Worst day ever

[steeledarren]

Recently i have added new fish to my tank with great results. I added 4 plattys ( 3 female 1 male). 2 ottos and 6 cold mountain minnows. They have been doing perfectly fine until 2 days ago. On thursday i prefomed my weekly check with the API fresh water master test kit and all the tests were spot on. So i was really happy. Later that day my otto died. I was devestated, but read alot about how it is common for ottos to die, so thought n othing more of it. Today i found one of my female plattys had died, then an hour later two of my minnows had died. What was going wrong. all i coul think of is that i added a plant yesterday calledlilaeopsis brasiliensis which i bought from my lfs. i also added a stone which i had boiled earlier this week, could it be that? can someone please help. i have a 15 gal tank and keep the temp at a steady 75.

 

[neilanh]

recheck your parameters. Measure your pH and kH/gH and let us know the results.

 

[steeledarren]

parameters

here they are ph 8.0, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20 ppm. what do you think

 

[enadeau12]

ph is a lil high and nitrate should come down to 10

 

[neilanh]

nitrate is fine at 20. Is 8.0 normal for your water?

 

[BillD]

This a poser. It would seem that one of those fish may have beeen carrying a disease. The pH while some would consider high, is fine for the mountain minnows and platies. I have otos at a pH around that. While nitrate of 20 is considered fine a water change to lower it wouldn't hurt. I would do a 50% water change, simply because there is something wrong. If nothing else, it will reduce the nitrates by 50% and reduce any waterborne pathogens by 50%. Neither platies nor mountain minnows need water that warm. I would say, in my experience, there is nothing obviously wrong with your tank as described, and lower temps usually have less disease problems. None of my liverbearer tanks are heated (temps between 66F and 75F depending on time of year), and they all do quite well. In fact, at lower temps the fish grow a little slower, but they live longer.

 

[bs6749]

Do you dechlorinate your water? I also recommend that you get nitrates down to 10ppm or less. I like to have as few as possible in my tanks. Live plants help with this.

 

[steeledarren]

ankyou all for the advice, i will try and get the nitrates down with a water change, do you think i should look into a treatment maybe, i will also lower the temp. I declorinate my water with tetra water purifier. But i here that prime is better, is this true?

 

[bs6749]

You will find that most people use Prime or Amquel+ to condition/treat their water. I like Prime because it is a dechlorinator and it will also lock up ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates so they aren't harmful to your fish but the beneficial bacteria can still consume them and plants can use them as well removing them from the water.

 

[TankGirl]

20ppm nitrate is not going to kill off fish outright. I would shelve any concern about that for the time being, as it is likely completely unrelated to your situation.

How did you acclimate the fish? They may have simply been moved from very different water conditions and the change was enough to drastically weaken their immune systems.

If they were kept in tank parameters very similar to your own, then I'd say disease is the culprit, and this is where a quarantine tank comes in handy for new additions. You can strictly control the water params, treat prophylactically with Melafix perhaps, and have a good idea that the fish are healthy before adding to the main tank.

At this point, though, you might treat the tank with Melafix, but without any outright diagnosable disease I would not use any other kind of treatment. There is no real need to switch your dechlorinator. I keep huge tanks of healthy fish with the cheapest and simplest dechlorinator preparations. If you don't have an ammonia or nitrite issue then all you need to do is remove chlorine, chloramine and heavy metals. Use of Tetra water purifier will not kill fish outright, either.

 

[steeledarren]

thankyou for the advice. i have just done a 30 % water change, water is a little murky from my gravel cleaner but other than that it is fine.

 

[joy13]

If the plant had been in a tank that had sick fish such as something with internal parasites it would have had to take longer to kill the fish so that isn't it. Do you know what type of rock it was you put in? Some rocks can hold toxins because they are so porous.

 

[steeledarren]

im not sure exactly, it looks like some type of sandstone. how can you tell if it is a bad stone. Would boiling it kill the toxins?

 

[joy13]

Sand stone is very porous, boiling should help get most of them out depending on how far they managed to work their way in. I usually test my rocks with vinegar when I find them, if the rock bubbles I won't use it. Muric acid is actually a better test.

http://www.sydneycichlid.com/aquarium-rocks.htm

 

[steeledarren]

i have found another dead female platty, i cant understand what is going on,

 

[TankGirl]

What you are testing for when you use muriatic acid or vinegar is whether the rock is calciferous and will harden your water over time (not necessarily a bad thing!), and it does not have to do with toxins. This hardening of the water/raising of the pH over time from a rock is, again, not something that will kill a fish when it goes in the tank.

You could have a rock that was in contact with a toxin, but were there not fish in the tank already when you added these new fish? They would have died from something on the rock (cleaning chemicals, fertilizer, antifreeze, pesticide, etc.).

I'd assume there was a problem not with your tank, but with acclimation and the specific fish. Take them back, replace them, then acclimate very slowly, or quarantine them first.

 

[steeledarren]

do you think that even after a week of having these fish they would suffer from when i first put them in, How long should i wait till i add new fish?

 

[TankGirl]

I am a firm believer in "balance" in aquariums, so I'd wait about 3-4 weeks after the last fish dies to add any new fish, and I'd only add a few at a time, giving the new fish a week or two to settle in before adding more to be sure there is nothing wrong with them.

 

[steeledarren]

thankyou for the advice, one more question about drift wood, if you buy it from the shop is it already treated, do i have to do anything to it?

 

[joy13]

Driftwood I boil it and then soak it if it doesn't sink.