Please Help I Am So Close To Shutting My Tank Down !

[tomh1232]

Hey there i am in desperate need of help so i will
Gove you every detail i can to help you help me !

My name is tom i have had my 30gallon tank up and running since last november so in total 8 months but i did cycle the tank without fish but with plants for the first four weeks then i added 2 guppys then 2 weeks later another 2 and a pair of corys Then a month later i added 5 neon tetra then 2 weeks after that 2 yoyo loaches And then 2 weeks later i added some black tetra 4 of them so all together thats 3 months running with fish since i was new so of course learnt about water levels fast i have the a.p.i test master kit
Anyway then i left the tank for 3 months it was great the plants grew wild and the guppys had some
Fry i felt really happy that i managed to make a sucsessful environment for my fish then last week i added one more female guppy aswell as 4 endlers live bearers .
But since then i have lost ome cory
One loach 4/5 neon 3/4 black 3/4 2/4 endlers soo the first thing tat crossed my mind the first time i saw a dead fish was ok thats a shame i lost a tetra i know they are sensitive to water parameters so i got my test out and tested EVERYTHING ammonia 0 nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ph=7.3/7.4. So that in my head is pretty good for the water so i ruled that out. Then i thought even though my lfs is really reliable and more then willing to sort me out when i need help maybe one of the new fish have contaminated the tank so i separated then and watched them beery close for a good hour there were no sighns of ich and they were eating just fine swimming just fine so i ruled out this option then i checked my air supply to make sure that it was working and that it was not blowing any dangerous air into the tank everything is fine and my air supple is a big air wall down the back of the tank it is programmed into a remote plug that turns the air on every half hour throughout the day for 5 minuets so this with the live plants should mean no oxygen problems so i really dont know wat is happening but if all these fish go i think i might pack it in i cant deal with the heartbreak annymore just going to bed wondering who is going to be dead tomaro Please please help me !!!

 

[Wills]

Hi Tom, sorry to hear your having a tough time!
 
If I had to guess I would say it is the new fish you added that have brought something into the tank.
 
Do your fish have any other symptoms? Red patches, red streaks, tatty fins, cloudy eyes, pop eye, gasping, clamped fins?
 
Did any of the dead fish have white patches on them? Did you notice any of the fish that died acting strange before they died? Did they hide, gasp or stay near the surface?
 
THE most important thing to do is to stay calm! It sucks when tanks go wrong but there are often solutions even if it takes a while and you will get back to a point where your tank is thriving again The second most important thing is to learn from when things like this happen - the lesson being this time (maybe) dont go back to that shop...
 
Wills

 

[tomh1232]

no the fish were fine  i caught the one loach like flopping on the bottom but he is still alive and well he is just wierd and has always done it  could it be to hot in their because the temprature in the room they have been in for the last 2/3weeks  somedays has been 30-35 degrees  with 70+%humidity  could a heatwave wipeout my tank ?
 

 

[star4]

Loaches do have a habbit of lying on their sides on the bottom, it still has me rushing to the tank to check when my clown loach do it, that is normal behaviour.
 
What is your water temperature? if your tank is too hot you can put a bottle of cold water by the air pump, this will draw in cool air into the tank.
 
What water changes do you do? It could be a bacterial infection that is being passed from fish to fish, this you cannot test for and sometimes there is no indication until you start seeing dead fish. You could try a couple of things. You could try and boost the fish's immune system with soaking their food in Vitazin (made by waterlife) and increase your water changes to try and remove bacteria present in the water, or you could try a general purpose medication Esha 2000 is very good to use when you have no idea what the cause is. I have used it successfully in the past when I have taken on fish with little knowledge of their background.

 

[Lateral Line]

Couple of things struck me right away. That is a warm tank, very warm. Why is it that warm? Oxygen is less soluable in warmer water, I'd turn the air on full time to keep the surface agitated. Second thing is your water stats, Ammonia and nitrite should be close to zero, but biological filtration converts ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, where is the nitrate going? Okay, plants will use some of it, but never all. Yet your reading is zero?

 

[the_lock_man]

Couple of things struck me right away. That is a warm tank, very warm. Why is it that warm? Oxygen is less soluable in warmer water, I'd turn the air on full time to keep the surface agitated. Second thing is your water stats, Ammonia and nitrite should be close to zero, but biological filtration converts ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, where is the nitrate going? Okay, plants will use some of it, but never all. Yet your reading is zero?

 
Hi, LL - I think the OP was referring to air temperature, not water temperature, I don't see any confirmation of water temperature.
 
Tom, if you could confirm what the water temp is, that would be good. Also, to address LL's other point about nitrate, can you retest this, please, but shake the living daylights out of bottle no.2, for at least 5 minutes, maybe bang the bottle on a table a few times too. The API nitrate test is notorious for giving false zeros. There is a powder reagent in there which has an annoying habit of precipitating out of solution, and it takes an awful lot of shaking to get the powder to re-dissolve.

 

[tomh1232]

I was on about the room temp by the way sorry for bot bieng more clear i thought that by mentioning the room and a heatwave would of been enough but i am reffering to the Room temp due to the weather outside bieng crazy for my city this time of year and today it is 92 i know the ideal temp for the fish i have is roughly 72-74 my tank is out of the sun and today is one of the cooler days of the week so on a bad day im guessing nearly 100 maybe more and thankyou for the tip with the kitt also my filter has a waterfall effect so it is always blowing air and good water back into the tank 100% of the time. My nitrate level is between yellow and just abit less then oramge so id say 0.1 - 0.3

 

[the_lock_man]

Tom, you still haven't confirmed the actual water temperature. Air temperature will affect water temperature a bit, but if air temp is 100degrees, that does not mean that water temperature is 100degrees. Water changes temperature much more slowly than air. Lateral Line is right about higher water temperatures having less dissolved oxygen.
 
You might want to check that nitrate level - the nitrate test isn't designed to measure in tenths of a ppm.