New Tank; Strange swimming by danios

[Roland6543]

Hi all,

So I just set up a 70g freshwater tank. After a day settling in (I added the appropriate quantity of dechlorinator, plus some salt for freshwater tanks), I decided it time to buy some hardy fish to begin the cycling process. I put in 3 Zebra Danios (they came with a second, smaller tank I bought), plus 4 new small Danios and 4 Tiger Barbs that I bought from a big box store.

On the way home from the store, one of the new Danios was swimming in a crazy corkscrew pattern. By the time we got home he was swimming normally again. Stress I thought. We acclimatized the fish to the new temp by floating the bag, then added some water from my tank to their bags in two stages, then finally netted them out and popped them in the tank.

Within 6 hours 1 Danio was dead, and another was also doing the corkscrew olympics, and shortly also dead. I took them out. By the next morning of the 2 remaining newly purchased Danios, one was missing (half of him showed up later in a Barbs mouth), and another spiralling out of control (which I euthanized in the freezer).

I figured a bad batch of Danios from the store, since the 4 Barbs and the older Danios were doing fine. To get back to the original planned stock level I went to a different specialized LFS and bought 3 more small Danios. By the next day one of the new Danios from the small LFS is showing the same symptoms.

My tank is obviously still in the early stages of cycling. Results are:
Day1 Day2 Day3
pH 7.4 8.0 8.0
NH3 0.10 0.10 0.10
NO2 0.00 0.25 0.00
NO3 0.00 0.00 0.00

I'm thinking one of the following could be happening:
- The chemistry in my tank is causing this (Unlikely because the first symptom was on the way back from the pet store).
- Both stores that I bought the Danios from bought them from the same supplier and they are carrying the same "issue".
- The 4 small Danios that I bought from the big box store brought in a disease that is beginning to spread to the other Danios (the 3 older Danios are still doing OK).

What do you think? Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

 

[librarygirl]

Hard to say for sure, it could be any of the things you listed. I doubt its toxins in your water as it's still very early and your tests look good. How long did you acclimate them for and how much of your tank water did you introduce in the bag a time? My other guess would be a too fast acclimation process. Drip acclimation is the preferred way to introduce fish into your tank; barring that, you could float the bag as you did and then slowly add a small amount of your tank water to the bag (1/4 cup or so) every 15-20 minutes; do this until the water volume in the bag doubles, then empty out half (not into your tank) and do it again. The process should tak a while but it's a good way to acclimate them slowly. It does sound like at least some of them were sick when you got them. Also FYI Tiger Barbs are aggressive, mostly toward each other but can be to other fish as well, and 4 isn't a good enough number, they need a much larger group to spread aggression around but it isn't advisable to add more this early in the cycle. So, just keep an eye out since you already have 4, they may turn on each other or/and your other fish.

I think you'll be fine to cycle with the fish you have now without adding more. THe more fish you add the higher your toxin levels are going to climb and the more water changes you'll need to do. You could let the ones you have settle in and see how the cycle goes; once it's done you can add more but try to acclimate them a bit more slowly.

 

[Roland6543]

Is there a setup that one can buy or rig up for drip acclimation?

Also, do you think the high pH is a concern? Should I try to bring it down?

Finally, when doing water changes using an Aqueon Water Changer, how do you add water back to the tank without causing a high chlorine spike? I understand that one should add a neutralizer to the water, but adding it to the tank seems like it will take a while to take effect, in the meanwhile affecting the fish and the biology.

 

[tamtam]

Is there a setup that one can buy or rig up for drip acclimation?

Also, do you think the high pH is a concern? Should I try to bring it down?

Finally, when doing water changes using an Aqueon Water Changer, how do you add water back to the tank without causing a high chlorine spike? I understand that one should add a neutralizer to the water, but adding it to the tank seems like it will take a while to take effect, in the meanwhile affecting the fish and the biology.

If your PH isn't spiking or dropping I would leave it be. A steady PH is far more important than a low one. Fish will usually adapt(with the exception of some sensitive types)

I don't use a water changer, my tank is just small and about 10 feet from the sink, so I just use buckets and dose the dechlor into my first bucket full, but I've heard of people that dose into some water and add that to the tank and then fill the tank with the water changer.

The important thing is to make sure you are dosing your whole tank with dechlor and not just the removed water. So you would dose for your full 70gal.

Keep up on your testing, you want to keep your ammonia below .25, if it goes above do a water change.

Good luck!

 

[Roland6543]

Dosing with Prime

So, just to be sure, would you mind that I walk through an example? Lets say I am using the Aqueos water changer, and add the new water directly to the tank. Also lets say that the dosing instructions say 10 mL for 10 gallons (keeping it simple).

So when setting up a 100gallon tank for the first time, I would dose with 100mL.

Then if I do a 10% water change, I dose with ANOTHER 100mL? I would have thought that for the water change, I would add only another 10 mL.

If I dose for the full tank volume the concentration of the dosing agent in the tank will continue to increase with each water change.

I hope the way I've explained it makes sense.

 

[tamtam]

So, just to be sure, would you mind that I walk through an example? Lets say I am using the Aqueos water changer, and add the new water directly to the tank. Also lets say that the dosing instructions say 10 mL for 10 gallons (keeping it simple).

So when setting up a 100gallon tank for the first time, I would dose with 100mL.

Then if I do a 10% water change, I dose with ANOTHER 100mL? I would have thought that for the water change, I would add only another 10 mL.

If I dose for the full tank volume the concentration of the dosing agent in the tank will continue to increase with each water change.

I hope the way I've explained it makes sense.

yes, that is exactly right. I know it's confusing and I still don't totally understand why myself. LOL. I just learned about this myself a month or more ago.
But my understanding thus far is that as you add water it will dissipate through the tank(new water mixing with old water) so adding only 10ml of declor(which will do the same thing) for the 10gal water change may result in not all of that 10gal getting sufficient declor. I've been told to do this method by MANY people on this board, I don't think there is any worry about dechlor negatively effecting your tank. I also find it much easier than attempting to measure out how many gallons of water I'm taking from my tank which was nice!

 

[librarygirl]

I have the Aqueon changer too. I drain as much water as I want to for the water change (I do 50% at a time usually for weekly maintenance) then I add enough dechlorinator to the tank for the whole volume (I use Prime and 1 capful is something like 55 gals and my tank is 40 gal, so I just put a whole cap in) and then refill. It doesn't matter how much water you take out, if you're refilling straight from the tap you want to add enough for the whole tank before you refill. If you're doing a small water change you could just use a separate siphon and bucket and add enough dechlorinator directly to water in the bucket for the amount of water you're replacing (so if its' a 5 gal bucket, dose for 5 gals). If you use Prime, it's more concentrated than most other dechlorinators so you'll end up using less and it'll last longer.

Your PH is fine by the way, the fish will adapt as long as it's stable.

 

[Roland6543]

Thanks again for the good advice. Aside from the one batch of Danio's, everything else is fine for now. I'm doing regular WC. If things change, I'll post again.