kribensis12
I know where you live
So, I'm starting to think that my fish tank is killing my fish (I know, sounds like I don't know anything and am the culprit) so I wanted to post this here and get input from others.
About a year ago, I set up a 10g tank and after cycling it, placed a beautiful, healthy pair of cockatoo apistogrammas for a breeding project. Within a day, they stopped eating. Within the next day they began to hover near the top. I placed additional aeration to the tank wondering if it was oxygen depravation. Within the next day, they lost their ability so control their bodies and died within hours of each other. For all the specifics, you can recount my loss here. After that incident I drained the tank and filled it back up and started all over)
Since that day, the 10g has been up and running without issue. I used it as a quarantine tank for a very sickly black ram cichlid (who made it!) and then for a breeding pair of golden ram cichlids. Those rams had a batch of babies and I moved the parents out.
Fast forward to now:
The ram fry have been doing very well. Extremely healthy, eating lots of baby brine shrimp and loving life. I have been prepping a 30g for them to be transferred to and two evenings ago did a 30% WC on the tank and added pure RO. The TDS of the tank was a bit higher than normal, so I didn't remineralize the RO. The next morning, all of the fish ate and acted normal except 1 - I found one small fry barely alive. Thinking it was just part of raising fry, I fed it to my breeding pair of cockatoo apistogramma. Yesterday evening I discovered all of the fry hanging to the very top of the tank. I immediately added aeration (sound familiar yet?) and within 30 minutes they were not near the top any more. Almost all of them looked very sickly - clamped fins with a white foggy color to the very tips of their fins (no growth though, like a fungus or fin rot). I immediately did a 50% water change (more R/O, this time remineralized so there would be no pH swing) and added it. I also dosed the tank with aquuarium salt (2 tsp per gallon) hoping that if it were some disease that it would help and also added a anti-bacterial fish medication (it uses essential oils - used it before; it's safe) hoping in my desperation SOMETHING would work.
This morning, I woke up to a graveyard. I had at least 15 fry dead, laying all over the bottom of the tank.
I immediately caught all of the remaining fry (probably 30) and began to acclimate them to the 30g (which uses the exact same water that the 10g has, all of my tanks do) and have since moved them over. I have since lost at least 5 more - but the ones that seemed somewhat okay seem to now be doing better.
So friends - is my 10g aquarium a killer or am I an idiot that managed to kill a breeding pair of cockatoos in their prime and now a large percentage of my prized ram fry?
To answer the same question everyone will have:
Parms: Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 0 (just did gravel vac with WC which is why its 0)
Temp: 87F
yes it's cycled
Did I add anything new to the tank? No, nothing has changed in 7 weeks.
About a year ago, I set up a 10g tank and after cycling it, placed a beautiful, healthy pair of cockatoo apistogrammas for a breeding project. Within a day, they stopped eating. Within the next day they began to hover near the top. I placed additional aeration to the tank wondering if it was oxygen depravation. Within the next day, they lost their ability so control their bodies and died within hours of each other. For all the specifics, you can recount my loss here. After that incident I drained the tank and filled it back up and started all over)
Since that day, the 10g has been up and running without issue. I used it as a quarantine tank for a very sickly black ram cichlid (who made it!) and then for a breeding pair of golden ram cichlids. Those rams had a batch of babies and I moved the parents out.
Fast forward to now:
The ram fry have been doing very well. Extremely healthy, eating lots of baby brine shrimp and loving life. I have been prepping a 30g for them to be transferred to and two evenings ago did a 30% WC on the tank and added pure RO. The TDS of the tank was a bit higher than normal, so I didn't remineralize the RO. The next morning, all of the fish ate and acted normal except 1 - I found one small fry barely alive. Thinking it was just part of raising fry, I fed it to my breeding pair of cockatoo apistogramma. Yesterday evening I discovered all of the fry hanging to the very top of the tank. I immediately added aeration (sound familiar yet?) and within 30 minutes they were not near the top any more. Almost all of them looked very sickly - clamped fins with a white foggy color to the very tips of their fins (no growth though, like a fungus or fin rot). I immediately did a 50% water change (more R/O, this time remineralized so there would be no pH swing) and added it. I also dosed the tank with aquuarium salt (2 tsp per gallon) hoping that if it were some disease that it would help and also added a anti-bacterial fish medication (it uses essential oils - used it before; it's safe) hoping in my desperation SOMETHING would work.
This morning, I woke up to a graveyard. I had at least 15 fry dead, laying all over the bottom of the tank.
I immediately caught all of the remaining fry (probably 30) and began to acclimate them to the 30g (which uses the exact same water that the 10g has, all of my tanks do) and have since moved them over. I have since lost at least 5 more - but the ones that seemed somewhat okay seem to now be doing better.
So friends - is my 10g aquarium a killer or am I an idiot that managed to kill a breeding pair of cockatoos in their prime and now a large percentage of my prized ram fry?
To answer the same question everyone will have:
Parms: Ammonia - 0, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - 0 (just did gravel vac with WC which is why its 0)
Temp: 87F
yes it's cycled
Did I add anything new to the tank? No, nothing has changed in 7 weeks.
!!!! I did not realize the fish were being cooked until I touched the water by hand. I lost 5 fish before I got everything back in proper order.
