Help, New Tank, Dead Fish

[zinlady71]

I just bought a new tank, 75gal, about 3 weeks ago. I bought the tank because the Koi and Shubunkin I have got too big for my 35gal tank. I also have a Pleco wich is also good size. I was using a Aquaclear 70 filter and with the new tank they assured me that the Emporer 400 would do the job. Since I got the bigger tank, I also got some more fish, mainly catfish to help with the excess food. But now my fish are sick with tail rot and my nitrite and nitrate levels are through the roof. I also purchased 3 oranda gold fish ( I call them abby's, as in abnormal, don't know the real name for them). Since I have bought the new fish and the new aquarium I have lost 4 cory catfish, 2 Abby's, and two silver tip catfish. Now all I have is a 14inch Koi, 10 inch shubunkin, 8 inch pleco, and one abby. oh yeah I forgot to mention my blue lobster. Anyway, the guy at the pet store gave me some stuff to get rid of the high nitrates, by suggesting I change 50% of my water and put in something called CYCLE, someting that is suppose to help with fish loss, and MELLAFIX, to help with the tail rot. He also said to use the directions as if I were setting up a new tank. Needless to say I lost 5 of the afformentioned fish due to this process. I still feel my main problem is with the filter. When I set it up originally, he told me that I only needed to fill one media filter with the ammo chips. Now I do know that with the original fish that they produce alot of ammonia, that is why I was a little skeptical. Now with my nitrits and nitrates through the roof, I am a little skeptical about the filter I currently have. I checked them again, and although I removed the carbon so the medicine will work, and filled both media filters with ammo chips, there is not a significant difference and the fish I have left are moving rather sluggishly. I am wondering if I should buy a bigger filter, such as the Aqua 110, or maybe another Emporer 400 filter so this won't happen again. Before I had gone 3 weeks without cleaning my tank and never a propblem with the ammonia, Now i clean it faithfully every week (new tank, you understand) and I am replacing 25 gal and still am having a problem. Also, should I keep up with the medicine even if it seems to be making them more sick Should I just start over and empty everything out??? (I mean the water). And would another filter help the process, or maybe a bigger one??? please help me, I am at a loss.

 

[Tolak]

Please post the water test results. Off the top of my head it seems that you set up a tank with a new filter without letting it cycle. This would give you ammonia & nitrite readings, which when high enough will kill any fish.

If you switched the fish along with the old filter, and ran the new filter along with it you shouldn't have had any trouble if you didn't add any more fish. Adding more fish, especially large messy ones to a cycled tank can cause an ammo and/or nitrite spike. With an uncycled tank they would be through the roof.

Best thing to do would be to run the new filter along with the old one for a good month in an overstocked situation such as yours. That was way overstocked for a 35, it's pretty busy for a 75. I hope you didn't toss out the media from the old cycled Aquaclear. The worlds biggest filter will do nothing if it isn't cycled.

Ammo chips don't work as well as water changes. I would do daily 50% water changes until the ammo & nitrites drop to zero. Melafix may help with the stress from a polluted environment, it sure won't hurt. Leave the standard media in there, don't touch it for at least 2 weeks. Give it a light rinse in tank water, or dechlorinated tap water then. If you have an airstone, run that to increase aeration, or drop the water level an inch or so if you can tolerate the noise from the hob.

Tolak

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

i'd ditch the 70 and emp 400 and get 2 AC 110's

i had a emp 400 on a 75G with just a red devil in it and it still got HITH so i switched to 2 110's and it cleared up in no time, if you do get 2 110's make sure they're in the new 110 box and not the 500 boxes because teh 500 boxes dont come with the bioguard insert.. i found out the hard way >

goldfish are pretty dirty fish so it wouldn't surprise me if it is going through a cycle on you

 

[zinlady71]

Since my last post my boyfriend and I have spoken to the fish store employees and read some of the posts on this site. Everyone seemed to have different advice and we were confused on what to do next. We went middle of the road last night.

We changed 25% of the water. Added tap water conditioner, melafix and cycle.

We added our old filter to the tank (filters up to 70 gal) We didn't have the old inserts though with the good bacteria on it. So we added ammonia remover inserts and biomax inserts.

Today we discovered our Koi (Soon-Yee) covered in white barnicle looking spots on her head. I am attaching pictures from camera phone. Hopefully it helps.

My baby oranda has the same white stuff on her tail. It looks loke the infection is spreading rather than getting better.

I need help. What should I do? I don't want my fish to die. We already lost 8 of the new fish we bought.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[black angel]

To me it looks like whitespot it looks like grains of salt. Probably brought in with the new fish.
For a 75 gallon tank thats barely enough room for the koi never mind anything else.
Could you list all the fish you have in it please and have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph.
Dont believe everything the pet store tells you, we arent selling anything.
You will need a white spot med and a strong one too. When using it switch off all over head lights on the tank.
Add extra aeration as well if you can. The best way is via an air pump and airstones but you will need quite a strong one.

 

[zinlady71]

Thank you black angel. The white spots don't look like salt though. They look look like fuzzy puss?

My water stats are:

nitrate 80 ppm

nitrite over 10 ppm

hardness 25ppm

alkalinity 80 ppm

ph 7.2

For fish we have :

1 koi 10in (old)

1 shebunkin goldfish 10 in (old)

1 pleco 9in (old)

little blue lobster 4in (new)

1 baby oranda 2in (new ) -white stuff on tail

1 cory catfish 2in. (new) (WE LOST THE OTHER4)

Will Melafix help? If we get the white spot meds tonight do we add melafix also or just the new medicine?

Also we removed the airstone last night and replaced it with an air bubble wand for more bubbles.

Is this good?

 

[black angel]

You need to bring that nitrite level way down as this can kill fish. Dont you have an ammonia test?Usually i would reccommend salt to help with both the spots and the nitrite level but you have catfish which wont like it. Can you seperate them?
As the tank is new then you are going through a cycle and the filter might not be coping with all the fish waste.
Do a lot of water changes to bring it back down to under 1. What is the nitrate from the tap as this is quite high as well and ideally should be under 40?
Use a gravel vac as well if you arent already and your filter sponge may want to be cleaned out but you must use old tank water to squeeze them in.

As for the spots i cant really say what it is as it did look like white spot to me. Maybe its a reaction to the high levels in the tank, but really you are seriously overstocked. Fungal infections too could i suppose start off like that and malachite green would be the answer.
Cory cats are a nice meal for big goldfish so be careful as they can stick in the mouth.
You say some of the fish are old, how old are they as koi can easily live to be over 100 and goldies though rarely can get to between 30 and 40 but 10 to 20 is about the average.

Its good you got more air going in though.

 

[zinlady71]

Since my last post my koi fish Soon Yee died on 11/11/05. We had a little funeral for her.

We are still having problems with the tank water. Since 11/11/05 we have been putting only tap water conditioner and salt in to the water after water changes. We have been doing 20 gallon water changes every 2 days but the nitrite levels are still off the charts.

On Monday we changed 20 gallons. By wednesday the tank was green murky water. I can hardly see our fish. Last night the readings were as follows:

nitrate 80

nitrite over 10

hardness -brown (soft)

alkalinity yellow 0

ph was 6.8

We are at a loss! Today we plan on doing a 50% water change. My boyfriend wants to change all the water but from what I'm reading this is not a good idea. Any suggestions would be welcome since we cannot seem to improve our water quality.

The good news is that our other fish have survived the fungus attack and appear to be spotless.

 

[black angel]

The new additions to the tank brought in disease with them. Do you have a test for ammonia? It would look like the filters cant cope with the waste the fish are producing. Try and work out the turnover rate as it should be at least 10 times.
in the meantime do 40% water changes each day to bring the levels down and also test your tap water to see what you get from there.

 

[zinlady71]

We still have the same fish as listed in post # 6 -minus the koi fish which passed away.

we have two filters running in the tank - an aqua clear 70 and an emporer 400

I just did an ammonia test and it came up yellow -which means good, but I used the last test strip for all the other numbers last night. Need to get more today.


any ideas on why the water is so green?

 

[black angel]

But you said when you bought the new tank you added more fish which were probably diseased.
As for the green water, doing bigger water changes might help. How long are the lights on for and is the tank in direct sunlight? High nitrates can turn the water green as algae is feeding off it. Keep on with the bigger water changes and see if that helps.