Killer tank?

[allottaspots]

Do I have a killer tank or just bad technique? History-I had never had fish before I acquired a 125 gal tank when I bought my current house in fall 2003. The two resident plecos that had been surviving without my help died when a hurricane took out the power for several days last fall. Rather than leave the tank empty, I thought I'd give fish keeping a try. Bought some BA tetras, danios, tiger barbs, two plecos, and a couple plants. No major problems. Added some pearl gouramis. Still no problems. Then one of the tiger barbs showed signs of ich. Sucessfully treated the tank with a few days of meds followed by a week + with high temps. But this scare prompted me to set up a quarantine tank. Bought a 10 gal tank+filter+hood combo and heater at Walmart and washed with just water. Filled it with water from the 125 gal + fresh water 50:50. Added some danios from the 125 gal tank that had been spawning, let them spawn in the 10 gal for a few days and returned them to the 125 gal. The eggs hatched but all the fry died within a few days. Cleaned out the tank and added the water as above. Made second spawning attempt but could only catch the females this time. One of the females became very stressed so I returned her to the main tank where she apparently died (no body found). Returned other females without incident. Bought new heater-thought "old" one was not holding temp properly. Washed out 10 gal tank and filled as above. Bought 6 small neon rainbows from lfs (actually not so local-2 hour drive), floated bag for 90 min, added some tank water during the 90 min, netted fish out of bag and added to tank. Left lights off. All were dead the next morning. Bummer. Cleaned out tank added water as above. Netted one of my very robust BA tetras out of the 125 gal and placed in the 10 gal. Turned light off because the tetra was swimming as if panicked. It was dead when I checked a few hours later. So... could the filter or heater be leaking voltage and literally shocking the recently added fish? Or not enough acclimating? Was the tetra traumatized at being alone for the few hours (while I tried to net another)? Or is the 10 gal just plain cursed? My pearl gouramis have really colored lately and (maybe) they'd like to spawn but I'm afraid to put anything I value in this tank right now.

Water parameters as measured by a 5 in 1 dip strip:Nitrate 20 ppm, nitrite undetectable, total hardness 50 ppm, total alkalinity 40 ppm, pH 6.8-7.0. Temp- 78F. StressCoat 5 ml/gallon was added for the neon rainbows, but not the tetra.

 

[Endgame319]

I think the problem is that the tank isnt cycled, the water from the 125 woudn't do anything because the bacteria you want is in the filter media/substrate/decorations. A thing about the neons, they are very delicate and tend to die if the water quality isnt excellent, and even that sometimes isnt enough to keep them alive. Fry dont last long in uncycled tanks. One of the gurus could probably help you out more than I could tho.

Endgame

 

[Kwenbee]

This is a terrible thought, but man am I glad I'm not the only person trying to wipe out the freshwater tropical fish population singlehandedly. After the major cycling we've done, I thought my fish losses would be a whole lot less than they are now, but jeezy pete!

I'm beginning to think it's 10 gallon tanks...they put some sort of poison in the glass at the manufacturer that kills all fish in it...just kidding....

In reading your post...and as you can see by many of mine, I am FAR from knowledgable about this...it sounds like your 10 gallon just hasn't cycled. Did you add bio-spyra or anything like that? However, that probably wouldn't have killed a fish in just a few hours, and you said the fish seemed panicked almost as soon as you put him in the tank.

May not hurt to have the heater/filter tested by an electrician...do you or do you have a buddy who knows how to use a volt meter? That would tell you if that's the problem...and it doesn't sound that farfetched!

 

[QTOFFER]

"I'm beginning to think it's 10 gallon tanks...they put some sort of poison in the glass at the manufacturer that kills all fish in it"

LOL

10 gal are a PITA to maintain than the big tanks because the small volume leaves that much less room for error. I don't know how you people with the 5 gal or less betta tanks do it...experience, I guess.

 

[dralarms]

This is gonna sound like a dumb question but did you use declorinator? I changed out one of my betta tanks a while back and got in a hurry and forgot the declorinator and he did just what you are describing here. Panic'd and dead within just a few hours. HTH.

 

[allottaspots]

I have well water so chlorine is not a problem.

Actually, since the 10 gal is a brand new tank, I did wonder if the silicone could be leaching acetic acid. Do you have to "season" a new glass tank before using? Or any of the plastic parts of the new filter and heater?

A correction: the StressCoat, when used, was 5ml/10 gallon.

 

[dralarms]

If you are using stress coat for a declorinator that may be the reason for the false readings. Are you testing your tap water before you add anything to it? or after it's had stress coat added?

 

[allottaspots]

My well water has no chlorine or chlorine derrivatives. I'm using StressCoat for its protective slime properties. The tap water tests the same with or without it.

 

[Allivymar]

Hrmm.

There is obviously something going on with the 10g, but what? You've had fish survive in there initially, but now are having probs (thinking out loud here - correct me when I'm wrong pls).

It started with the rainbows, but theres a chance (although unlikely) they were ill when you got em; columnaris can hit fast n furious like that. Fish looks fine one day, dead the next. Did they act unusual when they went into that 10g?

Then the tetra; he had problems as soon as he went into the tank. How long was the tank empty before the tetra went in? And you used water only to clean it out prior to putting him in?

Some thoughts, although obviously no answers:

What is the ammonia levels in the main tank and the tap water (I assume the 10g has been torn down again)? You don't mention ammonia levels anywhere. Also, you mention you are on well water; have you had it tested recently? I wonder if something nasty is getting into the water table. How often do you water change on the big tank and how much (I would assume if its the water, probs might show up in there, but if you don't change frequently or a lot, it may be mitigated).

I notice the real problems started when the new heater was added; is it possible to return it and get another? Maybe it IS leaking electricity or something.

90 mins is plenty of time to acclimate most domesticated fish. Are you replacing more then 50% of the lfs water with tank water? Did you acclimated the tetra even though he came from your own tank? I wonder if there is a big difference in Ph between the tap and the tanks the fish came from (Ph tends to lower in mature tanks as the waste from the fish cause the water to become more acidic).

I'd clean out the tank again, but this time use a 9-1 water/bleach ratio in case there is some sort of disease in the tank. Rinse it out until you can't smell bleach anymore, then rinse it out again with water thats had a bunch of dechlorinator in it.

 

[dralarms]

I'm at a loss. Sorry. :?

 

[jsoong]

This is just a stab in the dark. But can the tank be contaminated with something?

There was an extensive post in the pond newsserver about a year ago where some guy had same prob with pond - put fish in, die within hours. Tried all sort of stuff, quite an interesting read. Eventually it was traced to toxin in water. Apparently some wasp poison got washed into the pond & that was the culpid. He stated that in his research, wasp posison is extremely posioneous to fish, trace amounts can kill, and it can last for years before breaking down.

I wonder if something might have gotton into the tank at the store.. In our Wally world - they put the fish tanks next to pesticides & plant chemicals - go figure..

I don't think it is from an uncycled tank - fish can survive for more than a few hours, even in a 10 gal. Electrical shock is possible, but you will need a return to ground to complete a circuit - and if you have a complete circuit between your tank & a live wire, you would see sparks! pH shock- perhaps, but you seem to have taken time to acclimatize the fish. So maybe it was a killer tank!

 

[allottaspots]

I hadn't thought about pesticides-but the warehouses do routinely spray for bug and some trace could have gotten into the box. I am letting the 10 gal sit with water to be sure that the silicone is not leaching uncured acetic acid.

Ammonia has been undectable in the tap, the 125 gal, and the 10 gal.

I did not acclimate the tetra since half the water had just come from his previous tank. The pH of the two tanks were similar at the time of transfer. When released, the tetra did dart around as if looking for more swimming room.

The newly purchased rainbowfish came from dimly lit, pristine appearing tank with plants. They looked clean. (They had been easy to catch-is that normal? ) Unfortunately, I didn't think to check their water parameters. Ya live, ya learn. The rainbows did initially swim around checking out the tank dimensions, but then hovered under a fake floating plant.

If not a toxin or other yet undetermined water problem, can fish be so traumatized by going from a larger "pretty" tank to a bleak small tank that it would be enough for them to die that quickly?

 

[Allivymar]

Looking clean means nothing; is why QTing is so important. The rams I had gotten a while back looked fine in the lfs tank. Within a week half were dead; the first died the next day. Most of them showing signs of illness and were dead within a 24 hour period. Within a month, all were dead despite two different antibiotic treatments. Is why I was wondering if the rainbows were ill; obviously we'll never know.

I do tend to think, however, there is some contaminant in the tank.

And no, going from a fancy large tank to a bare smaller tank really isn't enough to kill a fish overnight. All my tanks are well planted and range from 10g to 55g. I've had to QT fish from my tanks, and none of them died due to going to a bare 8g QT tank.

 

[jsoong]

I don't think that fish die from the estetics of their surroundings (esp when it is our perception of what is pretty, not the fish's) - they are not THAT sensitive!

The behaviour of the tetra was what reminded me of the post. The guy was using feeder goldfish as test subject, and as soon as he put it in the water, it started to dart around with jerky movements (he thought it looked like the fish was getting electrical shocks), then die shortly after.

If it was a toxin, it could have latched onto the silicone, good thing you are soaking & washing it out. Other place toxins can hide is the filter. The Carbon adsorbs the toxins, but can slowly leach it out. Might consider a new filter as well.

 

[allottaspots]

Glad to hear fish aren't that "emotionally" sensitive.

I think the tank problems started at the beginning but the adult danios were less sensitive to whatever contaminant. The fry did die shortly after hatching. I now have some fry sitting in an old soup pot on top of a heating vent that are doing better than the ones in the tank did.

I did let the tank just sit (heated) for a few days. pH did not change in this time. I washed the tank, heater, and filter apparatus with water and looked at them closely under a bright light. There was an opalescent sheen on the heater rubber parts. So I wiped down everything with rubbing alcohol-better solvent than bleach and it's pretty good with pathogens. It's what biotech labs use to disinfect around cell cultures which are bleach fume intolerant. (Me, too, for that matter). I wonder if hydrogen peroxide would also be useful as a non-chlorine bleach? I will resort to bleach if need be.

I was already planning to buy a new filter-not worth trying to clean the old one. I'll get it going, add a couple of fish and see how they do.