Please Please Help

[emmzer]

please please help me i woke up this morning and all and i mean ALL of my fish are flicking on the sand..its been whenever i do a water change but then thats becos i stir up the sand a little trying to clean it, but this morning they have all been doing it...i checked my stats this morning and r recored below...but i completly cleaned the filter the other day and my stats where fine then. all i can see is lots of particles in the water


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Tank size: 2"x1"x1.5"
pH:7.6
ammonia:0.5
nitrite:0
nitrate: high...really highh...between the 100 mark and the 250
kH: 6
gH: 10
tank temp:80

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): as above

Volume and Frequency of water changes: wkly 1/3 change.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: active carbon and filter mess thingy

Tank inhabitants: 3 neons, 3 guppies, 3 zebra danios, 2 platies, 1 shrimp....4 apple snails

Recent additions to your tank ;4x apple snails

 

[black angel]

Apple snails are messy just like fish and require two gallons each so thats 8 gallons just for them. It looks like they have over loaded your filter and it is cycling.
As for the flicking, the nitrates will probably be causing this, so you need to do more water changes. I would do 60% today and 50% for a week to see if that helps.
What is the reading from the tap?

 

[Liam]

It’s the ammonia that is causing the flicking. The sand being stirred up wont cause any problems unless its like a heavy sand storm in there even then fish can deal with it. The nitrate reading may not be accurate; the tests are generally not very useful, even the best of them can get the reading wrong so the nitrate reading is unlikely to be that high. One of the liquid tests would give you a more accurate reading. Do some water changes daily, feed less until your filter catches up and you have zero ammonia and nitrite.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi emmzer

Is your tank new and still cycling? If not, perhaps you cleaned your filter too well and destroyed most of your beneficial bacteria. This would account for a rise in ammonia. Perhaps you have started a mini-cycle.

When you clean your filter be sure that you only rinse it out in used tank water, not under the tap. Filter media cleaned this way can last a long time.

Please get the nitrates down as quickly as you can even if this means twice daily water changes until it is made right. Also, if you test your tap water you will learn if you have high nitrates to begin with. If so, it will mean that you must either keep your stocking level low, do more frequent water changes, or maybe even both, depending on the amount of nitrates present in your water supply.