help please loosing my fish

[Aquaman1978]

loosing my fish

hey guys and gals i am at the end of my rope. at this point i have lost most of my fish. i am unsure what has happened the tank has been set up for over a year no problem. now all the sudden my fish are dying off one at a time. i have tested the water and most thing are where they are supposed to be. ph is good ammonia is low and the nitrates and nitrites are with in range according to my test strips. using the api brand. the only thing that is off is the kh ( carbonate hardness) is very high and the gh ( general hardness is very high). in the past the water out of the tap always tested very good in our area. now it is way off on these two areas. now my fish are not eating and i have lost most of my stock. some of the fish are turning kind of pale colors and when the die there have some bloody spots on them. i have been watching them and they have not been fighting each other. i have been treating the water with a conditioner and its not helping. what should i do next??

 

[Acer]

Weird..when you say treating with water conditioner do you mean doing a pwc then treating? If not make sure you are not simply dosing the tank with water conditioner as this may deplete the oxygen in you tank which will not help your fish make it through whatever it is that is wrong with them.. Have you added any new decorations or using anything new?

 

[Aquaman1978]

as thing had progressed i decided to quarenteen the fish that were left into another tank and used the water out of the original tank. i took out all decorations and media in my 55 gallon tank then did a huge water change. using the old filter media. i treated the water i put into the tank and let it sit for a few days. then i returned the fish into the tank. they seemed to do better then the next morning three were dead. then as today went buy i have lost two more. like stated above the water is testing ok for everything but hardness, and i am changing water about 50% a day and treating it before its put into the tank. i am at a loss here. i have never had a single problem in alost 3 years and now its goin horrible.

 

[Bectan01]

When you say ammonia is low, what is it reading? You should have no traces of ammonia in a year old tank - any recent changes to the set up, new additions? The test strips are also inaccurate but I would post your actual parameter readings so we can work out why your fish are dying

 

[Coursair]

I wonder if your water company added something or something is in your pipes ?

You might try adding part tap/part Distilled water to bring down hardness.

I use Prime and you can add up to 5x normal dosage if needed.

Your Ammonia should be at zero.

Pull some tap water. Let it sit overnight then test it and also water straight out of tap.

I'm sorry for your losses.

What substrate ?

 

[Aquaman1978]

Cichlid sand and pool filter sand mix

 

[HUKIT]

Malawi Bloat

Sound like Bloat to me, What are you feeding and what's you stock list?

 

[TheTodd]

Please give more info. What size tank, what kinds of fish, how long have you had them, filtration setup, how often are you doing water changes, anything different that you've done recently?

Agreed that in an established tank, ammonia and nitrites should be zero. Nitrates should be close to zero. If you are using strips, those are not always accurate. It would be a good investment to get a kit with test tubes.

Also...tap water can cause problems. It often has nasty stuff in it that is harmless to humans, but that can build up over time. It's not stuff you could test for, so you can't know. You mentioned your tap water is good in your area? What are you basing that assumption on? "Human good" and "fish good" can be very different.

 

[FlopNewsom]

Look up Marine Velvet and check symptoms. It's a killer. Just lost almost all my fish.

 

[Aquaman1978]

That's is what it looks like. The red on its belly was not there before although i did notice this on my other fish as well that died.

 

[Aquaman1978]

I found these red spot on their bellies. Most of the fish so far have close to the same issues.

 

[Katieindixie]

What is your ammonia reading?

 

[Andrew McFadden]

Is it a sore it almost looks like a scrape that's getting bloody? The picture gets blurry when i blow it up bigger. Do you use salts?

 

[Cecil2010]

Does someone else have access to the tank I know I've lost fish before out of nowhere then come to find out my wife was cleaning the glass with windex. From what I can see on the picture your dis is extremely stressed. I also wouldn't do 50% partials everyday even if you do use the same filter media, because if there is something that is stressing on them to begin with and you do a huge partial that just multiplies the stress and they can only handle so much

 

[Aquaman1978]

Thanks for all the help. But I have lost all of the fish in my tank. I have learned my lesson. I am in the process of setting up a bigger tank and doing it the correct way. I built a sump tank earlier tonight and hope to water test it tomorrow. Ammonia levels were good. My problem was with the kh and gh levels. They were extremely high and I believe that it stressed the fish badly and then they started to die. I have done a lot of research over this past week and don't believe this should ever happen again. Thanks guys.

 

[Aquaman1978]

Is it a sore it almost looks like a scrape that's getting bloody? The picture gets blurry when i blow it up bigger. Do you use salts?

I am unsure. I did notice that after all the fish started dying that they had the same types of bloody spots. Their fins were red at the body and red spot in the fins as well. I tried some aquarium salts and API conditioner. As to what really cause problem I am still unsure.

 

[Aquaman1978]

Does someone else have access to the tank I know I've lost fish before out of nowhere then come to find out my wife was cleaning the glass with windex. From what I can see on the picture your dis is extremely stressed. I also wouldn't do 50% partials everyday even if you do use the same filter media, because if there is something that is stressing on them to begin with and you do a huge partial that just multiplies the stress and they can only handle so much

My wife won't touch the tank unless to feed them. She was scared to clean it for that reason. I was only doing the big water changes to try and help, normally I would only do a change maybe once a week other than topping the tank off.

 

[Cecil2010]

Well hopefully this never happens again. But like someone said earlier has your local water company been working in your area or are those levels always that high coming from the tap. I know when my water company works on the pipes they put a "slug" in the pipe to seal it and it make the ph an ammonia sky rocket

 

[Aquaman1978]

Well hopefully this never happens again. But like someone said earlier has your local water company been working in your area or are those levels always that high coming from the tap. I know when my water company works on the pipes they put a "slug" in the pipe to seal it and it make the ph an ammonia sky rocket

The gh and kh were super high. They have always been at a lot lower rates than they are now. Our tap water used to test very safe before. Never stressed the fish before when doing water changes. Like stated before I have no idea what changed. Thanks for everyone help.

 

[Katieindixie]

What is your ammonia reading?? Anything above 0 is toxic and can cause ammonia burn (red areas and streaks) over feeding can cause it. You said it was a little high but what is it?? Are you using an up to date test kit or strips?