HELP - Please - 8 fish dead last night :(

[huby123uk]

We arrived home from work yesterday and discoverd that our red tailed shark was dying, we waited for him to die and then tested the water. The water was showing fine - no nitrites, low nitrates and ammonia, PH of 7 - Good for community tank.
We did a water change as we were due one anyway and cleaned the glass etc making sure we didnt contaminate. We treated the water with chlorine remover before putting it in and woke up this morning to find another 8 fish dead.
We have

180 Litre tank - 3.5 foot by about 2 foot and 1.5 foot high. Its a jewel rio 180 - has everything inbuilt. We have had it going for about 3 months now.
We have (or should I say had) 8 tiger barbs (6 dead ) 2 golden barbs (both dead) 2 chocolate guaramies - cant spell this (both still alive but looking dodgy) 3 rummy nose tetras (still alive), 7 cardinial tetras (still alive) 3 mollys (still alive), 2 angels (still alive) 3 corrys also still alive and some bumble bee catfish - cant find these but then you never can.
The water is looking suspiciously cloudy - though the tests say the water is fine all I can think is there has been some kind of contamination somewhere along the lines.
We took the dead fish out this morning and have done another water change. The fish are still at the top and looking poorly
What can we do

Please can anyone help!

 

[aernympha]

another water change??? i dunno i having the same probelm with my tank simarl to urs made buy the mae peeps lol small world only had few fish dead i think it bacterial problem mine. but if the waterif cloudy i would of thought a water change would help??

 

[aernympha]

also ur tank seemed little bit tooo many fish for the size of ur tank.....its about 45 galns right hmmmmmmmm i dunno its doesnt seem to bad ur tank i'm not sure butwhat the rpoblem coul dbe its mystery like mine....

 

[huby123uk]

What if its the water thats the problem?
Have been told that yorkshirwe water have been working in our area...maybe they have added some chemical?

 

[Fishsmurf]

huby123ukm,

How old are your test kit's? It may be worth taking a water sample to your LFS and get them to test it as well. How stable is your PH? What symtoms are the distressed fish showing?

Have you also checked some silly thing like the heater? Have you decorated / painted in the room with the tank recently? Is there anyway a contanminent could have been added without you being aware (kids for instance).....

Just some idea's......

 

[huby123uk]

The test kits are only about 1 month old, The heater seems fine, though it has been getting hotter lately this is only to be expected with the summer sun.
We havent been painting or anything in the room and we dont have kids so that cant be a problem.
I would just love to know what to do next, its obvious there is something bothering the fishand its not sdomething that we can test for, so what do we do next?
The fish are at the top, gasping for air. I did notice of a couple last night that they were a little red around the gills - a classic sign of something distressing them isnt it?
We did put a little myasine in the water (is that how you spell it) and shortly after we did this we realised that there was some mould growing on the myazine bottle - could this be anything to do with this?
We put the myazine in because the tiger barbs had been fighting yet again and one had haly a tail missing, the other half a fin...

 

[pebbles]

hi sorry to here of your problem,you do seem to have a lot of fish for a twelve week old tank .when you say low ammonia what are your readings,?it seems you have what i heard called a bloom,caused when the bacteria are building up?.havent heard of it causing fish deaths tho,i believe it is best to leave alone if you readings are ok but if your ammonia is rising it sounds as if you need to do something about it.i would cut down on your feeding ,you could be overfeeding,do small waterchanges daily of about 10..15 percent,check you ammonia [and keep an eye on nitrite and nitrate]and,if it keeps rising,you may need to take further action. i'm sure someone else will add to this, hope things improve.... ...pebbles.

 

[huby123uk]

My ammonia levels are 0! or as close to 0 as you can get!!!
We do have a lot of fish, but we took great care not to get 'new tank syndrome' - the tank had been used for fish before so the filter was already seeded and we bought some good bacteria tablets for the filter.
We also add 'easybalance' weekly to ensure the water is 100%
I really cant see this being an ammonia problem
Please - does anyone have anymore ideas, I need help and fast!!

 

[pebbles]

bye the way, welcome to the forum,i'm sure you'll get lots of help here.
pebbles

 

[Fishsmurf]

Huby......

Starting to struggle a bit here, everything sounds finds.

Like I said it could still be worth getting an LFS to confirm your water test. If you don't have an airstone maybe add one, a little more aeration with one of those may relieve some of the gasping.

You are right about the gills, but that could be a number of things, most of which according to your tests are applicable, ie ammonia / nitrite poisoning.

Does you water conditioner remove chlorine & chloramine?

 

[aernympha]

water chnage might make it worse if there have added some to ur water supply hmmmmmmm u could ring up who ever is doing stuff to ur water to ask them i fthere hav eput stuff in ur water..... wermmm but i wouldof done a water change if they was gasping for air hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sound slike ur have a very bad situaton very bad!!!!

 

[huby123uk]

Starting to feel very worried now
The water conditionar we use does remove both chlorine and chloramine.
My poor little babys, what on earth could be wrong

As for the air - we have an attachment for the pump which means more air is circulated along with an airator separate with a huge airstone...

I just wish there was something I could do...

 

[aernympha]

poor fishes must be some sort of toxin that kills fishes in ur water

 

[huby123uk]

PLEASE

does anyone know of any product that I can put in to remove anything that shouldnt be there? Does anyone have any idea's?

My partners dad seems to think it could be the hot weather we have had lately stripping the air of oxygen - but why would the water be cloudy?
Maybe the thermometer is dodgy? I will go buy another today...
I am worried

 

[wetwetwet]

Sorry to hear about your losses

Its going to be a problem witht he water and the usuall candidates are ammonia and nitrite.... - but yours test fine... - an established tank should really have zero readings for both

If you're goingg to the lfs for a thermometer then also take a sample and get them to check it...

Have you added anything to the tank recently? - fish.decor, plants, meds, additives etc.

How much and how often were you changeing water? - has the filter media been cleaned?

...and as has allready been mentioned watch how much you feed and ensure there is nothing rotting/decaying in the tank anywhere...