What have I done wrong?

[akathewhistler]

I'm trying to get my first tank going. It's a 10-gal hexagonal tank stocked with 4 Red Swordtails, 4 Black Skirt Tetras, and 4 Glass Catfish. I've had the tank running for about three and a half weeks now. I've changed 20% of the water a week (three changes so far) , use ProQuatics Bacteria Starter with every change, and monitor the chemistry every other day. After the third change (four days ago), the ammonia level spiked from around 0.25 to close to 8.0 followed by a slight rise in the Nitrite/Nitrate levels over the next few days. The ph was slightly off as well (close to 7.6 instead of the usual 7.0). Tank temperature has been a constant 78 degrees according to the themamator. Since these problems started, the fish and decorations have been coated with a fine layer of tiny air bubbles, the sowrdtails have been sitting on the bottom and the tatras just drift listlessly around the tank. They only move to feed.

I awoke this morning to two swordtails and one tetra dead in the tank with a third swordtail dying this afternoon. Looking at the remaining ones, I have no doubt they will be dead soon as well. The glass cat's seem unaffected by whatever the problem is.

Anyone have any thoughts on where I went astray?

 

[cheezysquirrelz]

Your tank is going through cycling. You also had your tank overstocked. When you first start a tank dont add all the fish at once. only add one or two a week. Go buy an aquarium book and read about the nitrogen cycle or google it.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Agreed. Your tank is cycling. Im surprised that any of your fish are still alive with a ammonia reading of 8.0. In a cycled tank, the ammonia readings should be 0. Even after that, reading for more than .25-.50 are considered stress to the fish.

You are definitley overstocked in your tank though, sadly. 12 fish is way to much for your 10 gallon.

Daily water changes will be in tap for you for quite a while until you can get your levels down to a reasonable level. If you have anyone you can give the fish to, until your tank in cycled completley, that would help alot. Even after it is cycled, add one or two fish at a time.

Google the Nitrogen Cycle, or read the article in the FW articles section of the site here. Good luck! If you have any more questions...just ask!

 

[Guest]

Ditto on over stocked, as well as, under educated. Do some research and learn basic water chemistry. Whatever you do, don't add any more fish to the tank.

 

[akathewhistler]

I have read several articles on tank chemistry and and Nitrogen Cycle (since before starting the tank and after). None that I've read have helped me to understand why the tank would be stable with acceptable and consistent chemistry for three weeks (four if you include the week the tank ran without any fish) and then collapsed into toxic soup within two days time.

The tank may have been overstocked (I just went by the recommendation of the guy at Petsmart) but the fish were added over the first week so their numbers haven't changed since then.

It would seem to me that something in the tank suddenly changed, presumably something that killed off a lot of the bacteria colony thus stopping the NC, which seemed to be progressing successfully. I'm looking for opinions on what might have changed so I can fix it/avoid it in the future.

Also, what's with little air bubbles suddenly clinging to everything.

 

[ploughking]

Petsmart?!?!? I hate that place. They cant get anything right. I had ultra-extreme overstocked a 20 litre thanks to them. Befor eI discovered this site they told me:

"Oh yeah I can have:
2 silver sharks
2 common plecos
4 flame tetras
1 siamese fighter
6 neon tetras
4 guppies
2 mollies"
Whoah. The ammonia was so bad the water was yellow without having to test it. On the last day with that tank the silver sharks and one molly died. After that the neons died, the guppies died, the molly died, 3 flames died, siamese fighter died, and that was it. I absoloutly loath petsmart for that.

 

[cheezysquirrelz]

That does soud like cycling. Also a tank wont cycle without fish, so that first week without fish doesnt count with cycling. Do a water chane once or twice a week and test your water often. Dont buy chemicals to fix ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, etc. Try buying a book, I bought the Dummies book a long time ago and I still use it. Remember the rule: one inch of adult length fish per gallon. Even if the fish is like one inch but gets 4 inches, count it as 4 gallons.
Also if petsmart tries to push you into getting a common pleco for your tank, ignore them. Since your tank is small go for a type of pleco like rubberlip.(they tricked me w/ the common pleco in a 20gal)
I dont know about the bubbles, when I filled up my tank a while back, bubbles were on things.

 

[Guest]

The bubbles sound like 02. If you notice your fish breathing hard or staying close to the surface and theres a lot of little bubbles in the tank. Take your hand or small towel and whip across the bubbles. This will cause the bubbles to rise to the surface and gas off into the air.

(note: high amonia levels will cause fish to breath hard or stay close to the surface as well, so check your amonia level if you notice this behavior, as well).

Fish pull oxygen out of the water through thier gills. Alot of bubbles (big 02 molicules) makes it difficult for fish to process oxygen naturally through thier gills.

Hope this makes sense

 

[Devilishturtles]

akatheshistler: When you did one of you water changes do you gravel vac as well? The cycle will not start unless there is a source of ammonia, so like cheezy said, you started your cycle a week later.

You could have cleaned your gravel, tank glass/decorations, filter media, etc. all at the same time? This would kill off a significant portion of your bacteria, and would cause levels to spike extrememly fast like they did.

Continue to do water changes daily, unitl the levels drop significantly.

And Mojo is right about the O2 bubbles

HTH!

 

[glasstapper]

another one falls to the petsmart, they should be called petstupid, so sorry for your losses that is stagering and painfull, dont give up just remember all it time and a tank requires time and patience