Newby

[s.lindsay338]

my daughter was recently given a fish tank from her grandmother as a birthday present, she had been pestering me 4 months 2 get her 1 and i allways declined as i knew nothing about them...
the tank is now set up and has been 4 nearly 2 weeks now but ALL OF OUR FISH SEEM 2 B DYING.......
i have done a lot of research but still dont know what i am doing wrong....

the tank when we got it had 20 neons and within 3 days they were reduced 2 9. having now read up about stress/ph levels etc i purchased a testing kit, did the neccesarry and then added 8 guppy's and another 10 neons. they all seemed 2 settle in nicely but over the last 2 days 2 of neons and 2 of my guppy's have died.........

watching the male guppy from yesterday i noticed that his back fins seemed to be dis-appearing, he was swiming slow and hiding behind plants.. a sign i now now suggests tailrot.........

when i got up this morning unfortunately the fish had died, and i have noticed that another one of the guppy's is having the same problem with its tail.......
the rest of the guppy's seem to b moving a lot slower so i fear they are coming down with it 2..........

so i did more reading on the subject and came across an artical about adding salt to the water..... unfortunatelt the artical was not as clear cut as the rest that i have now read and as a result of this i added normal cooking salt 2 my fish tank as i thought this was the best way 2 help my fish there and then........

p.s by this time 3 of the guppy's were now showing slowed reactions and were hovering in the top of the tank........

it wasn't untill i read the follwing pages these included that i thought have i done the right thing, especially as i have neons in the tank and the seemingly r not so tollerant of salt. this made me panic and i then went and changed half the tank of water ......

which now seems after reading the above pages seems like the wrong thing to have done...........


by the way the salt was normal cooking salt i have a 54 litre tank and added 10 t spoons of salt.........

will all my fish b dead by the morning...................

any advice wkd b appreciated............... newby xxxxxxxxxxx

 

[Viettxboii]

your tank sounds uncycled, and slightly overstocked, i reccomend returning hte fish to the store ,and trying a fishless cycled thats pinned
Also neon tetras arent particularly hardy, as they are sensitive to water quality, for your tank i would reccomend zebra danios nad white cloud mountain minnows
ah also you have a test kit , could you give us some exact readings it could help us greatly =]
Also seeing that yoru tank is 54 litres=14 US gallons approx, you can fit 1 inch of small fish per gallon, and thats when their matures, so using that your tank can only fit 7 neon tetras safely though

 

[Rednuts]

Hmmm
i would agree with the above,return the fish,if there still alive.
Next clean out tank.
and start again.
follow this here

 

[Lorna]

Hi, I made the same mistake as you and didnt cycle my tank before adding fish.
If your fish are still alive I would change 50%, and do 10% water changes every day after that.
Are you using a dechlorinater? If not I suggest you buy some. Stress cost is good. I am not sure about using cooking salt in your tank I have heard of aquarium salt I think people add this to the water to stop infection.

Keep checking all your levels at the same time every day, make sure the PH level is right for the fish between 7.0 - 7.5 mine was really high 8.4 and my fish nearly died I had to lower it using a product called PH down.

Thats all I can suggest,

 

[lilfishie]

follow what is said HERE the best you can, it may be a lot but its the best way to try keep your fish alive

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Most likely Ammonia/Nitrite poisoning. Did you get a test kit just for pH, or did you get a test kit for Ammonia, Nitrites, and Nitrates as well? Could you please post your test results and what kind of test kit you are using (strips or liquid)?

Changing 50% or less of the water is generally not harmful to your fish unless it rapidly changes the temperature or pH. If the cause of the other fishy deaths was Ammonia and/or Nitrite poisoning then that water change helped by diluting the toxins in the water.

Remember that fish have to eliminate waste just like every other living creature. That waste goes into the water, and in nature is removed by bacteria. In a newly set-up tank however, those bacteria are not present, or there are not enough bacteria to break down all the waste from the fish. Thus why it is important to cycle your tank before fully stocking it. It is also important to do regular water changes in your tank after it has cycled (~25% a week) - to keep the water clean and your fish as healthy as possible. ^^

If the pet store will not take back the fish, you may be able to save some of them, but it will take a lot of time and work! You must test the waters Ammonia and Nitrite levels daily (possibly more than once per day depending on how many fish are still alive), and regularly change the water to keep the Ammonia and Nitrite below .25 ppm. In a fully cycled tank there should be 0 ppm of both Ammonia and Nitrite! I had to do three 50% changes to get my mothers 30 Gal back to an acceptable level after 3 of her fish died, and now a 20% change every 12 hours to keep everything in acceptable levels until her tank finishes cycling! So as you can see, too many fish in an un-cycled tank means a lot of extra work.

DO NOT forget the water conditioner!!! The chlorine in tap water will kill the bacteria that breaks down Ammonia and Nitrites so it's very important that chlorine be removed.