All my fish are dropping dead!

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mrzap

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 3, 2004
Messages
206
Location
South Florida
I woke up this morning to find one of my mollies and one of my shrimp dead. My aquarium seemed to have been developing some fuzz on the leaves of some of my plants and on some of the gravel. I did a gravel vac which changed about 20% of the water. I added more distilled water in place of it and got an extra filter with a bio wheel. So now I have two filters going. I noticed my water smelled a little like ammonia so I added ammonia removing liquid to the tank. I came home to discover another shrimp dead.

I don't know what else to do. My beta fish doesn't look happy and didn't eat anything I fed him tonight.
 
How big is your tank and when was the last time you did a water change (before this previous one?) How many fish do you have in there? I'm not sure about the fuzz, but I don't think that it is a good idea to add distilled water. It has nothing in it at all and fish need some of the little minerals and stuff in the water. There could be a number of problems. I would start with testing your water params. ph, nitrates, nitrites, etc. Let us know how they are.
 
water problems...

I'm sure someone here can give you a clue what the fuzzy stuff is as well as a better idea of why the fish are dying but I would get a test kit for the water asap. If the water smells funny it needs to be taken care of quickly or you will lose everything. Some fish stores will test water for you but it may be a good idea to purchase one. That should be the first thing you do though. Then, while testing/treating the water, I would search through the posts here for similar problems and info on water parameters... This site is a great place to get answers just by asking but with so many people asking, it is also a good reference... So many things have already been talked about, the info is out there... but that doesn't mean we don't want you to ask... Beta not eating huh... make sure when your fish don't eat, you remove leftover food. I forget what a good time to allow is but if food is left in there too long it rots and turns into ammonia and then kills your fish... What size tank and what kind of filtration do you normally use?
 
If you have a QT tank, it might be wise to move everybody in there while you straighten out the main tank.
 
A ...REALLY good idea would be to preform a 50% water change, let the water heat up to 75 F + and add a large dose of BioSpira. Buy that at your LFS. You probably have a nitrite or ammonia spike. You might also want to check the PH of the water. I have never kept shrimp, so I am not sure what they like.

BioSpira is a great cocktail of the best bacteria to instantly cycle a tank ( well not instantly, but in under 24 hours ) and it wont harm your critters.

If you dont have BioSpira where you live, dump a medium bottle of Prime or other ammonia/nitrite remover into the water. Just make SURE you dont add the BioSpira then put any other chemicals in soon.
 
I have a 10 gallon. Originally I had 1 beta, 2 mollies, and 4 ghost shrimp and 2 plants.

I was using a low end "came-with-the-tank" chemical power filter for it.

Last time I did a water change was about 1.5 weeks ago before ths happened.

I am now running the old filter plus a 130gph marineland power filter with bio wheel.

Yesturday I added 1.5 tblpns of AmQuel. I think the ammonia smell has subsided a little bit.

My beta fish fins look kind of stuck together unless I am imagining things after reading what stressed fish look like.

Some people recommend aquarium salt? Will that do anything and will it harm my one remaining shrimp? I hear that quickcure will kill invertebrates. Is there anything else I can add to help my fish recover without killing my shrimp?

The fish themselves have no visual problems on them like ich or spots or anything.
 
More info would be helpful about your tank.

How big is it? How long has it been set up? How many and what kind of fish do you have in it? Do you know if it has cycled yet? Have you added anything recently?

Checking the water parameters can really help in diagnosing certain problems.

I would be hesitant to do anything until you know what the ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte levels are.

Bio-Spira may help with an ammonia/nitrIte spike, but it is really intended for using when you first add fish to the tank.

Turning up the temperature may or may not help. I don't know what you have in your tank so I don't know if the higher temps could hurt what you have in it. The bacteria that take care of the ammonia and nitrItes will grow faster with a higher temp (which is a good thing), but if the problem you are having is bacterial in nature, then it could make the whole thing worse.

Overfeeding can give you an ammonia/nitrIte spike as well. You may want to hold off on feeding for a couple of days. Uneaten food breaks down and puts ammonia into the tank. Do you have any "missing" fish? Decomposing fish also put lots of ammonia into the water.

I'm just making guesses based on the info you provided, but hopefully some of this helps...
 
Oops. Looks like you beat me to the "post" button. Sometimes takes a while to post when I'm at work...

What type of plants are in the tank? I've never had a planted tank before, so I don't know how that would affect the thing as a whole.

Aside from that, I would get a test kit and find out what the water parameters are. If you can, get the ammonia test that has two components to it (two test bottles/reagents). It's more accurate in that it doesn't give false positives.
 
Took a water sample to petco. My nitrate levels were just above borderline passing. Ammonia was ok, but this was the day after I added a good dose of ammonia remover. My PH was a little high so I added some Ph Down. I added some stress coat with aloe vera to the tank.

My beta seems "happier" now and isn't in a pissy mood at my other fish now. My one poor remaining shrimp seem ok as well. He is a ghost shrimp, but the stress coat I added actually has changed him to a slight green hue (aloe vera contents). Pretty cool actually. Just in time for St Patties day.

I think my problem was ammonia in the first place because my water did have a ammonia smell if i stuck my nose right off the water and took a wiff. The mollies seem to do nothing but crap up the tank so now that I am down to one and have two filters going in a 10 gallon tank I think I am alright.
 
If you could smell ammonia in the water, then you need to find out what the source of it is.

The ammonia remover is just a temporary quick fix. If you don't know what caused the spike in the first place, then it will probably return.

How long has the tank been up? If it's less then 6 weeks then it most likely hasn't cycled yet and in that case you really need to read this...

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showquestion.php?faq=2&fldAuto=21

Adding ammonia removers just prolongs the cycle and puts more stress on your fish. The trend nowadays is to do a fishless cycle. That's what I am going to do in my next tank...
 
Everything seems to be ok now that I have dual filters running and one less molly. I think it may have been a combination of rotting food and too much molly excrement.
 
I think it may have been a combination of rotting food and too much molly excrement

Yep. That will definitely give you ammonia spikes.
Just keep an eye on it and test the water daily so you'll have a "head's up" if it starts to spike again.
 
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