New Fish Died

[charlesh]

Hello everyone. Let me explain what recently happened to me. I purchased a new 29 gallon aquarium kit one month ago. After setting it up, I waited two weeks and bought 6 platties and one catfish. The fish ate well, and seemed to do well for the first few days, but soon the platties started resting on the bottom of the tank. Then they would swim around my airator with closed fins, and stay near the top of the tank. Last Friday I noticed white spots on one of the platties and immediately started a treatment with Aquari-sol. Well since that time, all 6 platties have died (last Saturday and Sunday), and the lone catfish remains. I am still treating the water every morning with Aquari-sol.

Questions: 1) With all the fish dead except the catfish how long do I need to continue treating the tank for what I think is Ich? (The catfish looks like it is in very good health, and never did look sick). 2) What causeed Ich?. (I tried to be very careful with buying fish and the aquarium was brand new. 3) I am using Aquari-sol, but are there better medications to treat this parasite? 4) How long before I can buy new fish and put them in the tank? Thanks for any answers to these questions. (I'm a newbie to this if you can't tell). -Chuck

 

[Changes-In-Latitude]

Hi Chuck,
here's what sounds like happened. Your tank wasn't cycled. What that means is that there wasn't an established presence of certain bacterias that break down ammonia and nitrite. Ammonia is excreted by fish and is deadly poisonous to them. So under these circumstances your fish were in a stressed state and their immunity defenses were weakened. Ich is almost always present in a tank, especially if you added the water from the fishstore that your fish came in to your tank. Under good water conditions fish are able to fend off ich. Summary so far:

Tank not cycled
Fish stressed
Immune systems weakened
Fish get ich

What to do now: There's tons of info on the web about cycling a tank so read up on it. Get your tank cycled with readings of zero ammonia and nitrites and nitrates 20 ppm or below if you can. Then slowly stock your tank over the course of a few weeks. If you can afford to set up a quaranteen tank you'll avoid many problems in the future.

Welcome to TFF and to aquarium keeping where patience, water quality, and a desire to learn are the names of the game

 

[Moe]

I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to your fish. The same thing happened to me when I got my first tank. If your tank is new you need to cycle it. You can do this with a few hearty fish or do a fishless cycle using ammonia. Your fish probably died due to high ammonia and nitrite levels. When the ammonia or nitrate get high it harms the gills of the fish. They get stressed, get ick and die. It probably was not the ick that killed them it was probably the ammonia. If you go to the top of the beginner forum there is a great article about new tank syndrome and how to cycle a tank the right way. I think there is also a pinned article on fishless cycle. If you can bring the catfish back to your local fish store you may want to try going fishless.
If your are not going fishless. You will need to treat the tank for ich for a full 10 days. Then I'd wait a week or two and let things settle down. Then you can add 2 fish every other week until the tank is stocked. I would keep a close eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels in the beginning. You can get a test kit at your local fish store or most of them will test your water for free if you bring in a sample.
It is really hard in the beginning. I made all the same mistakes. Here is a link to a great site that explains the nitrogen cycle in new aquariums.
http/www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cl...&articleid=2657
After you read all this stuff keep posting your questions!

 

[G_Sharky]

I made the same mistakes when i first started out, I didn't know about the cyclilng process and stock my 10 G right away and lost almost all my fish. Does your catfish have ick on him cause you should really use medication until your tank is well establish as i think some medication actually can kill some beneficial bacteria. When all my fish with ick died i stop the medication and put the carbon back until it was cycle and when the readings hit 0 there is no sign of ick on any of the survivors, i even added 2 clown loach and until now they're ick free. Just my 2 cents, Good Luck

 

[charlesh]

Thank you. You are all giving me very valuable advice. Just to let you know, before I placed the fish in the tank I took a water sample to PetSmart and they tested the water, saying it all looked good. -Chuck (in Illinois)