Please Help...all Fish Are Dying :-(

[waynelle]

Hope someone can please help, roughly a month ago we bought a 64 litre tank.
We left the tank 8 days before adding fish, which were 3 male guppies. We have since bought 8 neon tetra's and a number of other fish which is listed below.

Today we have suddenly lost 4 neons and our female fighter is lost a lot of colour and isn't very active at all, she just lies at the bottom of the tank, a few times we have thought she was dead. All of our other fish are fine but I'm worried about the rest of the fish.

Since buying the neon tetra's we have found out that you should leave your tank at least 6 months before adding neons so could this be why they are suddenly all dying?
We have noticed a few tiny white spots on 2 or 3 of them so we are just about to treat them for white spot so maybe this could be the problem too, or a combination of both?? They were fine one minute, then the next then were floating round in circles but still alive, just very very unsteady.

I hope somone can shed some light on this before we loose our fighter too

Thanks

 

[Harlequins]

You are in a fish in cycle,those 8 days have done nothing to start the cycle,you're tank is overstocked to handle the bio load of all those fish,What are your water readings for Ammonia,nitrite,nitrate and ph?

You need to do a water change before you lose your betta,

The more fish you added has upped the bio load and the filter is too new to break it down.

 

[razer121]

if i was you i would take all the fish back...or let someone hold onto them in there mature tank untill you cycle yours, its much better to cycle the tank without fish, do you know anything about cycling?

 

[waynelle]

Sorry, I should of mentioned that we added ammonia and bacteria as advised and the tank went through the normal cycle, went very misty for almost a week. We didn't add any fish until the water had cleared.

Thats the thing, we dont have a kit to test the nitrate,nitrite and ammonia.We are going to get a one either tomorrow or monday, but in the meantime would our LFS do this for us at a price?
We have a PH testing kit which is currently reading 7.5, is this ok?

if i was you i would take all the fish back...or let someone hold onto them in there mature tank untill you cycle yours, its much better to cycle the tank without fish, do you know anything about cycling?

Yeah as far as I'm aware, the tank has cycled. Please read my post above

 

[drobbyb]

A cycle takes weeks, not days. I suggest you read the pinned topics found here.

 

[razer121]

id suggest taking the read of the pinned topic, i might be new to fish keeping but already learning my stuff did an lfs tell you it takes a week to cycle.....lfs should (i say should lol) test the water for free, good luck on that mate

 

[vcmtik]

You need to buy a liquid test kit, such as API or Hagen to find out true results for your water quality. I was told the same story from my LFS and ever since I have been doing 30% water changes daily to get my nitrogen cycle going! If you can return the fish - i would send them back, and establish your cycle. Good luck - I'm on day 34 now, and still waiting for a successful cycle, if I had known about this website before - I would have done things so differently!

 

[OldMan47]

Short term emergency measure. Do a 70% water change right now using dechlorinator and temperature matching the new water to the tank. If the fish don't look much better 5 minutes after the water change, do another just as big. These two changes will bring down the ammonia or nitrites from whatever the current level is to less than 1/10 of the previous value, which should be enough to get some real water improvement. After the emergency water changes, get out and get that liquid testing kit.

 

[LittleMick]

Prevoius posters have given enough advice for you immediate situation but another to take into consideration is your stocking levels. Are you aware of how much you can put in a tank? If not here's some basic rules to go by. There are varying opinion on these so I'll list all 3 that I have heard.

1" of fish per 1 litre of water
1cm of fish per 1 litre of water
1 1/2cm of fish per 1 litre of water

You calculate this from teh fish's adult size, so going by that list you have above you have

3 mlae Guppies = 21cm (approx 7cm (adult size) per male)
8 Neon Tetras = 32cm (4cm per fish)
2 Black Mollies = 14cm (5 - 7cm per fish, dependent on sex)
1 Fighter = 7cm (5 - 7cm per fish, dependent on sex)
1 Honey Gourami = 4cm

Total 78cm, thats way too much livestock. With a 64 litres, even you if you go by the 1cm rule you should only have 64cm worth of livestock. And then you have to take into consideration any ornaments, plants etc. So you would knock that down even further.

Also, as the guys have said, it sounds like you added too many too soon. I was advised to never add more than 36cm woth of fish at any one time, but this is dependent on the size of your tank, the smaller the tank the harder it is to control the water quality. So you add only a few at a time, say 6 small fish (tetras) or 3 - 4 larger fish (mollies). I added 16 Cardinal Tetras to my 300 litre in one go and it overloaded the bio structure and with in 3 days they all died, plus the fact that I don't think they were to healthy to start with. With my 300 litre, what I did was pick a species, i.e. Platys, and I got 6, then left it for 2 weeks, check the water quality, then added 6 Mollies, 2 weeks, 10 Glowlight Tetra (big tank) and so fourth until my population cap had been reached.


Mick

 

[waynelle]

Prevoius posters have given enough advice for you immediate situation but another to take into consideration is your stocking levels. Are you aware of how much you can put in a tank? If not here's some basic rules to go by. There are varying opinion on these so I'll list all 3 that I have heard.

1" of fish per 1 litre of water
1cm of fish per 1 litre of water
1 1/2cm of fish per 1 litre of water

You calculate this from teh fish's adult size, so going by that list you have above you have

3 mlae Guppies = 21cm (approx 7cm (adult size) per male)
8 Neon Tetras = 32cm (4cm per fish)
2 Black Mollies = 14cm (5 - 7cm per fish, dependent on sex)
1 Fighter = 7cm (5 - 7cm per fish, dependent on sex)
1 Honey Gourami = 4cm

Total 78cm, thats way too much livestock. With a 64 litres, even you if you go by the 1cm rule you should only have 64cm worth of livestock. And then you have to take into consideration any ornaments, plants etc. So you would knock that down even further.

Also, as the guys have said, it sounds like you added too many too soon. I was advised to never add more than 36cm woth of fish at any one time, but this is dependent on the size of your tank, the smaller the tank the harder it is to control the water quality. So you add only a few at a time, say 6 small fish (tetras) or 3 - 4 larger fish (mollies). I added 16 Cardinal Tetras to my 300 litre in one go and it overloaded the bio structure and with in 3 days they all died, plus the fact that I don't think they were to healthy to start with. With my 300 litre, what I did was pick a species, i.e. Platys, and I got 6, then left it for 2 weeks, check the water quality, then added 6 Mollies, 2 weeks, 10 Glowlight Tetra (big tank) and so fourth until my population cap had been reached.


Mick

Thank you very much for your reply. I understand the stocking situation a lot better now as I have always struggled with knowing how much fish I could have. We no longer have 8 neon's though as we lost 4 yesterday

But I will certainly take note of what you have said.

Thanks

Short term emergency measure. Do a 70% water change right now using dechlorinator and temperature matching the new water to the tank. If the fish don't look much better 5 minutes after the water change, do another just as big. These two changes will bring down the ammonia or nitrites from whatever the current level is to less than 1/10 of the previous value, which should be enough to get some real water improvement. After the emergency water changes, get out and get that liquid testing kit.

Thank you, we will do that today and hopefully that will help. May have trouble getting out for a testing kit today with the great north run being on, all roads are closed so may have to wait until tomorrow


Thank you

 

[waynelle]

Just wondering if anyone can tell me if its free to get your water tested for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite at lfs?? Or is there a small charge?


Thanks

 

[crazychris]

Just wondering if anyone can tell me if its free to get your water tested for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite at lfs?? Or is there a small charge?


Thanks

Hi. Mine charges 50p for all the tests. Not a fortune really.

 

[waynelle]

Just wondering if anyone can tell me if its free to get your water tested for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite at lfs?? Or is there a small charge?


Thanks

Hi. Mine charges 50p for all the tests. Not a fortune really.

Hello - That's great. I'll pop there in the morning as we have lost 4 neons and now and a molly died suddenly today, seemed perfectly healthy

Another thing, the fish seem to be coming up to the top of the tank a lot and swallowing air bubbles out of the pump, is this normal or are they possible short of breath?

Thanks

 

[Harlequins]

They are probably sufferering from ammonia/nitrite poisoning?!

Have you done a big water change? if not do one immediately otherwise you may lose more fish.

 

[waynelle]

They are probably sufferering from ammonia/nitrite poisoning?!

Have you done a big water change? if not do one immediately otherwise you may lose more fish.

We are going to do this tomorrow morning, how much of a change, just 25% or more?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.