Fish are dying help!!!

[ashchad]

ne ways, like the title says my fish are dying and idk y, i checked and rechecked the ph levels, and neutralized with chemicals and idk what else to do!
i have two clowns and a black and white heniouchus ((now only one clown)) in a 55 gallon tank, with a fake coral thing with a bubble bar behind it, 40-50g aquaclear filter, and crushed coral/gravel, with ocean sand on top of it
feeding them frozen emerald entree, and mysis shrimp, and feeding the black and white brine shrimp.
what else should i be doing?

 

[Ziggy953]

How long has this tank been set up? How did you cycle it? How long have you had these fish?

What are your water parameters? Ammonia? NitrAte? NitrIte? PH? SG? Give me some numbers for those.

What kind of filtration do you have on the tank? How often do you do PWCs?

 

[Innovator]

...and what chemicals were you using?

 

[ashchad]

nitrate: 20
amonia: .50
nitrite: .25
high range: 8.2

using amquel+ to remove nitrate, nitrite, amonia chlorine and chloramines
kent marine for essential elements, buffer dKH, and ammonia detox
cycle ((says it reduces fish loss)) idk, petco said it works

i did a 30 day cycle with filter, fake rock, sand, and water.
do weekly 20% changes
then put the fish in, i have had the fish for about a week now, and the black and white looks like he is a fricken skitso ((sp)) and the clown isn't very lively anymore

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

i did a 30 day cycle with filter, fake rock, sand, and water.

Without an ammonia source to kick start the cycle, the "30 day cycle" didn't do anything. You might want to go into the "articles" section of the site and read up about cycling SW tanks. My guess is your tank is cycling now... especially since you have measurable ammonia and nitrites.

Unfortunately, the tank needs to have ammonia and nitrites to build up the beneficial bacteria. Adding the water treatments to bind up the ammonia and nitrites will help your fish, but prolong the cycle. Kind of a catch-22. Daily 20-30% water changes will help keep your fish alive and keep the ammonia levels down, but again... will prolong the cycle.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you've found yourself in the same position a lot of folks do... bad advice from a pet store and a tank full of critters during a cycle. Two choices I see are either take the livestock back and cycle the tank fishless, or start storing up a fair amount of salt water to do a bunch of water changes until you get through the cycle.

 

[flanque]

Well you really should be aiming to get your ammonia and nitrites to 0ppm. Depending on the health of the fish when they were added this might be one possible cause. I certainly wouldn't be happy to add anything to my tank with at least these two (and a few more) levels in better check.

Also keep in mind those test kits are only guides. You may in fact have higher or lower readings, which is all the more reason to get them down to 0ppm.

Can you describe the fish in greater detail or even take some pictures? We may be able to spot something that's a little more obvious to others who have experienced the symptoms.

To be honest, I have to also lend my support to Kurt's response. My experience is that there is no substitute for a proper full cycle and to me 30 days isn't enough even with the sparkly new rapid cycle products on the market. Sure there are some which I think do genuinely assist the cycle process, but don't substitute for it. Certainly I wouldn't trust them with livestock without stable readings.

Also, can you provide some readings of the temperature, salinity as well as the ones above over the course of a few days? Track the times you take them as well.

Hope this helps.