My Fish Don't Seem Right.

[thisguyek]

hi all

I'm new to the forum concept, but I'm getting quite desperate to figure out what is going on with my tank. I recently upgraded my 10 gal to a 55 gal about a month and a half ago. Ever since I've added new fish I've had nothing but problems. First I got a large group of zebra danios, and then a large group of neon tetras. Both groups were bought in two smaller groups over the course of 6 weeks. Original tank mates consist of one platy and one large pleco.

Over the last three weeks all of my fish seem to be sick/dying. One of my danios had a noticeably curved spine. It seemed to appear after the purchase, because I didn't notice it at the store. Several other danios had their scales 'flared' out. I'm not sure if that's referred to as 'pine coned', but they all died usually the next day after I notice it. I would say that I'm down to over 50% of my original stock.

My tetras on the other hand, I notice unusual behavior at night. Some float through the tank as if dead, letting the current blow them wherever it will. With a blast of energy, they cartwheel in one spot, flipping in 4-5 tight circles, and then resume floating. (upside down, sideways, vertical, horizontal). During the day they are rarely out swimming, usually only 15 min after feeding(which is once a day as of late), otherwise they sit at the back corner of the tank on towards the bottom. I seem to have one main school, a smaller school, and then a few singles...

Water parameters are good IMO. ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate around 10, water is hard, Ph seems to be stable(but I'm not sure if its just to high to where I can't determine fluctuations on the test strips)

I recently added some bubble curtains and a UV sterilizer. Someone suggested oxygen deprivation... but they don't gulp at the surface.

I apologize for the length of this post, but i wanted to include as much info as I could to help you experts help me! Any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks for your time.

 

[anon02]

In my opinion your filter may not be cycled and the test strips you are using can be inaccurate

 

[Joshwainwright]

What you should do is go out and purchase an API master test kit which costs around £20. With this you will be able to accurately determine your water parameters so we can find the problem.

 

[thisguyek]

I was wondering if it wasn't completely cycled. One of my buddies suggested that as well. When I upgraded to my 55gal, i brought over my old filter and decor. I was under the impression that by moving all of that stuff along with, i basically had a 'cycled' tank, because my filter media was mature. Could moving that into the larger tank 'kill' off the bacteria from being more diluted?

On a somewhat upbeat note... my tetras were actually out and about today for a good portion of the day.

Any other comments appreciated!

 

[hillmar77]

The fishes you purchased are some of the most common and main stream fishes out in the market, So they could have brought in diseases when you put them in your tank. That's why I can not stress this enough, you should quarantine any fish you buy at a LFS unless you are positive of the fish's health. The quality has been so poor at my local petsmart, that I have to purchase some of my fish's at 3 times the price from a breeder for better quality specimens.

 

[anon02]

I was wondering if it wasn't completely cycled. One of my buddies suggested that as well. When I upgraded to my 55gal, i brought over my old filter and decor. I was under the impression that by moving all of that stuff along with, i basically had a 'cycled' tank, because my filter media was mature. Could moving that into the larger tank 'kill' off the bacteria from being more diluted?

On a somewhat upbeat note... my tetras were actually out and about today for a good portion of the day.

Any other comments appreciated!

Depending on the volume turnover of the mature filter there may not be enough turnover to handle the bioload of the 55 gal. I would say it will be about a month before the new filter starts to help out, until then regular testing and water changes are your best bet. When you can go 2 days without needing to change any water because your tests are clear, your new filter will be cycled

 

[thisguyek]

thanks for the comments!

to hillmar77: what if i do not have the resources for a quarantine tank? is there anything else i could do to help prevent a breakout? (sorry, i dont know how to do that quote thing)



The thing is... for the longest time i haven't had any signs of ammonia or nitrite, even when i had my 10 gal. I know that i've gone through a couple sets of test strips since the last time i can remember either one of them showing up. they ALL couldn't have been bad strips... Even when i started adding fish to my 55 gal, i never experienced a spike in ammonia or nitrite... which i really expected to happen. that's why i was convinced something else was wrong with my tank. I have been testing every 2-3 days and doing about a 25% water change every week.

Again, no other physical signs of disease, other than those stated in my original post.

 

[thisguyek]

just a quick update...

over the last couple of days, my tetras seem to be coming around. I've noticed them out swimming in the large group more times than not now. Could things be possibly looking up for me? I think this weekend I'm going to get a couple guppies and see how they do. I will keep you posted.

 

[Joshwainwright]

Great to hear the tetras are improving. Don't be afraid to post some photos!

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to our forum TG-EK.
By moving your mature filter to the new tank, you have in essence made the new tank able to deal with the fish loading of the old tank. Unfortunately you have added far more fish than that other tank ever had. That means that you are in some intermediate state between a fully cycled tank and a new uncycled tank. If you had started at your original fish stocking and added to it slowly, you might have gotten away with considering the upgrade as nothing more than a case for adding some fish. By adding major numbers of fish at a time, you instead have overloaded your bacterial colonies and your tank was unable to deal with that overload. Where you ended up is in a situation much akin to a fish-in cycle with a bit of help from that transferred filter.
Contrary to what you have posted, I doubt that your true ammonia and nitrite readings are zeros. If you are not using a liquid type test kit, I can understand your inability to measure the real impact of your actions so far. Often test strips are interpreted to be what we want them to be since the colors are not well enough defined. Where I would be headed in your situation is to do huge water changes on that tank in an effort to keep the water chemistry good.
I am going out on a limb here and will suggest that you only have enough bacteria in your tank to consider it cycled for a small population of fish. To me that means that anything more than that small fish population is an overload. That in turn means that you must take things slowly when deciding how to stock your new tank. Let me put myself on the line here, I am going to say definitively that if you approach stocking slowly from the original stock level, you will have no more troubles with your fish.