Lowisuzu's Tank Odyssey

[LowIsuzu]

Hi all, im new to this forum, found it only today. wish i had found it earlier.

my story is...
i eventually want a 4ft tank, but have inheritted a small tank, which has 25 litres of water in it. i set the tank up One week ago, small filter, heater, gravel etc. i went out and bought a PH and water hardness (GH) test kit. i got PH to about 7, hardness about 110, kept the tank running this way for almost a week. bought 6 Neon tetra's, let the bag sit in the water for about half an hour, then put the fish ONLY into tank (no Fish shop water). they looked to be doing great for the first day, the next morning, 2 of them died and got sucked up against the filter. several hours later, another one looked very ill. stopped moving and started floating around under the water with the current. it kept coming good again, and i eventually put it out of its misery. (this was yesterday).
i went back to the fish shop, and they found it very odd that the fish died so soon, they tested my water, and said it is near perfect (i dont know which tests she did...), shed gave me 3 serpae tertra's for free, telling me they are much more hardy.

this morning, i found another Neon stuck to the filter. another had been hiding under my drift wood all day, and the last one just stays in the same spot in the tank, doesnt move from that spot. are they just doing this because they are lonely as they are a schooling fish?
should i replace the dead neons so my remaining neons have some friends to swim with? are there anough serpae for my 3 to be happy?

as i said above, i wish ih ad found this forum earlier, i have already spotted many mistakes made, i had no idea about nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, etc.
should i go out and buy a testing kit for these and see if there are any problems in those area's?

here is a pic of my tank, you can see the 3 serpae in the foreground, 1 neon up the back on the right, and the other neon sits under that driftwood...

 

[toshapetriji]

You certainly need to get kits to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I would recomment API liquid test kits. In addition you should take a look at the sticky for fish in cycling to get you through this stage. Personally I would try returning the fish to your LFS and start a fishless cycle, much less stress for you and the fish.

 

[Tag2008]

Hi There,

I had exactly the same thing when I set up my small 60 l tank and decided to do a fish in cycle like id always done in the past...

I expected it to be a slow 4-8 week process and got some mollys to do the work for me....

Within 24 hours 2 died and within 48 hours the rest were gone bar 1.. she was fine for a few days then the same happened to her...

My water specs were great, did tests with the API kits and all was well as far as i could see with the water, but clearly summat was not ready..

No one could help me figure out what had happened to the fish the LFS was puzzled the same as yourself fast deaths with no symptoms the novices eye could pick up on...

So Im doing the fishless cycle and for the sake of your stress levels and the fish's Id reccomend putting them back to the shop and do a fishless cycle..

My big Tank took 2 weeks roughly to do and it this way and was mad tesing the water twice a day but its better than killing your fish huh..

Good luck..

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there LowIsuzu and to TFF,

When nice hardy Serpae tetras go way down there and sit in the corner, you can suspect that things truly aren't too good for them!

That's a nice looking setup there in your picture and you've come at it quite nicely, so its a shame to have missed getting to learn a bunch of good things here before getting so far. But better late than never!

You've got a classic case of not knowing about the nitrogen cycle and struggling with a completely uncycled tank. You need to perform emergency water changes (there are some details to this which I hope the members will help you with) and yes, you need to pick up a good liquid-reagent based test kit quite soon. I agree with toshapetriji, most of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. Test both your tap water and your tank water and post up here.

To start off your reading (if you haven't already been there) I would recommend the Beginners Resource Center, Cycling Resource Center, articles by Miss Wiggle and AlienAnna. If you can find any post of Miss Wiggle, she has many good links in her sig at the bottom of each post.

There should also be links about good water change technique, but if you have troubles with that, the members will be sure to help - just describe exactly what you propose to do for the water change before doing it.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[LowIsuzu]

No more fishies dead today, but one Neon has lost most of its tail fin.... uh oh. its having a bit of trouble moving around, it had to wiggle its whole body, but still seems to get around, should i put it out of its misery???

so also i bought an API master test kit today,
test results as follows.


Tap Water

PH - 7.4
GH - 89.5
Ammonia - 0 - 0.25
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate (if you cant read the cards....)



Aquarium Water

PH - 6.5
GH - 130
Ammonia - 0.75ppm
Nitrite - 0.25
Nitrate - 2.5

PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate (if you cant read the cards....)


Much advice needed.

 

[shelaghfishface]

do a water change say 30% to get the ammonia down and nitrite, then test after an hour or so, you will need to do regular water changes ,daily even twice daily, to keep the levels down.

tank looks beautuful by the way
welcome to TFF

shelagh xxxx

ps dont forget to add back declorinated water and match the temp ( as close as can be without fussing too much)

 

[Corleone]

It could be tail rot. Neon tetras are fairly sensitive, and being through a cycle always brings higher risk of disease.

You're in a bit of a hard spot for fish-in cycling. Generally, you don't want ammonia or nitrite to exceed 0.25, but with your tap water, .25 is the lowest you'll be able to get it through water changes, and the effect of water changes will be counteracted.

When the tank is established, with ammonia in the tap water, the usual solution is to do smaller water changes more often (10% twice a week instead of 20% once, for example), but in a cycle it'll be the opposite: You'll have to do more water changes to keep ammonia as low as you can get it.

 

[shelaghfishface]

is there meant to be ammonia in the tap water corleone??? i have never tested mine for it as i didnt think so, water boards can get away with anything

 

[Corleone]

is there meant to be ammonia in the tap water corleone??? i have never tested mine for it as i didnt think so, water boards can get away with anything

His tests showed .25 from the tap. It's unusual, but it does happen in some places, just like nitrate and nitrite in tap water. If you have chloramine, there might be some left in the water after you dechlorinate, too.

 

[LowIsuzu]

should i do another test for ammonia on the tap water?

i just did my first water change. oh what fun that was, the serpae's loved the gravel vac, they wanted to play with it... or eat it..

 

[Corleone]

It would be a good idea to test again and confirm. There are people on the forum who have .25 from the tap, and my state legally allows up to .50, though I've never gotten any reading from my own.

 

[shelaghfishface]

ahh right, thats not good, ill test mine at some point today, thanks for that

 

[LowIsuzu]

just did another ammonia test on the Tap water, and this time the results were much better, it was much closer to 0 then 0.25ppm. lets just say it is 0.

 

[LowIsuzu]

so, test no.2 after water change.

Aquarium Water

PH - 66.7
GH - 107
Ammonia - 0.4ppm
Nitrite - 0?
Nitrate - 0-1.5?

should i increase the hardness level with a small ammount of salt?
should i increase the PH level with some sodium bi-carb i have from another PH Test kit i have??


so, am i looking at this the right way? The ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels have dropped due to the water change i did, the PH has gone up because the PH of my tap water is higher then my tank water, and the GH is now softer due to my tap water being softer?

 

[LowIsuzu]

also, on a quick note, how should i be cleaning out my little test tubes after doing a test in them? i have just been rinsing them out well with tap water, and shaking as much of the water out that i can....