Help me asap!! Fish dying.

[aaronalam]

Why did you do a full wash???

How did you wash the filter, under tap water?

[Ickletas]

Basically what a fish tank needs is bacteria. These bacteria eat ammonia and produce nitrite, then in turn other bacteria eat nitrite and produce nitrate. If you wash your tank/filters in straight tap water the chlorine/chloramine kills these bacteria and you have to more or less start from scratch to build them back up again. Don't use any soap at all. Rinse out your filters in the tank water that you have siphoned out and your bacteria colonies should remain pretty intact. I know it sounds mad but your tank could be too "clean". You can pick up a gravel cleaner that will agitate the gravel as you siphon and only do about 1/3 to 1/2 per pwc. You don't need to completely take it apart for cleaning.

*Please feel free to pick me up on any errors....I am a science dunce

[jussy]

i had done a full wash because it was quite dirty i had algae on the glass and yes i did wash the filter under tap water as i normally do.

[Ickletas]

You can get the algae off the glass with an old credit card or buy an algae cleaner from your lfs. Basically the ammonia in your tank seems to have got to toxic levels and is killing your fish.
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!
This will tell you all you need to know to fix the problem.

[Ebbi]

I dont know why your fish are dying, but if your fish are all swimming near the top it could be that there is not enough air in your tank, do you have an air pump and air stone? Or anything that blows bubbles?

[Rush81]

So far I agree with what everyone has had to say. All I can add is when it comes to fish amt in your tank just keep in mind that for every inch of fish you need 1 to 2 sq inchs of surface water space. I always go by 2sq in to be on the safe side but I'm comfortable in stating that 1 sq in per inch of fish should keep you from over populating. And if you clean your filter not only make sure to clean it in old tank water but to either or in the sense of either clean the filter or clean the tank dont do both at the same time it usually dosent turn out well. At least it never did for me. lol I always do either or not both at the same cleaning time.
Good Luck!

[Aspencer]

I have two HOB filters on each tank and clean, in tank water, only one filter a week.

[jussy]

Originally Posted by Ebbi

I dont know why your fish are dying, but if your fish are all swimming near the top it could be that there is not enough air in your tank, do you have an air pump and air stone? Or anything that blows bubbles?

yes i do have an air pump with an under gravel filter and another air stone in the gravel.

[aaronalam]

Originally Posted by jussy

i had done a full wash because it was quite dirty i had algae on the glass and yes i did wash the filter under tap water as i normally do.

You should never wash your filter under tap water, it kills the "good" bacteria and can result in having a full recycle.

You should only ever wash it in tank water, take some water from your tank and wash the filter out in that.

[jussy]

i did let the tank settle for around 4 hours before i put the fish in.

[Ickletas]

4 hours is not enough time to rebuild a colony of bacteria, it can take weeks. Again I refer you to:
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

[jussy]

Originally Posted by Ickletas

4 hours is not enough time to rebuild a colony of bacteria, it can take weeks. Again I refer you to:
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

it says page not found when i click on the link.

[Ickletas]

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

Hopefully it will work this time If not the one on my earlier post definatly does.

[jussy]

cheers m8 it works

[jussy]

hi, im back i have the results for the tests i done all of the results were perfect, sorry for the late reply I've been busy with work ect...
i have also purchased some more fish which are 3 platys 1 male and 2 females, 2 more female guppies and two glass bloodfin tetra, but my platys are very shy they hide at the back of the bottom of the tank where its darkest, and when i switch the light off they come out with here fins up ect......

[Ickletas]

Coolio, just keep testing the water and doing pwc's as necessary (and at least once a week) as your bio load will have increased with the addition of new fish. I wouldn't worry about the fish being shy, it's a by-product of being shifted from pillar to post (breeder-wholesaler-retailer-you). They should come good after a few days.

[eco23]

Can you define "perfect" as far as your levels? Do you know the numbers of ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte?

[jussy]

cheers m8.
yes i can i always jot down the results in a handy notebook :P
the nitrate result was 5mg/l
nitrogen: 1.136
nitrite: 0.1mg/l
ammonia: 0mg/l
pH:7

[eco23]

Originally Posted by jussy

cheers m8.
yes i can i always jot down the results in a handy notebook :P
the nitrate result was 5mg/l
nitrogen: 1.136
nitrite: 0.1mg/l
ammonia: 0mg/l
pH:7

Never seen a nitrogen test before, lol. What type of test kit is it? It's a liquid kit?

If your numbers are accurate you don't seem bad off right now.

I'm jumping into the thread late and might have glanced over too quickly, but based off adding all those fish, the heavy cleaning and other things...I'd keep a super sharp eye on everything for the foreseeable future. If ammo or no2 come close to .25, time to break out the bucket and bottle of water conditioner

[jussy]

yes its a liquid test, i picked it up from my fav aquatic store for £18.95
heres a pic;