Fish sporadically dying. Seeking advice.

[Buddyrhea]

I am a new to having a fresh water fish tank. My fish are not acting right and several have died and I’m not sure why. Seeking advice

I have a 20 gallon fresh water tank with a Topfin Silentstream 20 power filter. I have had the tank for about 10 weeks. Up until a couple weeks ago all seemed well. Perimeters within normal limits. At about 6 weeks I changed the filter cartridge and it went down hill from there. I started developing foggy water that then turned green. I tried treating with Tetra algae control but my fish didn’t tolerate it well and it really didn’t seem to help much.

Thinking I disrupted the cycle when I changed the filter I added Tetra start, a prefilter sponge and Fluval biomax filter media to the filter. I knew that wouldn’t help immediately but might prevent it next time I change the filter. I was told I had a little ammonia when I took a sample to the pet store and was told to use ammolock. I’ve done multiple water changed and added stress zyme, stress coat and ammo lock each time. I purchased tetra easy strips to test the water. My ammonia levels have decreased some over the last couple weeks, but is still present. I read that the ammonia level will continue to read high because the ammo lock inactivated it, doesn’t get rid of it. My perimeters are as follows.
Ammonia 0.5-1.0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0-20
pH 7.2
Total alkalinity 80-120
Temp 77-78
Chlorine 0
I have lost 3 Guppies and my red tail shark who has been vertical at the top of the tank for weeks is nearly dead, mostly floating. I have 4 glow fish. None are acting right, but one is worse, mostly lays in the bottom of the tank. I also have a loach who seems fine most of the time. A tiny bottle nose algae eater that mostly hides and 2 African frogs.
I’ve been fighting this for several weeks and do not know what else to do. I’m wondering if they have a sickness or is the ammolock not getting rid of the ammonia? I have been doing water changes and vacuuming my gravel at least 2x per week. I’ve also started keeping the light off except 7-8 hours a day. Still have green water that gets worse between water changes. Do I need a better filter. Am I over treating?

Any advice appreciated. I hate seeing my fish die.

 

[Aiken Drum]

That ammonia is way too high. 50% water change. Test the water. If you still have detectable ammonia do another 50% water change to get it down further. Test the water everyday, if you have detectable ammonia or nitrite do a 25% water change. Keep that up until you are no longer seeing any ammonia or nitrites and your nitrates are rising. Then your tank will be cycled sufficiently for the fish living in there.

Do you have access to any established filter media? If not can you get hold of any bottled bacteria (Dr tims one + only or seachem stability)?

There is probably all sorts of illness going on now, but poor water quality is the root cause.

 

[Buddyrhea]

Thank you for the advice. I will start doing daily water changes until the ammonia goes down. My poor fish. I feel awful. I dont have access to any established media, I wish I did. I have been adding stress zyme with each water change thinking that was adding live bacteria, but it seems that may not be the case. I have about 1/3 bottle of safe start someone else recommended. So I’ll add it.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ive never used stress zyme. I have thought about it, but so far resisted as it would be another product on top of conditioner and plant ferts to be regularly adding at tank maintenance and the cost starts to add up.

I believe stress zyme contains a bacteria that eats the sludge build up and it needs to be added weekly. It will help with reducing ammonia because it will remove an ammonia source, ie the sludge. But it doesnt directly consume ammonia.

Keep up with the water changes until your tank has cycled. The safe start is the right type of product. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Buddyrhea]

Thank you. This is very helpful. All these products get very confusing.