Goldfish help!!!

[Reygan2]

Or anyone with info.
I have a mess here, and I'm putting it out here just in case it may help someone else. I purchased 4 baby oranda's from Walmart of all places ( I know...). I bought a couple of fancies there last year and they are doing great in a friends hydroponic garden. Anyway, about the tank...I used a nasty filter pad from one of my eheims on my 40b. I've cycled more tanks than I can remember so I thought this would be a breeze. To make a long story short, the cycle was extremely troublesome this time. I ended up using ammonia to cycle, and 4 weeks later 4ppm of ammonia was being converted in less than 12 hours, did that a couple of times to make sure, did a large water change and bought the babies. A few hours after acclimating and adding them to the tank, I noticed they were all sitting on the bottom of the tank. Not knowing what on earth was wrong, I started testing. Ammonia: 0, nitrate: ~20, ph: ~6.6. On a hunch I decided to do a nitrite test and it was off the charts!! I quickly filled a 5 gallon bucket and got those fish out of there. So I know that this was my bad, and I feel horrible. The tank and fish are in my classroom, and this morning I arrived to find 3 dead babies and 1 survivor, barely alive, in the bucket. This is heartbreaking.
Here are my questions:
1. Why did the seeded media not work? Did the change from tropical to cold water affect the nitrifying bacteria?
2. Were the fish exposed to the high nitrites too long (about 3 hours before I discovered it)? Nitrites were around 5 ppm according to my API test.
3. What can I do, if anything, for the survivor?
4. DId the ph, which is a bit on the acidic side at 6.6, prolong the cycle?
I always use seeded media, and I've never had a casualty due to cycling. This has blown my mind.
So sad....

 

[jlk]

Or anyone with info.
I have a mess here, and I'm putting it out here just in case it may help someone else. I purchased 4 baby oranda's from Walmart of all places ( I know...). I bought a couple of fancies there last year and they are doing great in a friends hydroponic garden. Anyway, about the tank...I used a nasty filter pad from one of my eheims on my 40b. I've cycled more tanks than I can remember so I thought this would be a breeze. To make a long story short, the cycle was extremely troublesome this time. I ended up using ammonia to cycle, and 4 weeks later 4ppm of ammonia was being converted in less than 12 hours, did that a couple of times to make sure, did a large water change and bought the babies. A few hours after acclimating and adding them to the tank, I noticed they were all sitting on the bottom of the tank. Not knowing what on earth was wrong, I started testing. Ammonia: 0, nitrate: ~20, ph: ~6.6. On a hunch I decided to do a nitrite test and it was off the charts!! I quickly filled a 5 gallon bucket and got those fish out of there. So I know that this was my bad, and I feel horrible. The tank and fish are in my classroom, and this morning I arrived to find 3 dead babies and 1 survivor, barely alive, in the bucket. This is heartbreaking.
Here are my questions:
1. Why did the seeded media not work? Did the change from tropical to cold water affect the nitrifying bacteria?
2. Were the fish exposed to the high nitrites too long (about 3 hours before I discovered it)? Nitrites were around 5 ppm according to my API test.
3. What can I do, if anything, for the survivor?
4. DId the ph, which is a bit on the acidic side at 6.6, prolong the cycle?
I always use seeded media, and I've never had a casualty due to cycling. This has blown my mind.
So sad....

Hi! I will try to make some sense of your cycle and what may have happened. I am truly sorry about what happened to your little guys.

My guess is the media came from a tropical tank, likely minimally or reasonably stocked? Is the ph in the tank it came from the same (acidic)? What was the difference in temps between your tropical tank and the goldfish tank?

My best guess is this. Although you added some cycled filter media and this helped to jump start things, it was not capable of handling 4ppm of ammonia instantly. Around the 4 week mark, you saw your ammonia steadily dropping and likely saw an increase in nitrates thanks to the bacteria from the media.

However, what I suspect happened is that your nitrite 'appeared' to read zero but it was in fact off the charts high. This was not your fault but a complication with the API nitrite test as it is not designed to read very high levels accurately and will appear blue (or even clear, grey or hot pink). Around the 4 week mark is about the time I would expect to see a very high spike in nitrite. When you did a large wc to prep the tank for fish, this brought your nitrite level down to a number that the API test could register and this what you saw when you tested.

In respect to temp concerns, your nitrifying bacteria replicate best in the 84-86f range. The lower the temps, the slower they multiply. I do not recall the exact ranges so please do not quote me but it averages somewhere to a 50% drop in activity per 10 degree drop in temp from ideal until you hit 40f when the bacteria are completely inactive. Cool/cold water tanks and ponds cycle at a much slower rate than a tropical tank and its not uncommon for it to take 3+ months (sometimes double this) for the cycling process to finish.

Acidity does also factor into the cycling process and can affect it as well. Acidic water is also not ideal for goldies and this, in addition the high nitrite, was likely more than they could handle. Nitrite works conversely to ammonia- while ammonia is less toxic in acidic water, nitrite is more toxic. I believe it was a combination of factors here that interplayed and adversely affected their health.

Once again, I want to stress this was not your fault and I applaud you for being a responsible and caring fish owner that was providing the best you could for your new charges. I am very sorry this happened. Feel free to ask any and all questions and we will try our best to answer them!

 

[em1981ma]

Also add fish slowly not all at once as 4 goldies that's a bog bioload for a newly cycled tank to tackle all in one hit. Stagger introductions on next try add one fish at a time with a week or so in between. Goodluck

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[Reygan2]

Hi! I will try to make some sense of your cycle and what may have happened. I am truly sorry about what happened to your little guys.

My guess is the media came from a tropical tank, likely minimally or reasonably stocked? Is the ph in the tank it came from the same (acidic)? What was the difference in temps between your tropical tank and the goldfish tank?

My best guess is this. Although you added some cycled filter media and this helped to jump start things, it was not capable of handling 4ppm of ammonia instantly. Around the 4 week mark, you saw your ammonia steadily dropping and likely saw an increase in nitrates thanks to the bacteria from the media.

However, what I suspect happened is that your nitrite 'appeared' to read zero but it was in fact off the charts high. This was not your fault but a complication with the API nitrite test as it is not designed to read very high levels accurately and will appear blue (or even clear, grey or hot pink). Around the 4 week mark is about the time I would expect to see a very high spike in nitrite. When you did a large wc to prep the tank for fish, this brought your nitrite level down to a number that the API test could register and this what you saw when you tested.

In respect to temp concerns, your nitrifying bacteria replicate best in the 84-86f range. The lower the temps, the slower they multiply. I do not recall the exact ranges so please do not quote me but it averages somewhere to a 50% drop in activity per 10 degree drop in temp from ideal until you hit 40f when the bacteria are completely inactive. Cool/cold water tanks and ponds cycle at a much slower rate than a tropical tank and its not uncommon for it to take 3+ months (sometimes double this) for the cycling process to finish.

Acidity does also factor into the cycling process and can affect it as well. Acidic water is also not ideal for goldies and this, in addition the high nitrite, was likely more than they could handle. Nitrite works conversely to ammonia- while ammonia is less toxic in acidic water, nitrite is more toxic. I believe it was a combination of factors here that interplayed and adversely affected their health.

Once again, I want to stress this was not your fault and I applaud you for being a responsible and caring fish owner that was providing the best you could for your new charges. I am very sorry this happened. Feel free to ask any and all questions and we will try our best to answer them!

Thanks for responding. The tank still isn't cycled, nitrite results are 5ppm. Since the ph is so low in the water at school, I've decided against putting goldies in that tank. My ph at home is 7.5, and I've kept all sorts of tropical fish. I hope it is suitable for a couple of goldfish. I knew there had to be some other factor affecting the progress of this cycle, and I began to suspect the lower temps were part of it. Good to know.

 

[Hholly]

JLK, great response. Just wanted to let you know.

 

[em1981ma]

7..5 should be fine for goldies

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