All fish on same side of tank?

[Flash081]

This is the third day I've had my tank stocked.

It's a 40g long and I have about 10 Glo-light tetra, 10 Danio, 5 cory, 1 angel, 1 GBR, and 2 BN pleco.

They ALL hang out on the right side of the tank and I have no idea why. I feed the floating flakes for the tetra and danio on the left side and drop cichlid pellets on the right.

The danio and tetra won't go eat on the left side they'll sit and wait for the flakes to eventually float over to the other side.

I'll get an occasional wanderer or my cories or GBR to venture over and eat the flakes off the sand on the left side, but then they go right back.

Any ideas on why this is happening?

 

[Tracie6283]

Is it the side the heater is on?

 

[Flash081]

Nope, the heater is directly in the middle on the back.
The flow of the water slightly favors that direction though

 

[eco23]

Do you have a full tank picture you can post?

 

[Flash081]

Do you have a full tank picture you can post?

Not yet I'm trying to find a decent camera to take one.
The only camera I have is on my cell phone and it takes aweful pictures.
I just stuck some filter pad into the intake on the one filter I have to reduce the flow from that filter and they all seemed to have wandered over to that side of the tank. I don't know if it was because of the action or the reduced flow.

I'll have to wait and see...Also, as I was feeding I watched a little danio swim it's way up into the filter (another reason I put the pad on) and get crushed..... Needless to say there is a spike in ammonia (to about .5 ppm) now that I have to pwc out.

 

[eco23]

What kind of filter do you have that it crushed a Danio? I assume you mean metaphorically? If reducing the flow seemed to help...I guess you found the cause. As for an ammo spike, did anything crazy happen during your last pwc? Maybe the tank sat dry for a while? Sudden change in pH?

 

[Flash081]

What kind of filter do you have that it crushed a Danio? I assume you mean metaphorically? If reducing the flow seemed to help...I guess you found the cause. As for an ammo spike, did anything crazy happen during your last pwc? Maybe the tank sat dry for a while? Sudden change in pH?

It is a marineland penguin 200 and he swam up the tube, freaked out, then when i open the top of the filter he had wedged himself between the edge of the filter and a plastic divot. it's hard to explain but he was basically cut in half. I couldn't get him out without pulling the filter pad away which let all of this entrails flow into the tank so I did a pwc immediatly.

Nothing crazy has happened in the tank besides the fish dieing and releasing all of his entrails into the water.

 

[eco23]

It is a marineland penguin 200 and he swam up the tube, freaked out, then when i open the top of the filter he had wedged himself between the edge of the filter and a plastic divot. it's hard to explain but he was basically cut in half. I couldn't get him out without pulling the filter pad away which let all of this entrails flow into the tank so I did a pwc immediatly.

Nothing crazy has happened in the tank besides the fish dieing and releasing all of his entrails into the water.

Umm...sorry. That's messed up. There's not anything on the end of the intake? As for the ammo spike, I know you stocked heavily, but even with all those fish I can't imagine a greater than 4ppm output per day. I talk to people all the time who stock their tank 100% after a fishless cycle and ive never once seen an issue with toxin spikes. I obviously don't know the effects of fish guts on ammo levels, but I guess anything is possible. You didn't use any type of cycling product? I knew it was weird when you said you had 2-5ppm no2 after 2 days...but when you told me a couple days later you had seeded media I kinda brushed it off. You're not using Eco-complete substrate by chance, are you? (we have something similar happening with another member showing fast and odd results with it).

 

[Flash081]

Nope I didn't use any other chemicals and just inert PFS for my substrate.

There wasn't previously anything blocking the intake, but like I said I just put filter pad in.

I'll make sure to test everything tomorrow and see if anything has changed.

Note: I, of course, made sure the zebra Danio was fished out asap. I have read a couple posts about people who have lost Z.Danios very similar to how mine died and they resulted in a small ammonia spike as well. I did a PWC and got ammonia to 0 so if it goes back up by tomorrow I'll know something is seriously wrong and have to find the cause.My cycle had 2 days of dosing to 4 ppm were it cycled completely to 0 (including nitrites) in 24 hours before I added fish.

 

[Flash081]

Ammo: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 5

Biofilter handled that pretty well I'd say.