Help! Fish dropping like flies!

[Ek-ek]

Well, I think you probably have two problems with the tank...

The first is you do have too many fish in the tank. A good rule of thumb is one inch of fish to one gallon of water. You need to use the fishes final length for this (for example, guppys and platys usually get to between 2 and three inches, so one would need about two gallons of water).

The other problem is a common one...your tank has not cycled. There are alot of good posts and articles about this, but basically is means you need to let your tank run for about 3 to 5 weeks so it goes through it's natural ammonia and nitrite/nitrate spykes that can kill some fish.

Hope this helps. I'm sure it'll all work out.

Right!

Yup! That is a common diagnose for most first timers. I had also these kinds of
problems when I first started my aquarium hobby.


I think aside from the regular filter,you should also add some natural plants, in order to add more oxygen .

 

[rich815]

I have posted an update and another question on my situation to the forum. I copy it here in case anyone wants to reply here. Thanks.


First off thank you to all who took the time to respond. All excellent advice and help. What a great group of people. I am glad I found you guys!

Now, I know this should most likely be moved to another forum but it is follow-up so I post it here. Good news is no more fish have died. Bads news is I picked up a test kit and my ammonia is through the roof (no surprise really, I guess). I've gotten it down to less fish now and am seeing if I can get this tank cycled. I did find a source of Bio Spira (at a competitior down the road from the jerks who got me into this mess in the first place) and when I bought my test kit bought 1 oz of the bio spira. I came home, did an ammonia and nitrite test (ammonia through the roof, nitrite high but not over the top), then did a 40% water change (conditioning the new water of course). After this water change I poured in the bio spira. I also was able to get a small handful of gravel from a friend's small tank (which has been up and running with white clouds since last April) and "seeded" my own gravel with his. So, the beneficial bacteria growth is set (I hope). After the water change I tested the ammonia again and although not at "deadly" levels, it was still pretty darn high, even after changing 40% of the water! I let it go a day and then tested my ammonia again today. Very high once again. I did another 40% change and tested again. Better but still a bit high. Now, here's my question. I added the bio spira yesterday AFTER my water change. But it seems until I get a good cycle that I'll be changing 30-40% of the water each day. Will I in essence be throwing away the bio spira this way? Or has the bio spira bacteria already settled in with my filter, plants and gravel and is not being removed with these water changes? Thanks again.

Regards,

Richard (San Francisco)

 

[bgraber]

Good question.. I'd say the media in your filter catches alot of the bacteria(unless perfectly clean?) and "save" them during water changes.. Given that's there's probably a few billion of them in there, alot will hang around.. Or yeah, do like seamonster and really get it under control... A nice clean bucket would do for a little while Then add some plants!

 

[Lithril]

Yup exactly right, the beneficial bacteria colonise the gravel and especially the filter, once seeded colonies will grow to numbers dictated to the tank conditions.
Your main concern is the fish so do as many partial water changes as is needed to keep the ammonia and nitrites down. I had a similar problem and was changing 25-30% daily for a couple of weeks.

BTW Bio-Spira is a product name not the name of the bacteria

 

[Alien Anna]

Sounds like you're doing well but no matter what bacteria you add (from your friends tank or Bio-spira) its going to take 48-72 hours for the bacteria to get settled into their new home (the gravel and filter) and to start reproducing. You'll probably find you get a sudden plummetting of your ammonia levels, followed by a nitrite spike.