Hi Need Help Desperatly.

[Ginge]

New update this morning i found another harlequin rosobora with mouth rot. Still my FFS will tell my i have 80ppm nitrates so no refund.

 

[Bloo]

Have you spoken to the manager of the shop ? And ask them to retest with a decent (more accurate) test kit ? Surely they themselves will know how unreliable those strips are.

 

[Ginge]

You would have thought so i spoke to the magager and always speak to him he seems a good bloke and he told this other guy to do my test. I think they said to come back monday and retest water. Still i am annoyed when recently today andy has informed me that nitartes even up 100 wont harm fish is the tank is kept well so even if they did test 80ppm its still not enough to wipe out a colony of 15 fish in 3 days.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I'd just like to say Wilder's helped me and Ian out loads before, sure we'd have lost fish if it wasn't for her and she's very much appreciated here. My first thought when I see a fish poorly is quick get a pic and post it for wilder see what's wrong.

Ginge, that's rough, fingers crossed for your fishes. I'm sure they do know how rubbish the test strips are.... which is precisley why they're using them, they know they can get a false reading and not have to refund the money

 

[Bloo]

You would have thought so i spoke to the magager and always speak to him he seems a good bloke and he told this other guy to do my test. I think they said to come back monday and retest water. Still i am annoyed when recently today andy has informed me that nitartes even up 100 wont harm fish is the tank is kept well so even if they did test 80ppm its still not enough to wipe out a colony of 15 fish in 3 days.

That, in my opinion (and clearly Inchworm's) is entirely untrue (if you read some of the recent discussion threads - not sure if you've seen those).

I know for a fact that my fish become severely ill with continuous high nitrates in levels in excess of 60ppm - and the longer that remains the more ill they become and become more susceptible to things such as fin rot.

Things I've not had to deal with for years as I now know better.
But sometimes still have to deal with when going on long holidays with no water changes to reduce those levels. Despite feeding during those periods being brought down to almost nothing.

Nitrates at those levels ARE dangerous.

 

[Ginge]

Thanks for your inpt bloo its much appriciated. Where you say "become severely ill with continuous high nitrates" how long are you talking?

 

[Bloo]

In my personal experience - it takes a few weeks of persistent high levels. Coupled with hot weather this makes things just so much worse. And if you then do something like add new fish or make any significant tank changes - this just rocks an already severely strained environment. And I suspect that that "might" have just been the case here.

Though it does puzzle me that your tank hardly appears overstock to even have these high levels (55g tank with 4 Angels & 1 RTBS).
But that said, 15 new fish in one go (I presume this is what we're talking about, but you didn't say if you bought them all in one go) is quite a significant number. Despite the fact that these are small fish.

Either way - I would definitely insist (easier said than done I'm sure) that they use a decent test. Or take both your liquid test kits to the shop and ask them to perform the test themselves.

Good luck

 

[Ginge]

Bloo all the fish in the tank were added on the same day on last tuesday. And one was dead that night.

 

[Bloo]

Ah this makes more sense. Is this a new tank ? Did you do a fishless cycle or did you just attach a mature filter ?

 

[Ginge]

Did a fishless cycle at christmas and have had an african cichlids setup until now then just canged over fish.

 

[Bloo]

then I'm a bit unsure. So this tank has been up and running since Christmas with Cichlids?
You just removed the Cichlids and added the new fish straight away ? What was the time period between the change ? Did you do anything to the filter during this change ?

 

[Ginge]

I canged filter media 3 weeks previous to getting the new fish. The period of time the tank was fishless for was about 20 mins.

 

[Bloo]

The only thing I can think is that the instability of the filter caused this combined with the change from Cichlids to community. Plus (not sure what your stocking levels were) but the filter would definitely have gone through some adjustment over the period where the Cichlids were removed and the community fish added. I suspect the new load would have been much lighter and this some of the bacteria died off. And you are now seeing the results of that.

I hate to say this: but I do not think you can expect to shop to give you a new lot of fish - with the knowledge that your tank just underwent some massive changes Sorry.

 

[Ginge]

Yes the new load is alot lighter and yes you would expect alot of the bacteria to die off but enought have remained to keep levels of nitrite and ammonia down therefore i dont see a problem here.

 

[Cheffi]

This is a hard one to work out isn't it? I did have a thought though. What about the fact that you took all of your rock out? Could that have significantly reduced the bacteria? Tell me to shut up if I'm talking rot