Urgent help needed!! Fish dying

[suzie83]

I am looking for some help. Please do not heavily critise as I was following instructions from a pet shop. Long explanation but will do my best to keep short.

I had a small tank set up (Coldwater) everything was going fine then we decided to go for a tropical tank. Bought one from a pet shop and followed their advice.... used filter start and tap safe etc to fill. Transfered our filter from the cold water tank to the new tank to let the cycle start and after 3 days....yes 3 days i was told was fine.....I transfered my fish over (fish were danio's, platy's and minnows) bearing in mind my cold water tank was consistantly sitting at 23 degrees must have been due to the room temp. therefore pet shop thought it would be fine to put them in hotter water.

After which 2 fish died, part of the agreement was that you take the water to be tested and if fine they replace the fish, however took the water to the pet shop they test ammonia at between .50 to 1.0 and adviced that on my water change to take out 35% to conteract this problem. Done this then over the next 2 days 2 fish died. Done same again took test, the guy this time told me that when fish die or add new fish then you should expect a rise until it settles so the .50 would have balanced out fine. tested water anyway and now its like off the scale (above 8.0) completed another water change this week and still no change.

I am extremly worried now that all fish are going to die as ammonia level is not coming down, feel it is because the tank did not cycle in the first place but could be wrong.....anyone any suggestions to help please.

oh and every other test is sitting at 0.

Sorry for the essay..

Thanks
Suzie

 

[jlk]

Hi and welcome!! Your tank is nowhere close to being cycled yet. Fish-in cycling can take 6-8 wks or even possibily longer. Roll up your sleeves because water changes are going to be your new best friend. Do you have a good water conditioner? Prime is the most recommended. You will need to do a couple of back to back 50% wcs to bring your ammonia level down to .25ppm or lower. Make sure you use properly conditioned, temperature-matched water. You will then need to test daily & do wcs anytime your ammonia and/or nitrite rise above .25ppm. Expect to do this daily or even possibily twice daily until your tank is fully cycled (0 amm, 0 nitrite). Also test your tap water so you are aware of what you are putting in your tank. Heres a link with more info-dont hesitate to ask questions!

I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

 

[dskidmore]

I agree with jlk.

I'd add that you can do some simple dilution math to figure out how many water changes you need. You want your levels below .25

.25 PPM you need 1 50% water change
.25 - .5 you need 2 50% water changes
.5 - 1ppm you need 3 50% water changes

I generally leave the tank alone for a half hour to an hour between changes. Sudden changes can be more dangerous than bad conditions. If changing a very large amount of water, and I have a filter/heater setup that can run in low water for a bit, I sometimes set up a drip refill. Put the bucket of refill water above the tank, and start a siphon through an airline tube. Let the tank refill slowly this way. When doing slow refills, you can start the second water change immediately. There is no shock when removing water, adding water in large amounts is what can cause shock.

Test with a kit daily, but I'd also just give a quick sniff test on the other end of the day. Ammonia can easily rise to the level where you can smell it during the early parts of the cycle. The level you can smell is toxic and deserves an immediate water change.

I recommend Prime water conditioner with every water change. It can reduce the toxicity of ammonia and nitrite that builds up between water changes. There are a couple other brands, check labels if using another product to make sure it neutralizes both chlorine and ammonia. Don't ever use it in place of a water change, it's just giving your fish a little relief between changes.

You can also ease matters by adding plants to the aquarium. You want the really fast growing ones that will suck up the most ammonia, and those are also the cheapest ones to produce, so just buy the really cheap ones if you don't know your aquatic plants. If you get algae in this period, don't worry about it for now, it's absorbing ammonia. You might even seed the tank if you know someone else with a green water problem, and leave the lights on 24/7 after seeding until ammonia levels go down.

Feed the fish very minimally. Every other day as long as ammonia is above .25. Increase the feeding rate very slowly when you have ammonia levels under control.

 

[librarygirl]

So did you transfer the filter from the coldwater tank to the new tank and then remove it after 3 days or did you leave it? Is this an upgrade for the coldwater setup or do you have two tanks with fish? Also what size tank(s) and what fish are in each (stocking would be beneficial to know as if the tanks are overstocked and not cycled that's going to contribute to ammonia issues as well).

Also read the link Jlk gave above and her info: large back-to-back water changes are needed ASAP to get those ammonia levels down.

 

[suzie83]

Thank you guys for your feedback, started doing the changes now. The pet shop had told me to keep the water changes to once per week, that the problem with changing the water would mean the bacteria would not get a chance to grow which helps eliminate the ammonia, hence why ive been so confused.

Details on the tank....its 70litres - heater and filter with 6 live plants an 3 large plastic and 3 small plastic plants and a rock display. It currently has 5 zebra danio's, 3 platy's, 1 mountain rainbow minnow and a clown loach, which i now know was a bad choice again pet shop did not advice correctly. So will need to get another tank set up for that one soon. I checked specifications etc and it said that max total fish length was 72cm so I'm within that. I did have a few neons as well as a few more minnows but there gone...reading through all the advice on these pages, im not going to make the mistake of listening to the pet shop again. doing more harm than good.

thanks again everyone and if there's anything else that i could be doing, then please let me know.

Suzie

 

[suzie83]

Hi again guys,
You mentioned prime but the pet shops in my area don't seem to sell it. They do alot of API, interpet things etc. Is there an alternative one i could use?

Suzie

 

[jlk]

Do they sell Amquel Plus? It will take a bit more dosing compared to Prime but does the same thing- detoxes ammonia, nitrite & nitrate. The API products (certain ones) help with detoxing ammonia but not much else. I am not familiar with the interpret products so I am not sure what they are effective for.

 

[librarygirl]

The 1" per gallon stocking rule is outmoded and not reliable as it doesn't take into account requirements of different types of fish (bioload, activity level, etc). You're actually very much overstocked right now which is only going to add to the toxin levels. Plus the clowns and minnows are happier in a group which your tank is too small for. Can you return them?

Prime is one of the best but if you can't find it locally (or you might try ordering it online) any conditioner/dechlorinator that says it treats tap water for chloramine, chlorine and heavy metals is good. It's a plus if it also says it neutralizes or detoxifies ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

 

[suzie83]

Petshop won't take fish back, tbh there large chain stores which is obv only interested in sales. As they ask you size of tank and amounts of fish before they sell you anything or give recommendations and they did not mention once that there was too many fish.

Not much i can really do now apart from try to remove the ammonia etc and get the tank to as best i can. Learned a hard lesson by just listening to the pet shop and certainly won't be doing it in the future.

Thanks again. Going out today to look for Prime or similar, already have a water safe one but that doesn't help with any toxins etc so best looking elsewhere, and do these changes properly.

Suzie

 

[suzie83]

Just thought I would give an update.

My ammonia is now down to about .50 and no further fish deaths, so thank you for all your advice and hopefully i will get my tank to the correct levels shortly.

Suzie

 

[librarygirl]

Good job. Just keep in mind that once the ammonia starts dropping and stays to 0 on its own you'll start the nitrite phase, which is as toxic as ammonia and tends to rise quickly.

Also the clown loach could potentially grow to 10"+ and needs a very large tank (100+ gals) so unless you're planning on a very large tank in a fairly short time you'll need to find a way to rehome the loach.

 

[MABJ]

It's difficult, but she is right. There are ways to do it, even though it will take time.

I had to rehome a green spotted puffer and it took a while but he's happy now

 

[suzie83]

Hi,
Yeah my nitrite is sitting around 5.0 just now, so is that more water changes or something different?

As weve got this size of tank jut now and realised after purchased about the Clown Loach my mum has decided to get a larger tank but will take 3 months to arrive so the fish will be rehomed once again. But we will make sure the tank is cycled fish-free this time and put the current tank in the second sitting room. Just hope afterwards she doesn't want to go bigger again lol.

Hope you can help with the nitrite now and hopefully things will be alot better now.

Thanks again
Suzie

 

[missie]

Suzie, I know exactly how your feeling as a little over a year ago I made the exact same mistake! The people on this website have been vital to my knowledge about fish keeping in general. so, please keep coming back and asking questions! I have 2 tanks and havent had a fish death in over 6 months due to proper cycling and maintance. It was well worth the "fish drama" I experianced when the pet stores tried to school me on proper fish care...Now i am confident and informed which is awesome! take care and good luck!

 

[jlk]

If your nitrite is at 5+, you really need to do some big water changes to drop this down to .25ppm or less. It will keep your fish healthy while your tank is cycling.

 

[suzie83]

hi, thanks again. I'm still doing my water changes everyday hence why my ammonia has dropped. So hopefully then continuing this will bring the nitrite down, although i'm only doing about 25%-30% coz i don't have big enough buckets. Would it be ok to do this morning and night? or best to keep looking for bigger buckets.

Suzie

 

[jlk]

Change the water as often as you need to to bring your nitrittes down- as long as its conditioned & temperature matched, you will be fine! You may want to consider investing in some type of water changer (python, aqueon, etc) if your looking to make things easier for yourself for water changes. Keep up the good work!