Hi everyone my name is noelle and I have a 40 gallon freshwater tank. This past week has been mayhem with my tank and I can’t seem to get a grip on the problem. This tank is relatively new. I did a new setup about a week and a half ago and ran the cycle for 48 hrs before adding fish. I’ve had 8 fish die. I was fairly convinced it was ich that had taken the tank by storm. I did a 4 day treatment with pimafix with a 25% water change each day as recommended to me on another forum. The fish have certainly improved but I’m clearly not out of the woods based on how they are acting. Most are maintaining at the bottom of the tank which is abnormal especially for the dwarf gouramis. My Colombian tetras have cloudy eyes and my cherry barbs are behaving as if deprived of oxygen, and my two Botias are laying basically still outside of small movements every few minutes. The water is testing perfectly with test strips and I have a 10 in air stone running in the tank plus an additional down line just bubbling for a bit extra right now as they struggle. I did a 40% change this morning with a tbsp of aquarium salt (since the tank had a previous level I only added 1 tbsp) stress coat and some accuclear. I can’t for the life of me figure out what is wrong but I really don’t want to lose any more fish.
Please Help
- Thread starter noutten
- Start date
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You cant cycle a tank in 2 days. Despite what it may say on whatever product you put in to cycle the tank, they simply dont work that well. With these products its more a case of weeks at best. It can take months to cycle a tank.
Given your tank wont have been cycled before getting your fish, you then need to work on keeping water safe for them while the tank cycles. You do this by stocking lightly and changing water regularly. You havent mentioned how many fish you got, but you mention 8 fish dying. A safe level to initially stock on uncycled tank would be 1 small fish for every 10 gallons. So in your case 4 small fish to start with.
You say your water parameters tests perfectly. Can you say precisely what they are? You have been doing daily water changes, so your water could well be good now, but what were they when things started to go wrong before you started to clean things up with water changes?
You need to cycle the tank. Do you know how to do this?
For now, daily 50% water changes.
Given your tank wont have been cycled before getting your fish, you then need to work on keeping water safe for them while the tank cycles. You do this by stocking lightly and changing water regularly. You havent mentioned how many fish you got, but you mention 8 fish dying. A safe level to initially stock on uncycled tank would be 1 small fish for every 10 gallons. So in your case 4 small fish to start with.
You say your water parameters tests perfectly. Can you say precisely what they are? You have been doing daily water changes, so your water could well be good now, but what were they when things started to go wrong before you started to clean things up with water changes?
You need to cycle the tank. Do you know how to do this?
For now, daily 50% water changes.
I knew the cycling was a risk but I’ve never had problems in the past with using Prime, stress zyme, stress coat and aqueon bio boost balls. When I say I lost 8 that’s over the last week or so and most of them were fish from a previous tank. Currently it’s 2 mollies, 4 dwarf gouramis and 4 Colombian tetra. My test levels have been the same since the first 48 hours.
PH 7.5
Water temp: 78 degrees
GH 180 (we have extremely hard water, all my tanks in this state have been this reading regardless of what I do)
KH 240 (same as above)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 0
Tetras eyes are coated over with white. The mollies are fine and the gouramis go in and out of being ok and acting normal and acting completely ill. I did run the 5 day Pimafix treatment but it would be my assumption that a small level of that remains in the water since the largest change was 40%. Aquarium salt and stress coat have been used to help manage oxygen and stress levels as well as dimmed lights throughout the day and off at night.
PH 7.5
Water temp: 78 degrees
GH 180 (we have extremely hard water, all my tanks in this state have been this reading regardless of what I do)
KH 240 (same as above)
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 0
Tetras eyes are coated over with white. The mollies are fine and the gouramis go in and out of being ok and acting normal and acting completely ill. I did run the 5 day Pimafix treatment but it would be my assumption that a small level of that remains in the water since the largest change was 40%. Aquarium salt and stress coat have been used to help manage oxygen and stress levels as well as dimmed lights throughout the day and off at night.
Colin_T
Aquarium Advice Addict
Hi and welcome to the forum 
Any chance of some pictures of the fish so we can check them for disease?
Cloudy eyes and breathing heavily are signs of something bad in the water. The best thing to do is big daily water changes for at least a week, using dechlorinated water. This will help to dilute anything toxic in the water (unless the tap water is toxic).
Make sure you have clean containers for water changes.
Make sure you don't have anything on your skin that can wash off in water and poison the fish.
Stop adding chemicals unless you know what the problem is.
Any chance of some pictures of the fish so we can check them for disease?
Cloudy eyes and breathing heavily are signs of something bad in the water. The best thing to do is big daily water changes for at least a week, using dechlorinated water. This will help to dilute anything toxic in the water (unless the tap water is toxic).
Make sure you have clean containers for water changes.
Make sure you don't have anything on your skin that can wash off in water and poison the fish.
Stop adding chemicals unless you know what the problem is.
10 fish is still a huge amount of bioload for an uncycled 40g tank. As said 1 small fish/ 10 gallons while your cycle starts to establish is a safe amount.
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Your water parameters are presumably after all the water changes, so all you are showing are the parameters of your tap water.
In a cycled tank you would see some nitrate. In an uncycled ammonia and/ or nitrite. You are showing nothing. This is essentially impossible unless your tests are after changing a lot of water or there is something wrong with your testing.
You mention your fish picked up after you started frequent water changes and that's a clear sign you had a water quality issue. The best way to help with water quality issues is to keep the water pristine with frequent water changes over an extended period. Unfortunately water quality issues cause long term health problems that dont always sort themselves out.
I would keep up with daily water changes until things improve then look at getting the tank cycled. Dont add any more fish until you are sure you are cycled sufficiently for the fish you have. If things improve, cut back on water changes and try and keep ammonia and nitrite combined no higher than 0.5ppm.
In a cycled tank you would see some nitrate. In an uncycled ammonia and/ or nitrite. You are showing nothing. This is essentially impossible unless your tests are after changing a lot of water or there is something wrong with your testing.
You mention your fish picked up after you started frequent water changes and that's a clear sign you had a water quality issue. The best way to help with water quality issues is to keep the water pristine with frequent water changes over an extended period. Unfortunately water quality issues cause long term health problems that dont always sort themselves out.
I would keep up with daily water changes until things improve then look at getting the tank cycled. Dont add any more fish until you are sure you are cycled sufficiently for the fish you have. If things improve, cut back on water changes and try and keep ammonia and nitrite combined no higher than 0.5ppm.
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