In Dispair And In Need Of Help

[Andymk]

Hi everyone,
Im new here and to put it bluntly, Im another foolish newbie in need of some advice with a failing fish in cycle.

A few weeks ago, the wife and I bought a new fish tank, a very small 20L as we only have a small flat.
Set it all up and after a few days, purchased some neon tetras.

Now I have read alot on here, and Ive been doing daily water changes of between 50% to 70%.
I also add in a measure of Nutrafin aqua plus during each change.
I feed once a day, after water change with a tiny pinch of flakes.
And Ive been doing daily kit tests, keeping an eye on ammonia and nitrites, which have always been very low.

Alas, within 2 weeks our handful of neons had died.
And to be fair, I was quite shocked, especially after doing daily water changes, and daily testing.
Ammonia and nitrites never got very high.

Anyway, impulsively I bought (actually the wife made me buy) a handful of guppies.
And no surprise, they're starting to die now aswell.

But here's the interesting thing. I really dont think (and Im a complete amateur so Im probably wrong) its a problem with
ammonia or nitrites.

This evening Ive found a dead guppy sadly, and horrified to notice that all the other guppies have white spots.
Two of them mainly have the spots over their tails, but the third is absolutely covered head to toe in them.
They also seem to spend alot of time laying at the bottom of the tank, very still.

So suddenly Im thinking maybe its a bacteria problem? And nothing to do with my daily changes?

Does anyone recognise what this might be, and if there's a way to cure it?
Im now thinking of doing a complete water change. But wondered if that alone will do any good.

Any response gratefully appreciated.


Andy

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Neons are not good fish for cycling. Neither are most fancy guppies. Keep up the testing and water changes.


The white spots might be ich. Hopefully someone else comes along with much more expertise than me with that. (I have none.)

 

[fluttermoth]

I doubt very much that it's any kind of bacterial problem; it's almost 100% certain that it's to do with have a small, uncycled tank.

When you say 'ammonia and nitrites never got very high' {my emphasis] be aware that any level of either of those two substances can be fatal to fish, plus the fact that neons do very poorly in newly set up tanks anyway.

You need to keep on water changing (sorry!) to keep them as close to zero as possibly; aim for having the ammonia going no higher than 0.25ppm before your next change.

The spots are whitespot or ich and is easily cleared up with a med from your LFS.

 

[Andymk]

To be honest, Ive never seen the ammonia go any higher than 0.25ppm.
And I literally change the water at the same time every day.
I'm happy to continue doing that though.
I'll get something for the ich aswell. Fingers crossed.

Thankyou.

 

[fishryummy]

be very careful with the Ich meds! they will ruin your cycle! the same thing that kills the ich parasites will kill the good bacteria in your filter! i just got done fighting ich in my tank, i used salt and it worked great! i got alot of good advice from the people here, if you click my name you'll find a link to my posts, click "is the ich gone?" to see what they told me. i'm doing a fish in cycle with guppys and so far they have been very hardy. get the ich cleared up as quickly as you can and i bet they'll be fine.

 

[fluttermoth]

I can't think of any whitespot meds that would wipe out your filter! I suppose it's possible; check on the bottle for one that won't. I know eSHa exit doesn't

 

[fishryummy]

plus all my seals got stained blue before i switched to salt. the meds were a huge hassle and didn't work for me. other people have had better results, but i'm never going back.

 

[drobbyb]

To help with the fish in cycle, buy a 100 ml bag of purigen and put it in you filter AFTER your media. This will take the ammonia out of the water (as well as any contaminants, this stuff is like super carbon but you can recharge and reuse it many times) and as long as it is after your biological media your filter will still cycle. Normally I don't recommend this for new tanks, however when treating for any diseases or parasites you need that water to be clean.

 

[StandbySetting]

The spots are whitespot or ich and is easily cleared up with a med from your LFS.

be very careful with the Ich meds! they will ruin your cycle! the same thing that kills the ich parasites will kill the good bacteria in your filter! i just got done fighting ich in my tank, i used salt and it worked great! i got alot of good advice from the people here, if you click my name you'll find a link to my posts, click "is the ich gone?" to see what they told me. i'm doing a fish in cycle with guppys and so far they have been very hardy. get the ich cleared up as quickly as you can and i bet they'll be fine.

White spot meds shouldn't as they're designed to kill a parasite and not bacteria, and even if the medication does contain some antibiotic, it depends on whether the treatment targets gram negative or gram positive bacteria as to what affect it will have.

 

[Andymk]

Well alas, the last two guppies died today. My tank is now lifeless and empty.
However, I decided to do some tests anyway and the results were surprising.
Bare in mind its a 20L tank and I replaced 70% of the water exactly 24 hours ago. (only two guppies were in there)

Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 2.0ppm (a deep purple)
Nitrate: 5.0ppm

So I guess it was the nitrite that probably killed them. But I was really shocked how high it is, depite 24 hour water changes.
Should I have been doing 100% water changes though?
Or maybe my filter is working properly yet?

Should I do a complete rinse of the tank, gravel n all, before starting fresh?
Or would I still need to treat the ich problem I had?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Your filter is not fully cycled yet. You are sitting in phase two of the cycle currently (nitrite spike). This is normal. In a fishless cycle (something that you should consider to finish cycling your filter), the first phase is when you add ammonia (NH3) and the A-bacs (those that process ammonia) "eat" through the NH3 and produce nitrite (NO2). The problem is that each 1ppm NH3 produces 2.7ppm NO2. The inevitable result is that the nitrites build up faster than the N-bacs (those that process nitrite) can multiply to keep up with it. Phase two is the nitrite spike, where the ammonia is processed quickly (24 hours or less) but the nitrites continue to build faster than the N-bacs can process it. Eventually they catch up and nitrite reaches zero. That marks the start of phase three with 12 hour testing. Once the ammonia and nitrite both process in 12 hours, you enter your qualifying week. 7 days of double zeros 12 hours after dosing and your filter is fully cycled.

If you are in the US, head over to Ace Hardware and get their janitorial strength ammonia. Use this to cycle your tank. In the UK, get your ammonia from Boots. Have a read through the fishless cycle thread, and don't fret about it too much. Unfortunately, a lot of folks don't get the right advice at the beginning of their aquarium hobby and have had similar experiences.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, it can indeed come as quite a shock how difficult a fish-in cycle can be to do successfully. For the aquarist it can be quite stressful. For the fish it is definately a matter of life and death if the conditions begin to wobble.

Learning about ammonia and nitrite and getting a hands-on feel for the core skill of biofiltration is a thing that helps make the difference between becoming a confident aquarist and staying a bit mystified about why tanks seem to often go wrong. You have an opportunity here.

As eagle mentions, proceeding on to your first fishless cycle would really broaden your knowledge of all this!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Hoppo]

cycle the tank and dont let the wife pressure you into getting anymore fish, until its properly cycled.

 

[Hoppo]

got a little carried away with hitting the post button, sorry everyone

 

[Hoppo]

Multi-post sorry