How did my fish die?

[FishKeeper72]

That's the problem - a new tank hasn't grown all the bacteria necessary to keep ammonia and nitrite at zero, unless the tank was fishless cycled with ammonia before fish were put in the tank.

How do I fix the problem, or do I just wait as see what happens in a couple of weeks

 

[Slaphppy7]

That's the problem - a new tank hasn't grown all the bacteria necessary to keep ammonia and nitrite at zero, unless the tank was fishless cycled with ammonia before fish were put in the tank.

+10 to this...

 

[Essjay]

How do I fix the problem, or do I just wait as see what happens in a couple of weeks

This is called a fish-in cycle. You need to measure both ammonia and nitrite every day, and whenever you have a reading for either of them above zero, do a water change.
A fish tank needs 2 colonies of bacteria to remove the ammonia excreted by the fish, and the nitrite made by the first bacteria. It takes a while to grow enough of them, and until there are enough, the fish keeper has to keep the fish safe by doing water changes.

There are things you can to to help.
Feed the fish every other day. Less food = less ammonia.
Add a good bacterial starter to speed things up
Add live plants to the tank as plants take up ammonia faster than bacteria and they don't turn it into nitrite.

 

[FishKeeper72]

This is called a fish-in cycle. You need to measure both ammonia and nitrite every day, and whenever you have a reading for either of them above zero, do a water change.
A fish tank needs 2 colonies of bacteria to remove the ammonia excreted by the fish, and the nitrite made by the first bacteria. It takes a while to grow enough of them, and until there are enough, the fish keeper has to keep the fish safe by doing water changes.

There are things you can to to help.
Feed the fish every other day. Less food = less ammonia.
Add a good bacterial starter to speed things up
Add live plants to the tank as plants take up ammonia faster than bacteria and they don't turn it into nitrite.

Ok thank you

 

[Slaphppy7]

This is called a fish-in cycle. You need to measure both ammonia and nitrite every day, and whenever you have a reading for either of them above zero, do a water change.
A fish tank needs 2 colonies of bacteria to remove the ammonia excreted by the fish, and the nitrite made by the first bacteria. It takes a while to grow enough of them, and until there are enough, the fish keeper has to keep the fish safe by doing water changes.

There are things you can to to help.
Feed the fish every other day. Less food = less ammonia.
Add a good bacterial starter to speed things up
Add live plants to the tank as plants take up ammonia faster than bacteria and they don't turn it into nitrite.

Essjay, I know there must be a TFF Sticky on Fish-In cycling here, but I have trouble finding it, can you please post that link here, so that I may Bookmark? It would help the OP, as well

 

[mcordelia]

You probably mean this one https://www.fishforums.net/threads/rescuing-a-fish-in-cycle-gone-wild-part-i.433769/

It can be found in the "cycle your tank" forum at the top.

For the OP, if you are able to, I recommend using Seachem prime as a water conditioner since it detoxifies ammonia and nitrites without penalizing the cycle (safer for the fish). I also recommend getting a bacterial starter If you can. Products like tetra safe start plus, Seachem stability and API Quick Start all generally work. Avoid products that are described as "helps break down fish waste" or "contains bacteria to help clean the aquarium". Instead, you want a product that says "helps jump start nitrogen cycle" or "establishes cycle in a new aquarium".

 

[Essjay]

In the cycling section there are 2 fish-in cycling stickies.
Part 1 mainly covers bacterial supplements and how to rehome fish down to a manageable level, or even all the fish to do a fishless cycle.
Part 2 is how to keep ammonia and nitrite at safe levels - ammonia by working out how much is in the toxic form so you know when to do a water change and when you don't need to; and nitrite by using salt to block nitrite binding to the blood cells, but this is quite a complicated calculation.

I think we do need something else though; something along the lines of do water changes, use a bacterial supplement, reduce feeding and add live plants. This is simpler to understand that the current part 2 stickie.

 

[Slaphppy7]

Thanks,

mcordelia and Essjay​