the diseased matched the signs I saw in my fish so I am quite confused.!

and now one of the platties is sick with a huge lump on one side of her body close to her tail. swiming somewhat weak.

At this point, I am about to get crazy. The remaining three (1 platty and 2 neon tetra) are acting healthy and normal. I don't have annny idea what is wrong.

The water is good, no sign of a common disease but they get sick one by one ....pleaaase help me

Moony42 · Sep 29, 2019

Hello and welcome to the forums!!! :hi:

In these situations it is a priority to turn to Colin_T
He is a really smart and hilarious helper.

Colin_T · Sep 29, 2019

Hi and welcome to the forum

It's probably ammonia and nitrite poisoning, which happens a lot in newly set up tanks that haven't been cycled prior to fish being added. The best thing to do right now is a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the problem is identified or resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Reduce feeding to 2-3 times per week. Don't worry, the fish won't starve.

If you can get the tank water checked for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH it will help. If you have test kits you can do this yourself. Otherwise take a glass full of tank water to the local pet shop and ask them to test it for you. Write the results down in numbers when they do the tests. If the shop say the water is fine, ask them what the results are in numbers.

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If you can post some pictures of the fish it might help us work out what is wrong. If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

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I will let other people tell you about the filter cycle because I'm not feeling well. But do a water change now and every day until we work out what's going on.

Essjay · Sep 29, 2019

The filter cycle that Colin mentions is the process of growing good bacteria in the tank, and this can take several weeks. A new tank has virtually none of these bacteria, just the very few in tap water. We need to grow lots more of them, and they are slow growing bacteria.
Fish make ammonia as a waste product; fish poo and uneaten food decomposes to make more ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to fish. There is a colony of good bacteria in a mature tank which 'eats' ammonia, but they turn it into nitrite which is also toxic. There is a second colony of bacteria in a mature tank which 'eats' nitrite and turns it into nitrate. Nitrate isn't as toxic, and we remove that by weekly water changes.
Until the bacteria colonies have grown, we need to measure the levels of ammonia and nitrite in the tank water and do a water change whenever either of them are above zero. If either are allowed to build up it can make fish sick and even kill them.

There may also be a problem with the hardness of your water. Your neon tetras do seem to be OK, and these are notoriously weak fish. Neons are soft water fish, but guppies and platies are hard water fish.
Can I ask you to look on your water provider's website for the hardness of your tap water. Ignore any vague words and look for a number. You also need the unit of measurement as there are several they could use. If you can't find it, tell us the name of the water company and we'll see if we can find it.

In the meantime, don't get any more fish. If you don't already have one, I suggest you buy a testing kit. The kind with liquid reagents and test tubes are more accurate than strips. Once you have the results, tell us what they are. If you want to buy on-line (as that'll be cheaper) take a sample of tank water to a fish shop and ask them to test for ammonia and nitrite. Get them to write down the results in numbers. A lot of shops will just say something like fine or a bit high which doesn't tell us anything!
And as Colin said, only feed 2 or 3 times a week. Less food = less ammonia and the fish won't starve.

Hazel.1234 · Oct 2, 2019

essjay said:
The filter cycle that Colin mentions is the process of growing good bacteria in the tank, and this can take several weeks. A new tank has virtually none of these bacteria, just the very few in tap water. We need to grow lots more of them, and they are slow growing bacteria.
Fish make ammonia as a waste product; fish poo and uneaten food decomposes to make more ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to fish. There is a colony of good bacteria in a mature tank which 'eats' ammonia, but they turn it into nitrite which is also toxic. There is a second colony of bacteria in a mature tank which 'eats' nitrite and turns it into nitrate. Nitrate isn't as toxic, and we remove that by weekly water changes.
Until the bacteria colonies have grown, we need to measure the levels of ammonia and nitrite in the tank water and do a water change whenever either of them are above zero. If either are allowed to build up it can make fish sick and even kill them.

There may also be a problem with the hardness of your water. Your neon tetras do seem to be OK, and these are notoriously weak fish. Neons are soft water fish, but guppies and platies are hard water fish.
Can I ask you to look on your water provider's website for the hardness of your tap water. Ignore any vague words and look for a number. You also need the unit of measurement as there are several they could use. If you can't find it, tell us the name of the water company and we'll see if we can find it.

In the meantime, don't get any more fish. If you don't already have one, I suggest you buy a testing kit. The kind with liquid reagents and test tubes are more accurate than strips. Once you have the results, tell us what they are. If you want to buy on-line (as that'll be cheaper) take a sample of tank water to a fish shop and ask them to test for ammonia and nitrite. Get them to write down the results in numbers. A lot of shops will just say something like fine or a bit high which doesn't tell us anything!
And as Colin said, only feed 2 or 3 times a week. Less food = less ammonia and the fish won't starve.

Hi.
Thank you for getting back to me.
Well... I bought the aquarium as a used piece and it already had 5 plety fish in it which were living in there for more than 5 months. So I believe about cycling my job was easier.

I checked the values of stuff...here are the result in mg/ L

ph: 7.5
hardness : 50
total alkalinity : somewhere between 0-40
iron:0
copper: 0
lead: 0
nitrate:0
nitrite: 0
flouride: 0
chlorine:0

After all that fish died, I was left with 2 neon and 2 platty

One of the platties is so healthy. the neons are completely normal too. The other platy has been swimming on the surface. A few days ago I notices her spine is being tilted on one side. I attached the picture for that. But she was still swimming and didn't lose her appetite.

But today she has been laying down at the bottom of the tank. Her body looks rough and it seems like she cannot move it. She breathes and is alive. But her swimming is upside down at the bottom of the tank. I separated her from other fish and when I looked at her in my quarantine tank, I noticed that her color is getting darker. I noticed a gray tone on her skin and her fins are now black...

I just need to know what is causing all this. But based on these symptoms I couldn't really find any information on what can be the cause.

What scares me the most is that (either I am being paranoid or that is actually the case) I am seeing one other fish also turning slightly darker with a grayish tone on their skin
I don't know if it can be fungi... the symptoms are slightly different and not all the dead fish showed the same dark color.

Hazel.1234 · Oct 2, 2019

The first picture is when she was still swimming close to the surface. The other two pictures are in the quarantine tank. She has been breathing fast but cannot move her spine. You can see she was swimming upside down in one of the pictures.

She has been like this maybe a little more than 24 hours. She hasn't died and she shows appetite to eat. That is confusing for me.

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something is wrong with my aquarium plz help

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