Sterbai Died....

[flemmyemmy]

Hi all,

I got up this morning and one of my lovely sterbai's had died, there were no signs of illness on him and all the other fish seem ok.

The tank levels are :

Nitrate 40ppm
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
PH 8.2 (this has shot up since sunday when it was 7.5)

Any advice? i dont want to lose any more fish

Thanks
Em x

 

[BigIan]

the hike in ph worrys me as do your high nitrates, i would certainly do a water change and keep a close eye on the fish untill you can diganose it better.

 

[flemmyemmy]

Im worried about the high PH too, i have already done a 20% water change this morning.

As for the Nitrate my testing kit says anything under 40ppm is ok, is this wrong?

 

[BigIan]

i tend to keep mine under 25, (although it rarely registers as the planst seem to soak it up) but the lower the better with it.

have you recently added anything nbew to the tank stone woods ect) i`m going to guess that it was shock from the ph hike that killed the cory

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Im worried about the high PH too, i have already done a 20% water change this morning.

As for the Nitrate my testing kit says anything under 40ppm is ok, is this wrong?

40 is fine if it's steadily at that. Might be an idea to test your tap water and see what teh nitrates in that are. If the fish are used to it and steadily kept at that level it shouldn't be a problem. But a sudden rise could definately cause problems.

 

[Bloo]

Erm - I start with tapwater Nitrates of around 40ppm (or 50 on a bad day) - and my pH is anything from 7.4 - 8.4

So unless I go RO and the chemical route, there's not much I can do about it.

We should all strive to keep our fish in ideal conditions for *them* - but if the are acclimatised properly, there should be little reason for them not to fare well. They may however not breed unless the circumstances are right (for them).

How long have you had your Sterbai ?

 

[flemmyemmy]

I haven't added anything new to the tank, although the cories are fairly new to it, they were added only 2 weeks ago.

I will test my tapwater and add some PH Down.

Thanks for all your advice
Emx

 

[Bloo]

6 Are quite a lot to add to a fairly "small" tank in one go. Also, I get the impression this tank hasn't been up and running that long - seeing that you only have 4 platties in there with them. Were the platties used to cycle the tank recently ?

Ps: sorry I just went back and checked your post history - and see you started your fishless cycle on the 7th of June. Which would have meant your tank would only have finished the cycle around end June (though I haven't checked through your posts) - which means your tank is little over 8 weeks old

In my opinion, it's a lot to expect of such an extremely young tank. Sterbai aren't the most robust of corys either - especially if wild caught. I think there lies your problem. Too much too soon and unstable water conditions - especially if using things such as pH down.

What is your natural tap pH ?

 

[Kuhni]

Sorry to hear about your loss, My Sterbais Sleepy and Prickle died and It's hard to lose such cute funny little fish.

 

[flemmyemmy]

I only added the Cories on the advice of people on this site, i was originally going to leave the 20g with just the platies as i am waiting for my vision 260 to be delivered and then i was going to slowly build up the larger tank, i was told by people on here it would be a good idea to add the cories to make the filter work harder so that my new tank would cycle quicker.

I wouldnt deliberatly put any of my fish into danger just to cycle a tank. I originally did a fishless cycle for a month then added the platies, all levels in the tank were fine so like i said on advice i added the cories.

Emx

 

[Bloo]

Some fish tend to do a lot better in mature tanks (around 6 months or so) - as in my experience Sterbai are one of those. I also see that your little corys are only half an inch each - which are just teensy tiny, so not a massive inpact on bio-load. Though it could be that they just cannot yet cope all that well with a young unstable tank where pH down is being used.

 

[flemmyemmy]

I haven't actually used PHdown yet/before. Is it advisable not to use it?

Is Ph something you can bring down just with water changes?

Emx

 

[Bloo]

It's very good that you haven't used it - and I wouldn't, as chemical additives that can cause an even further unstable pH, is not advisable.
But as I say - it's still a very young tank very much still in the process of maturing.

Peat (in the filter) or bogwood will naturally lower a pH slightly and generally slowly.

What is the temperature of your water ?

What is your tank / water cleaning schedule ?

What and how often do you feed ?

Do you have any live plants in your tank ?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi flemmyemmy

One of the problems with buying very young fish is that they are more fragile than adults and there is always a chance that they will not all reach maturity. Corys make big spawns as nature's way of compensating for this. It's possible that this single fish was just weaker than the others. In this case, I don't think that was the problem

It's not only that your pH is too high, its sudden rise is alarming. That alone is enough to kill a fish. If you added enough chemicals to bring it crashing down, that could be a problem too.

Before you do anything else, please test your water straight out of the tap, for pH and nitrate, so we will know what you are working with.

As for the cycling; if you did a fishless cycle, and added fish right away, it's cycled just as if it was cycled naturally, with fish and that shouldn't have resulted in this situation. Since you have no ammonia or nitrite, that does not appear to be a problem.

A sudden change in pH could be the result of contamination. Is it possible that a cleaning product or air freshener spray could have gotten into the water? Are there any little kids in the house?

 

[flemmyemmy]

Ok i have just tested my tap water and the results are as follows:

Nitrate - 20ppm
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
PH - 7.6

The other info you asked for is

Temperature of the tank is 72
I clean the tank every sunday and do a 20% water change
I feed the fish every morning and have just started to skip a feed once a week (as suggested on this forum)
and i dont have any live pants

Im going to go to my LFS in a few minutes and get some bog wood, i would rather do that than use chemicals that would probably do more harm than good.