It's under the Tropical Fish Forums>Tropical Fish Forums called Tropical Tank Failure. To summarise, it's a 60 litre new aquarium. I have now got around 8 neons, 4 guppies, a Clown Loach, a Black Knife, 4 Danios, a couple of Endlers, 3 Dwarf Frogs, 2 Apple Snails and a Pleccy. There were more as described in my other topic.
Hi, I was wondering if someone can offer some help, cos god knows I need it.
I recently bought a 60 litre tropical tank, gravel and plants. It has an Interpet PF2 internal filter, 2 lights (one blue, one white), and a heater. We set it up precisely to instructions, using Tapsafe and FilterStart. It was brought up to temperature using the heater and left to stand for approx 4 days. The local pet shop said it was okay to add a small amount of fish, as did the supplier of the tank (which is a well known national pet retailer) after this time.
A Rainbow Shark, a Clown Loach,5 Neons and 4 male Guppies was chosen. All seemed fine. Water was clear etc.
Approx 4 days after this, we added a couple more guppies, a goldfish, fancy Black Molly and another 5 neons. There was also 2 Dwarf Frogs 2 shrimps and an Apple Snail added to start assisting in the clean up that would be needed.
In this time we had noticed that the shark had taken up residence within the ornamental tower, allowing the loach the only other access. The loach remained hidden for hours on end only emerging for a few minutes at a time, and the shark was very aggressive toward the goldfish and the molly. It got so bad we had to move the 2 fish in to a seperate cold tank, in which they have done very well.
By this time we had started noticing the guppies' tails were splitting slowly from the outside and as the split got further toward the body, they became less active and when the split reached the body they died. We didn't know if this was just 'bad stock' or an illness.
About 48 hours after the second additions, we added Endlers Livebearers, some female Guppies, a Long Armed Shrimp, 2 Black Knives, 2 more Dawrf Frogs and another snail. By this time we were fishing out the dead guppies one each day.
Within 10 minutes of being released, the Long Arm Shrimp had caught and killed 1 Neon and mortally wounded a second. The shark began pursuing the Black Knives relentlessly. I went and immediately purchased 2 breeding boxes to place them in overnight so I could take them back to seller.
With the shark and shrimp removed, everybody else began showing improved attitudes, with the neons coming higher up the tank.
We were still losing a guppy a day, so thinking we had water imbalances, we tested the water. The Nitrite and Nitrate levels were very high, everything else was very low. We did a water change (approx 50%), added appropriate Tapsafe etc and left it overnight. We had also added 2 Clown Loaches, as we had discovered that to have 1 alone is 'inhumane'.
When we released the 2 Clown Loaches, we found accute Whitespot on them, so treated immediately. Within 4 hours the worst affected one was dead. So was a shrimp. Within 24 hours, the second new Clown Loach was dead, although he had much less whitepot, but he did have an odd looking mouth.
Then it went VERY bad. We started losing all sorts. A further water test showed very high Nitrite and Nitrate leves, so we added a Nitra Zorb sachet, and changed the water again (approx 1/3).
Asking around we found that no-one had an explaination for the high levels in the water. We were told to empty the tank, blitz clean it all out and start again. So we removed what was left in to a small hospital tank, only to immediately lose a Black Knife to what looks like Mouth Rot, followed very quickly by 2 Neons (which showed no signs of illness) and 2 Guppies. An Endler went overnight and now we are on the verge of giving up. We can't figure out what to do. We have given a dose of Anti Fungus And Finrot (interpet) and removed the filter. The bigger cleaned tank was restarted with 2 goldfish to see how they would fair. This time we added no chemicals to the water at all.
Now on the second day of the hospital tank, we are expecting to lose all life in it as all are moving slower and slower, plus the guppies are looking very wierd around their mouths as if they have something stuck in it.
I can appreciate that maybe we were overstocked, or that we added fish too soon after set-up, but does anyone have any suggestions on how to try to save what's left? This is particularly annoying as my daughter has a simple cold water set up that has 2 goldfish, 2 mollies and around 9 tetras that just seem to keep on growing, and they had no chemicals added to their tank whatsoever, and the fish were in the tank immediately after set-up once room temp was reached in the tank.
I am on the point of giving up, so any help out there?
HELP!! I don't know what to do!! I have put a detailed description on another topic but I put it in the wrong section. Simplified though, my fish are dying after a couple of hours of floating vertically in the tank, kicking themselves back normal, then floating again. Any ideas? I am new to this hobby and so far it's been a disaster.
- but I would suggest it's because they are basically being poisoned. Please read the new to hobby section on cycling your tank. The Nitrites and Nitrates are by-products of ammonia being processed by the bacteria you need. Your Nitrites really need to be at zero as do the ammonia levels before you put fish in. As you already have the fish you need to be doing lots of water changes to keep the ammonia levels and nitrite levels down, also the nitrate but the other two you need to focus on first as they're the most dangerous to fish. You also need an ammonia testing kit as at the mo you only have the last 2/3rds of the picture.
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