Is This Bad?

[Genesis]

I bought 4 swordtails on Saturday, 3 were fine but one looked sickly from the beginning and spent from then till now moping at the bottom of the aquarium.
I woke up to find him dead this morning and immediately phoned up the shop that I bought him from.
They told me that they only do a 48hr guarantee and my water must be bad.

I just tested my water and here are my results:
PH - 8
Nitrate - 0ppm
Nitrite - 0.2ppm
Ammonia - 0ppm


I don't think they are that bad.. are they?

 

[orange shark]

you shouldnt have any nitrite in your water as it's poisonous to fish...

also have you checked your test kits are right because its very difficult to keep nitrates down to 0

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup nitrite should always be at 0, it could have been caused by the dead fish starting to decompose in the water though. do you test regularly? Do you opften have a nitrite reading or is this unusual?

 

[Genesis]

you shouldnt have any nitrite in your water as it's poisonous to fish...

also have you checked your test kits are right because its very difficult to keep nitrates down to 0

The nitrate was something like 0.05 which is near enough 0

yup nitrite should always be at 0, it could have been caused by the dead fish starting to decompose in the water though. do you test regularly? Do you opften have a nitrite reading or is this unusual?

I don't test very regularly, perhaps once a month.
I don't often have a nitrite reading, no.


I'll be doing a 30% water change tonight.




I also just started adding plant ferts, could that be causing the nitrite?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

do a large water change now which will get rid of all/most of the nitrite. then test every day for the next 2 weeks, if the nitrite goes away by itself within a day or so then it's just from the dead fish, if it doesn't then you have a problem and you need to resolve it. If the tank's been running a while then it won't be cycling it'll be something like the tank being overstocked so the filter can't cope or not enough cleaning so uneaten food is giving off excess ammonia.

just monitor closely and do lots of water changes if you see any ntirite

 

[Genesis]

do a large water change now which will get rid of all/most of the nitrite. then test every day for the next 2 weeks, if the nitrite goes away by itself within a day or so then it's just from the dead fish, if it doesn't then you have a problem and you need to resolve it. If the tank's been running a while then it won't be cycling it'll be something like the tank being overstocked so the filter can't cope or not enough cleaning so uneaten food is giving off excess ammonia.

I doubt the filter(s) can't cope with the stocking.
It's a Jewel Rio 180 (180 litres) stocked with 3 swordtails, 1 rtbs, 1 bosemani rainbowfish, 1 'disc tetra', 1 angelfish and 3 corydoras plus I'm running a Fluval 204 external as well as the standard Jewel internal.
If anything, it's understocked.
The tank's been running for 3 years.


I'll get to that water change this evening.

 

[rossyboy]

I wouldn't just assume it's the water. That's the first thing the LFS will obviously suggest, but it could have been ill already, could have died from the stress of moving from the store to your aquarium... a whole list of things could have cause it singely or even in combination.

 

[Genesis]

I wouldn't just assume it's the water. That's the first thing the LFS will obviously suggest, but it could have been ill already, could have died from the stress of moving from the store to your aquarium... a whole list of things could have cause it singely or even in combination.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty BS when he said it was my water.
The fish was obviously in a bad state already, it was already listless and lethargic before the water even had much time to affect it, still what can you do?