Can someone help me interpret this?

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JoeH2014

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
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Location
USA - Iowa
I just completed a fishless cycle last week and later in the week proceeded to add some fish. I added 10 neons, 6 rasboras, 4 corys, and a few days later added a pearl gourami. However, I've been having neons die left and right and after having no problems, two of the rasboras have died.

They all seem to be behaving properly, eating well and swimming a lot. So after checking the basics, ammo, nitrites, and nitrates, which were all fine, I turned to pH and water hardness.

My local store didn't have a liquid test for hardness, so I had to settle for test strips. I have an API master kit for the other tests.

Below are my results. For KH, I believe I'm supposed to divide the ppm number by 17.9 to get to degrees of hardness.

My question is, could water hardness be causing my problems, or is it more likely something else?

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As I said above, I completed a fishless cycle. I've checked ammo, nitrites, and nitrates three times and all readings have been normally.

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As I said above, I completed a fishless cycle. I've checked ammo, nitrites, and nitrates three times and all readings have been normally.

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ammonia has stayed at 0?
 
Looks like hard alkaline water if I am viewing the strips correctly. Might be tough for neons. How did you acclimate them?
 
That's what I'm wondering was the cause of my problem. I floated them in the bag for 15 mins. Then added some of my water and let sit for 15 mins. I then netted them out.

My gourami was acclimated over an hour.

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I appreciate the feedback from everyone. I'm very familiar with the basics of water chemistry, but I'm not at all educated with regards to pH and hardness. I still wonder if my pH isn't causing somewhat of an issue, but I'm hoping that by acclimating the fish properly, I can avoid issues with that.

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Neons should be acclimated for at least an hour. Float the bag in the tank for 15 min, and then *slowly* add a half cup of your tank water to the bag every 15 minutes. Repeat three times and net your fish into your tank.

Your water appears to be reasonably soft, but there could've been a large difference in hardness between your tank water and the LFS water. Were the Neons hanging out near the substrate after you added them, or were they eventually shoaling around the tank?

Neons arein such high demand that they're often inbred. So it could be a stock issue.
 
I'm guessing it's a stock issue to be honest. Could also be me not acclimating them slow enough too, which I've addressed and won't be adding them in any earlier than one hour.

They have always hung around the bottom; they still do that. They're schooled up and appear eager to eat. Having the rasboras die really threw me though. They were doing great, then all of a sudden, I lost two. That made me think I had other problems. They were in the rank for nearly a week without issue.

In hindsight, I wish I would have listened to you and only added a breed at a time. I have since stopped adding fish until I figures out if I had a problem. I've also kept an open mind about getting different fish that are more adapted to harder water with higher pH. It really cuts down on the species I can get, but I don't want to kill fish because I'm stubborn.

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I think platy would work with your water chemistry. Pineapple platy are real cute, fun fish.


(Friend of Bill W., One day at a time)
 
I have two platy fry in there now. Thought about going with more. I have the sunburst variety.

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Im still not buying the hard water thing. Ive seen neons in harder water. And frankly hard water illnesses would take weeks to cause a problem, maybe even months.
 
Im still not buying the hard water thing. Ive seen neons in harder water. And frankly hard water illnesses would take weeks to cause a problem, maybe even months.

I'm sure that Neons could handle 10 dGH *if* acclimated very slowly. That's the key.

I've never heard of shock from sudden water changes taking weeks to manifest itself in visible symptoms. Osmotic pressure changes happen rather quickly.
 
I've never heard of shock from sudden water changes taking weeks to manifest itself in visible symptoms. Osmotic pressure changes happen rather quickly.
Agreed. When I first started I used to kill fish in my hard water regularly. It happens quite fast. Also, farm raised neons don't exactly top the list of hardy fish.
 
Hmm, well mine are in harder with less time and no problems. Is this usually a good lfs? Rasbora are generally hardy in my experience.
 
It's actually a PetSmart. But it's a nice one. I like them because of the 14 return policy. I got my gourami at a lfs though and am thinking about picking up a few more rasboras from them. The lfs is reputable.

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Sorry, if i knew it was a petsmart neon i would have said soemthing else. Most of them circulate the same waterthru all the tanks, so if the neons got sick in the store tank, the rasboras may have been using the same infected area. They may have been ill before you got them. I justdont see another way for multiple species to die off without it being an amoia issue or tempaerature adjustment, etc.
 
I wouldn't buy any more fish for a few weeks/months let your tank sort itself out as you added quite a few different fish at once, it should sort itself out with water changes,

Never add loads of fish at once especially after it's just been cycled


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