Why are my fish dying???

[Endgame319]

I've had my 25 gallon aquarium for about a week and a half, I started with 6 serpae tetras and 3 zebra danios and now i'm down to 2 tetras and 1 danio. What am I doing wrong? They didnt all die at once it was spread out through the week. Heres some other info:

Temperature: 78
Ammonia: .6
Nitrate: 5
I dunno about the pH and stuff, I dont have the testing kits.

If anyone knows what i'm doing wrong or has any advice or questions, they'd be greatly appreciated.

 

[illuminum]

Have you ever heard of cycling your tank? If not, then you've got alot to learn. Your Ammonia is way too high. Also, you need to start off with only a few fish to cycle the tank.

Here's a good link with alot of information on how to cycle your tank.
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

 

[Endgame319]

When I'm changing the water should I treat water with that tap water treatment stuff before adding it to the tank? or is it safe to just add the tap water strait to the tank.

 

[PK Tester]

When I'm changing the water should I treat water with that tap water treatment stuff before adding it to the tank? or is it safe to just add the tap water strait to the tank.

You need to treat the water before you add it to the tank from the tap. Chlorine kills fish. The reason your fish have died is...you need to cycle your aquairum. I doubt the amonia is why they died but I bet its your nitrite level. 5 registers as danger on my test kit. To save the rest I would consider doing some water changes unless you want them dead soon lol. For the first water change...I would do a 40% - 50% change. Then From now on intil about 3weeks from now....I would do daily 20% water changes. Otherwise you will lose your fish.

use a gravel vacumn to suck down from the gravel up...make a siphon with it. Treat your water before you put it back in. How big is your aqaurium?

Whoops...just saw its a 25G.

 

[ADCISCO]

Yep I agree with everyone else. Cycling drives me nuts but dont give up yet. I would say that your nitrites were what killed the fish and high ammonia isnt good at all either. Just be sure to change the water a little everyday. It might take you a few weeks to get it cycled but be patient. I've been there myself and I am not a patient person! But as long as you are cycling go get you about 5 more zebra danio. They are hardy fish and usually hard to kill off unless water isnt tested and treated properly. They are my life saving of tanks. If I have to cycle a tank I just get move mine to that tank and watch the water! Hang in there. If you could go back and read some of my post you would find out that I had a horrible timein the beginning too. I knew nothing about fish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kwenbee]

As someone who just went through this let me tell you....water changes, water changes, water changes.

We started our adventure in fish on October 11, 2003. After personally attempting to wipe out the goldfish and guppy population, I found this site. Here's the advice I was given...and it has kept fish loss to the bare minimum....

I bought a good liquid test kit. The one I have tests for four or five different things...pH, hardness, ammonia and nitrites. I tested the pH only a few times and it hold steady...a little high, but the fish seem to like it. I tested for nitrites and ammonia every day for two months. The ammonia was as high as 3.0 when I started. My morning routine consisted of testing the water for ammonia and nitrites. After the five minutes it took for the test to complete, I carried my five gallon bucket and my syphon hose into my daughter's room and suctioned out two gallons of water (we have a 10 gallon tank).

Then, I added the water back. I kind of scooched the gravel around in different places each day to get some of the gunk out, but didn't do a total gravel vacuum every day.

Like I said, we started on October 11...but I didn't find this site until October 28. We began the daily changes on November 2. I had 0 ammonia in about a month; I had 0 nitrites on January 3, 2004. So about six weeks to cycle the tank.

Since finding this site, we lost only two fish...one, a black Molly to an overfeeding incident and one albino catfish for reasons unknown to me.

Cycling is a royal pain, but it's necessary so you don't kill the fishies. I would suggest you get a good testing kit (I use a Doc Wellfish kit...it was 19.99 at Petsmart) and do daily tests til the ammonia and nitrites are gone. Do daily water changes. If you have a big tank, you may want to invest in a Python or something to do the water changes (that is going to be my next investment).

 

[tkos]

Don't add more fish right now. Let things settle down for a bit. You still have some fish alive, so deal with them for now. Read that article that was linked to by illuminum. Do daily water changes and keep your ammonia and nitrite levels down below 1 ppm. You said a nitrate of 5. Well nitrates are not a major worry until they get really high like 80ppm so don't worry there. Some easy to grow plants could also help you a lot. Escpeially floating plants like duckweed, hornwort and water sprite. These absorb a lot of bad stuff out of the water. For now only feed your fish evey other day. They will not starve and the reduced food will help produce less waste.

Don't add any fish to yuor tank that you do not plan on keeping in the long run. After another week with these fish and lots of water changes and lots of testing you can probably add another couple of fish. Do this in week long intervals and you should be fine, espeically with fish like tetras that are small and produce small amounts of waste.

Do feel free to ask about fish choices as well, many are not suitable to smaller tanks like 25 gallons but that is hard to see when the fish stores carry the young versions that are much smaller. Hang in there and your fish will appriociate it.