Help needed - tank crash?

[JaniceS]

Hi everyone! Needing some advice. My daughter got a 100L tropical tank for Christmas from my parents. My dad had this tank up and running many years ago. We did an initial two week cycle with no fish, added some guppy’s, mollies etc. had some initial death, but 4 were fine.

About 2 months ago we added some more fish back in, and it seems that they had velvet. Tried treating for it, lost a few more fish, but the remainders seemed ok.

Have continued to slowly lose more fish. In the last two days we have lost two more fish, one guppy that suddenly had red spots on its tail then was dead the next day, and a bristle nose pleco that was a bit sluggish for a few days then died. It almost looked like it was rotted from the inside. Is that fin rot?

I’ve moved the two remaining fish (a guppy and a mollie) into a small hospital tank and am treating for fin rot.

I’m treating the original tank as having crashed, completely removed all the ornaments that were in it, gravel out, replacing sponges in filter etc. is there anything else I can be doing? I want to setup the tank properly for success this time.

We were doing regular (fortnightly) water changes, all water tests were coming in fine and within range, temp and ph were fine.

Thanks for reading and your advice!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Can you confirm specifically what the water parameters where coming as? Preferably before you did a water change and started over.

Do you have any good quality photos of the sick/ dead fish?

What medications did you use?

Are you aware that what you are doing to the tank will mean losing your cycle and you will need to re-cycle the tank? You mention cycling a tank without fish in 2 weeks at the beginning of your post. How did you do this? You cant cycle a tank from scratch in 2 weeks so your initial issues will be down to not cycling the tank.

 

[JaniceS]

Parameters were very stable after initial - ph 7.5, no ammonia or nitrate/nitrite. I had trouble keeping gh down under 120ppm, but it didn’t seem to affect the fish at all. Kh always around 50ppm.

We followed the instructions from the aquarium shop about cycling the tank for 2 weeks, didn’t know any different. We added seachem stabilise daily. We use prime when doing water changes, double dosed.

When the fish had velvet we used blueplanet multicure. Currently using aquaone fungus & fin rot remedy. Have used melafix aswell.

I didn’t get any photos of the dead fish, my daughter was rather distraught. I have some photos of the velvet, which I can post, but this was over a month ago so I don’t believe would be in the tank anymore once treated?

What do you suggest I do instead? Definitely open to suggestions here. Am a newbie and it’s tough trying to find the right advice

 

[Colin_T]

Post pictures of the velvet from a month ago and also pictures of any remaining fish so we can check them for disease.

It normally takes 4-6 weeks to cycle a filter in an aquarium. Two weeks doesn't cycle anything.

Don't add any chemicals unless you know what the problem is and then use the appropriate medication.

If you keep guppies, platies, swordtails and mollies you want hard water with a pH above 7.0. Guppies, platies and swordtails do best in water with a GH around 200ppm and a pH above 7.0.
Mollies do best in water with a GH above 250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

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BASIC FIRST AID FOR FISH

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[JaniceS]

Ok great, thanks. I’ll work out how to post pics here then will do so. I don’t see anything on the remaining fish, but the last few have died very suddenly. They are in a hospital tank at the moment while I figure out what to do with the main tank.

So, are you saying I don’t need to completely drain/empty the tank and replace all the filter sponge etc? I had been washing the sponge every month or so just to clean it out. I believe the ornaments needed replacing anyway, they were dyed green from the multicure and paint was flaking off them.

 

[JaniceS]

https://ibb.co/7Yc3SMP https://ibb.co/GkDV3RP
- fish that remain alive

https://ibb.co/GsJNTMm
fish with velvet (blue fish on head - the fish passed away a few days later)

 

[Aiken Drum]

I see issues with your water testing.

The nitrogen cycle turns ammonia into nitrate. So a cycled tank should have zero ammonia or nitrite, and some nitrate. An uncycled tank will have ammonia and/or nitrite in it depending on how far advanced your cycle is. You say everything is zero which is essentially impossible. In normal circumstances the only way to have everything at zero is to be doing daily 100% water changes and doing your water test immediately after the huge water change. The fact you are saying everything is zero is likely down to inaccurate testing and could be hiding a water quality issue. The symptoms you mention are indicative of water quality problems also. What test kit are you using?

Nothing you did initially will cycle a tank. The microbes you are trying to grow need ammonia in the water to feed on and grow in sufficient numbers to remove all the waste ammonia fish produce. While cycling this ammonia needs to come from dosed ammonia if you are doing a fishless cycle or fish waste if you are doing a fish in cycle. Products like stability "might" help speed things up by introducing the microbes you are trying to grow, but with no ammonia to feed off anything beneficial coming out of the bottle will just die. Stabilty is also one of the poorest of these products available.

It normally takes a couple of months to cycle a tank if its done properly. Before you broke it down your tank would have cycled by now, but those initial months living in an uncycled tank will have taken its toll on those initial fish, and then your cycle needed to catch up when you added more fish. A 20% water change every 2 weeks isnt enough to control waste in an uncycled tank. The multicure and aquaone medications both contain malachite green and this can kill off those microbes and crash your cycle.

When you restart your tank do you want to do a fishless cycle again, or a fish in cycle? Done properly this time of course. I can give a detailed method of cycling with either of these approaches.

If the 2 fish are suffering from fin rot, good clean water will be of most benefit. The hospital tank wont be cycled so big daily water changes will be essential. You could add some aquarium salt to the water. 1 rounded tablespoon per 20 litres/ 5 gallons. Double this if you see no improvement after a couple of days. Remember to add back salt with water changes equal to the amount that would have been removed with the water. I wouldnt medicate until its confirmed what the condition is and that the medication is going to be effective. A clear photo of the sick fish will help diagnosis.

 

[JaniceS]

I have posted photos above (hopefully they worked). I don’t see any issues with them personally, and they both are behaving like normal.

Fish in cycle would be easier for me, so I can get rid of this other tank, but would fishless cycle be better?

I am using the api freshwater master test kit and api Kh/gh test kit as directed in the instructions.

Which products are better to purchase than what I am currently using? I do live rurally so it can be tricky to get my hands on some things, but I can pretty easily get api, aquaone and seachem products most of the time.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ill post a thorough method of a fish in cycle.

There might be a little fin rot, i see some discolouration on the tails. I would keep them in the quarantine tank with regular, big, water changes for a couple of weeks before returning them to your main tank. It might be best to get 2 or 3 new fish to start cycling rather than put your current fish in, until things start to settle down.

As to the beneficial bacteria products like stability. I wouldnt use seachem stability. APIs version is called quickstart and ive not got 1st hand experience of that product, but never really seen any glowing endorsements. Im not familiar with aquaone products and dont know if they do anything suitable. The 2 products that have traditionally been well regarded are tetra safestart and dr tims one and only. More recently Fritz #7 and fritz turbo start come with good recommenations.

 

[Aiken Drum]

To cycle a tank you need to grow denitrifying bacteria to consume ammonia and nitrite that your tank produces. The bacteria needs an ammonia source to grow colonies sufficient in size to consume all the ammonia and resultant nitrite and turn it into nitrate which typically you remove through your regular water changes.

A fish in cycle uses fish waste as an ammonia source and regular water changes are undertaken to ensure that water parameters are maintained at relatively non toxic levels.

Set up your tank. Make sure everything is running smoothly. Make sure you have used a water conditioner product with any tap water you have put in your tank. Seachem Prime is a water conditioner that will also detoxify some ammonia for a day or two, so is a good choice for a water conditioner while cycling a tank with fish.

You should have a test kit. Preferably a liquid test kit. It should test for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

In ideal circumstances you should be starting a fishless cycle with a low bioload (number of fish). 1 small fish per 10 gallons/40 litres is a good number of fish, but this can be tweaked a little for fish that are social and don’t do well on their own. Ideally a hardy type of fish. You may have fully stocked (or overstocked) your tank before you knew about cycling. In these circumstances, if its not possible to return fish, you will have to make the best of it.

If you haven’t already done so, add your fish. Acclimate them to the water in your tank before doing so.

Feed lightly to start with. Daily as much as is eaten in 2 minutes, or as much as is eaten in 3 minutes every 2 days. You can increase to full feedings if you are confident your parameters aren’t getting too elevated too quickly and water changes don’t become a daily thing.

Start to regularly test the water for ammonia and nitrite. At least daily. Depending on your bioload you could start to see ammonia quite quickly. Nitrite will likely take a little longer to appear.

Your target should be to keep ammonia + nitrite combined no higher than 0.5ppm by changing water whenever your water parameters exceed this target. 0.5ppm combined is a level of waste that is sufficient for your cycle to establish but relatively safe for your fish.

If you see 0.5ppm ammonia and 0.0ppm nitrite (0.5ppm combined) then leave things be. If you see 0.5ppm ammonia and 0.25ppm nitrite (0.75ppm combined) then change 1/3 of the water. If you see 0.25ppm ammonia and 0.75ppm nitrite (1.0ppm combined) then change 1/2 the water. If water parameters get worse than these levels it may require multiple daily 50% water changes to maintain safe water conditions. This is more likely to happen with a fully stocked tank.

Remember to add water conditioner whenever you put tap water in the tank.

Over time the frequency of water changes and amount you need to change to maintain your ammonia + nitrite combined target will reduce. You can also start testing for nitrate and should see this rising. If you are finding the ammonia and nitrite in your tests are consistently low, and you aren’t already fully stocked, you can add a few more fish. It may take a few weeks to get to this point.

Once you add a few more fish, continue to regularly test the water and continue to change water if you exceed the 0.5ppm combined ammonia + nitrite target. With added bioload the frequency of water changes and amount you need to change may increase again until your cycle has caught up. Again once you are consistently seeing low ammonia and nitrite you can add some more fish. Rinse and repeat with testing, water changes, and adding fish when safe to do so until you are fully stocked.

You can then cut back on water changes to control nitrate only. Typically you want to keep nitrate no higher than 40ppm, but I would recommend changing some water every 2 weeks even if your water test says you don’t need to.

A fish in cycle from an empty tank to fully stocked can take several months.

A good way to speed up this process would be to put a small amount of filter media from an established filter into your filter, or get a sponge from an established filter and squeeze it into your tank water. Perhaps you have a friend who keeps fish who could let you have some? This will seed your filter with the bacteria you are trying to grow and speed up the process.

Another option is bottled bacteria like Dr Tims One + Only or Tetra Safestart. These products wont instantly cycle a tank as they claim but in a similar manner to adding established filter media they can seed your filter with the bacteria you are trying to grow to establish your cycle. These products are hit and miss as to whether they work at all, but are an option if established filter media isnt obtainable and may speed up the process from several months to several weeks.

 

[Colin_T]

https://ibb.co/7Yc3SMP https://ibb.co/GkDV3RP
- fish that remain alive

https://ibb.co/GsJNTMm
fish with velvet (blue fish on head - the fish passed away a few days later)

I don't think the blue fish had velvet in the picture, the yellow looks more like colouration than velvet. Did the fish rub on anything while you had it?

The swordtail looks ok but might have clamped fins, which is normally caused by poor water quality.

The yellow snakeskin guppy has a reddish colour around the head. Is this part of his colouration or blood?
He also has red gills and that is probably gill flukes. Livebearers regularly have intestinal worms and gill flukes but they don't normally kill the fish quickly.

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TREATING WORMS IN FISH
Intestinal Worms like tapeworm and threadworms cause the fish to lose weight, continue eating and swimming normally, and do a stringy white poop. Fish can do this for months and not be too badly affected. In some cases, fish with a bad worm infestation will actually gain weight and get fat and look like a pregnant guppy. This is due to the huge number of worms inside the fish.

Livebearers like guppies, mollies, swordtails & platies are regularly infected with gill flukes and intestinal worms. If the fish are still eating well, then worms is the most likely cause.

You can use Praziquantel to treat tapeworm and gill flukes. And use Levamisole to treat thread/ round worms. If you can't find these medications, look for Flubendazole, which treats both lots of worms.

In the UK look for:
eSHa gdex contains praziquantel that treats tapeworm and gill flukes.
eSHa-ndx contains levamisole and treats thread/ round worms.
NT Labs Anti-fluke and Wormer contains flubendazole.
Kusuri wormer plus (contains flubendazole) - sold mainly for discus, comes as a powder which is quite hard to dose in smaller tanks
Sera nematol (contains emamectin)

Remove carbon from filters before treatment and increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise oxygen levels in the water.

You treat the fish once a week for 4 weeks. The first treatment will kill any worms in the fish. The second, third and forth treatments kill any baby worms that hatch from eggs inside the fish's digestive tract.

Treat every fish tank in the house at the same time to prevent cross contamination.

You do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean 24-48 hours after treatment. Clean the filter 24 hours after treatment too.

Do not use the 2 medications together. If you want to treat both medications in a short space of time, use Praziquantel on day one. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate on day 2 & 3. Treat the tank with Levamisole on day 4 and do a 75% water change and gravel clean on day 5, 6 & 7 and then start with Praziquantel again on day 8.

The water changes will remove most of the medication so you don't overdose the fish the next time you treat them. The gravel cleaning will suck out any worms and eggs that have been expelled by the fish. Repeating the treatment for 3-4 doses at weekly intervals will kill any worms that hatch from eggs. At the end of the treatment you will have healthier fish.

 

[JaniceS]

Update

Hi everyone! Thanks for your help so far. Really appreciate it.

I’ve had the original tank setup for a few days now, it’s running empty right now (just water, new gravel, filter and heater). I used prime when adding the water and am using stability daily (it’s all I can get my hands on at the moment). I’ve kept the original filter sponges in the filter to assist with the bacteria. Hopefully I will be able to get to the aquarium shop tomorrow to pickup some ornaments, live plants etc. (not sure if I mentioned this, but the ornaments that were in the original tank all had paint bubbling and peeling from them, not sure what caused this, but I threw them all out).

In regards to the small tank, unfortunately the mollie passed away this morning. I can’t see any reason, it had been hiding for the past few days but that was pretty normal for this fish. Pics of the mollie are below. I’ve been doing 25% water changes every two days in this tank, and adding fin rot remedy aswell. I’ll test the water this afternoon and post the results.

The guppy is still alive, but does now seem stressed that it is by itself. Should I buy it a companion fish? I’ve put a pic of the guppy aswell.

https://ibb.co/5cqbM34
https://ibb.co/ZBtTkXJ
https://ibb.co/hYYTgvq

 

[JaniceS]

Water test results

https://ibb.co/gjFDDBM

Is the ph or ammonia here concerning?

 

[JaniceS]

Water test results - empty tank

I think everything looks pretty good here so far - please advise if you think I need to do anything

 

[Colin_T]

Ornaments that are peeling or bubbling and have the paint flaking off can be a cause of poisoning in fish tanks. It happens every now and then when a bad batch of paint is used or the ornaments are made with inferior lower quality products. Then chemicals can leach from the ornament or paint and the fish look healthy but die suddenly for no real reason.

Treatment involves removing the items and flushing the tank, gravel and filter out. Then setting it back up.

 

[JaniceS]

This is interesting, they were ornaments I had purchased from an aquarium shop, but 4 different ornaments.

Is the treatment anything different to what I’ve been doing? Should I get new sponges for the filter anyway?

 

[Colin_T]

You don't normally need to replace anything like the filter or gravel. Just remove the offending objects and wash everything out and replace the water. That gets rid of the poison and everything is good after that.

Just because the items came from a pet shop, doesn't mean they are safe. I spent years working in the pet industry and we would sometimes get people coming in with problems like their fish dying for no reason. We go through everything and eventually work out poisoning. A lot of times it was coloured aquarium gravel that wasn't cured properly and even though it looked normal, it was releasing small amounts of poison into the water that would wipe out any fish in that tank. We also had a few ornaments that came in and started peeling in our tanks and customer's tanks (similar to what yours did) and the fish in those tanks would die for no apparent reason. When the ornaments or gravel were removed and the tank water replaced, the fish stopped dying.

The blue and red gloss coloured gravel were the worst offenders but any of the glossy gravel that was painted, was suspect when unexplained deaths occurred in tanks.

Plastic containers can also kill fish. Most people think a bucket is a bucket and if it's plastic and holds water, it's safe for fish. Some plastics are food safe and they are safe for fish and animals to drink from. But most other plastics aren't safe and slowly leach chemicals into the water. Again, red and blue containers seem to be the worst offenders but green and black can also be an issue.

Unfortunately there's not many ways to tell if something new is going to be toxic to fish when it comes to ornaments or gravel. But if you sniff the item and it smells strongly of chemicals, it could be an issue. If it has an oily or slimy feel, that is a warning sign.

 

[pauldadams1984]

I've skip read a bit but definitely sounds like the tank wasn't cycled as ammonia wasn't able to build and then be turned into nitrites/nitrates

________

Before you get ornaments, have you considered buying bogwood/azalea wood and/or stones. Having a more natural look. You will have to keep an eye on pH but could be worth doing before putting fish in.

Stops any issue you had with paint.

Now you're here, you'll get some great help anyway.
________

Personally I would suggest that you stay patient, I wouldn't get a companion for the sole fish as it could kill both and generally they need more than one anyway.

It is my opinion more than advice, but I would recommend trying a fishless cycle in the main tank. Using fresh media so you know it's definitely starting from scratch. Getting step by step help from here will be a game changer for you, rather than relying on a fish shop that just wants your custom and often not trained properly. The reward when finished will be something amazing. It might take 6 weeks of no fish to get it set up though.

It would be nice if the last one survives but it's unlikely considering the situation.

_______

Question for the admin and more seasoned keepers.....

Whilst doing a fishless cycle and wanting ammonia to spike. Is it counter intuitive to add prime due to prime helping to clear ammonia?

Just thinking that prime wouldnt allow the ammonia to build up or the bacteria to start it's job properly, but could be completely wrong.

Possibly a basic conditioner would be better?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Question for the admin and more seasoned keepers.....

Whilst doing a fishless cycle and wanting ammonia to spike. Is it counter intuitive to add prime due to prime helping to clear ammonia?

Just thinking that prime wouldnt allow the ammonia to build up or the bacteria to start it's job properly, but could be completely wrong.

Possibly a basic conditioner would be better?

Prime detoxifies some ammonia for a day or so, it doesnt remove it or prevent it from building up. Ammonia will still be in the water available for the microbes to consume and grow.

This is different to something like zeolite, that does absorb ammonia and starves any microbial growth of food. This happened on a tank i looked at last week. They added zeolite on the advice of a fish store, but against my advice, a month or so later when the zeolite expired their ammonia spiked due to the microbes dying off to some degree and they now are in the process of re-cycling.

 

[pauldadams1984]

Ahh ok that makes a lot of sense, thank you.

Sometimes you read something and unless you have a science degree, you have to interpret what they are actually saying. Always better to just ask.

I had read that it detoxifies ammonia so in my head I figured it "removed" the food for bacteria.

But no, just stops ammonia from being so harmful to the livestock