Stuff Is Dying!

[chestnutree]

I don't seem to be doing very well at the moment. had the tank since xmas and the fish for about 3 months now. About a 6 weeks ago i lost my 1st ever fish, a guppie. Around 2 weeks ago i saw 2 of them that didn't look very well. one was worse than the other. it was hanging around the top mostly eating bubbles, looking very thin and it's body looking quite limp. I did a couple of water changes, took them both out into seperate bowls to feed them incase they weren't getting at the food before the others (before putting them back into the tank again) but then eventually after a few days they did die.

I've been away for a week and left my partner in charge of them. They forgot to feed them for the 1st 3 days and then made up for it by giving 4 pinches of food instead of 1. not good i know so i thought i would mention it incase it has anything to do with it. I got home to find my favourite guppied dead on the bottom and it's beautiful tail eaten!! nothing left of it's tail (was my favourite because of the lovely orange/black spotted fire looking tail)

Not sure what happened to him as he looked healthy when i left. The other thing that doesn't look too good now is the plant. i have 1 live plant. While i have been away it has started to look unhealthy too, along the edge of the long green leaves it's starting to go brown. I'm yet to ask my partner how long the light has been on if this can have anything to do with it mayhbe burning the plant? i don't know.

Not sure if the guppies and plant could be linked? any help please?


When the 1st 2 started looking ill, and after loosing each 1 i have done a good few water changes.

Done tests: ph is always the same and ok. Amonia very low, nitrite very low. The only one that is fairly high is nitrate but still just within the safe level that the book says. Think it's around 50? but this has never really come down and can't see much in the book for suggesting how to bring it down. I've stuck a live plant in as suggested by the book but not made any difference.

Any ideas please?

 

[Gilli]

Did you cycle your tank before you put the fish in? sounds as though its either not cycled properly or you have had a spike! Your ammonia and nitrite readings should ALWAYS be 0. Do you test your water readings on a regular basis and if so what have they been? Do you use a proper liquid test kit as those strips of paper are useless. what is the size of your tank and how many fish do you have in it?

How often do you do water changes and tank cleaning?

You need to be doing a 50% water change every day and testing your water every day until your ammonia and nitite readings are constantly at 0 or you are going to lose fish. Cut right down on feeding as well.

 

[chestnutree]

Nitrite = 0.1
Amonia = 0.1
It's just the nitrate that isn't on 0 but the book says it's safe up to around 50 and my mate said hers is always the same colour on the test as mine and all her fish are fine.

I use the interpet easytest kit with tablets and test tubes reccomended by my aquatics centre

It was cycled for 1 month without any fish and then another month with hardy fish. As above the nitrite and amonia readings are now fine looking as though it has been cycled fine.

Now the tank has fully cycled i do a weekly water change of around 40% as the tank is only small so by the time i have cleaned just half of the gravel the bucket is full and 40% of the water has gone.

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

Are you treating the new water properly before putting it in the tank at water change time?

 

[the biffster]

there is a lot of things you should be looking at
1 like malt say are you using a dechlorinator
2 when you do tank maintenance do you wash your filter
sponges under the tap or old tank water
3 do you leave very thing except for the light on a night
4 what is your temperature of the tank
5 is there any plug in air fresheners or smokers in the house

 

[chestnutree]

I treat the water with Nutrafin Aqua plus, which was also reccomended

i wash the filter in the tank water i have just removed

Heater, filter & air bubbles are left on overnight, light off.

Right now the tank is 25c and always maintains the temp very well.

No smokers in the house, no plug in air fresheners. The only thing i do have is one of those new airwick air freshener things which is a pot of fragrance with the wooden stick things in the pot. It is right near the tank, could this really kill them?

 

[the biffster]

I treat the water with Nutrafin Aqua plus, which was also reccomended

i wash the filter in the tank water i have just removed

Heater, filter & air bubbles are left on overnight, light off.

Right now the tank is 25c and always maintains the temp very well.

No smokers in the house, no plug in air fresheners. The only thing i do have is one of those new airwick air freshener things which is a pot of fragrance with the wooden stick things in the pot. It is right near the tank, could this really kill them?

could be remove and do a water change and see if things improve

 

[Assaye]

The over feeding could have done it =/

Ammonia and nitrite should be zero, not just very low. I would re-test to double check and also compare to tap water, and if there is ammonia and/or nitrite do a water change.

Always remove yellow/brown leaves on plants as they'll decay and poison the water. Elevated ammonia and nitrite could be because of this or overfeeding (or both).

Feed a small pinch every couple of days until fish are all looking well and ammonia and nitrites are zero.

 

[chestnutree]

They have only been overfed once because of not being fed for a few days. Since the overfeed only 1 has died (he may have even died before this as i only came home yesterday, my partner never spotted him), the other 3 died prior to this. Also the brownish leaves have only occured after them dying, not before. They aren't brown brown, they are just starting to go brownish along the edges of every leaf as if the whole plant is starting to die because of an issue, but i don't know what.

 

[hillbilly]

Sorry to hear about your losses

I have the same 54 litre tank as you running at my Mums and we had a lot of fish deaths at the start before I read about cycling the tank and the nitrogen cycle. I was surprised and pleased that you seemed to do well at the start.

The filter that comes with the Aldi tank is very small and I have added a fluval to my mums tank.

Both ammonia and nitrite are poisonous to fish so any reading other than 0 is not good. Don't worry about the nitrate as it is probable the level you are reading is similar to your water supply and any increase shows the filter is doing its job.

I suspect if your partner forgot to feed the fish they will have also forgotten to switch on the light so that may be why the plant is starting to suffer.

New fish-keepers tend to overfeed and if that is quadrupled one day then that could well result in a spike causing fish already weakened by constant exposure to low levels of ammonia and nitrate to die.

I am using an API mater test kit as that seems to be recommended by most of the regulars on here and am pleased to say I get a 0 reading on ammonia and nitrate whenever I test my Mum's tank.

I've been keeping fish for about 40 years but have only just become active again since getting a tank for my Mum and have to say things have changed a lot since my youth. I only found this forum as a result of your post about the light problem.

Hopefully reduced feeding for awhile will allow the tank to settle.

Good Luck.

 

[chestnutree]

Thanks. i always did wonder about the filter in there...but at least it seems to be doing some work,lol

You recon i should also get a new filter? I've been looking at the ones with a uv light as i have one of these in the pond.

Did you keep both filters for good, or just until it had cycled? how many fish do you have in your mums tank?

All was going so well, all levels on the test results have always been so good. Maybe i'm reading it wrong, i find it hard to tell on the chart as the colour is never an exact match. My friend did say the amonia and nitrite looked good/ zero...so maybe it is and i have it wrong?

I was wondering if maybe there is some sort of illness as only the guppies have died, my neons and tiger barbs are fine. The deaths happened all of a sudden after so long of them being happy and well.

is there a way of testing if the air freshener has poisoned them?

 

[hillbilly]

I have kept both filters in my mums tank, with the intention of removing the the Aldi one when I was sure the fluval was fully cycled. Luckily I haven't removed it yet as when I went round there the other day the Fluval has stopped so there was just The Aldi running. The fluval then started once I started to investigate so perhaps something had fouled the impeller but now I think I will keep them both going.

Fliters with UV lamps are really sterilizers and I would think a little "over the top" for a small freshwater aquarium.

My own experience with guppies (and mollies) in the past has been that they have been difficult to keep, but my mum has 3 female and one male molly and they seem to be doing O.K.

She also has 5 neons , 3 long fin leopard danios and 2 pearl danios.

I doubt there is any way of telling if the air fresher has affected then, but I would keep it away "just in case".

 

[chestnutree]

cool, thanks for that.

I also have some danio's, they were my harder fish i put in after a month of cycling before putting the rest in.

I suppose i'll just have to see how things go then. I was wondering if....due to them not being fed for a while if my tiger barbs maybe ate the tail of the last guppie causing him to die? as he was healthy when i left....i noticed the 2 previous to this that died were ill before they died but this one looked fine.

I know the barbs can attack others like guppies. They are in a group of 6 and i have never once seen them go for another fish in the slightest....but if they are hungry?

 

[hillbilly]

I think you may be right there. I stopped ever keeping tiger barbs as although they are great looking fish mine always seemed to be fin nippers.

 

[chestnutree]

No more fish have died and i still haven't seen the tiger barbs attack a single fish....so maybe it was just one of those things and they just got ill?

I also have a shiny new clean tank now as the other started leaking! so that may help things.

The only change i've made is moving the air freshener away but i duno if that had anything to do with it?