massive wipeout... and i don't know why!

[sudz]

Ok, i've been having this problem and mentioned it in a few other posts...

But i WON a 15 gallon tank & kit, at the same time, i won a colony of guppies in an auction at my local fish club. At closer examination, all of the adult fish had bent spines and were fairly feeble and small. The female was heavily pregnant. there were 4 "babies" who were just developing color. If i had to guess i'd say they were a month old.

My mom also bought me 2 Tijii cories and 2 pregnant females, who gave brith to 30 fry within 24 hours of getting them. That was on monday.

The tank also includes a small clown loach.

Well, starting on tuesday, I lost one of the males, it was the one with the most bent of spines. I quickly did a watercheck, surely enough, my new 15 was cycling, even with old filter media and all my plants in it. My ammonia was at .25 ppm Nitrates at .5ppm Not paticularly bad, but i attributed his death due to the water and his bad genetics. I did a 30% water change to lower both of those. THEN that night,, another 3 fish died, including one i've had for a few months (a redeye guppy male) That made me really worry. I did another water test, ammonia at .25 and nitrates just under .5ppm again. ANother 35% water change (just enough that my breeding nursery wouldn't go dry)

Then while i was at school, the pregnant female guppy i won in the auction died. I was quite sad. I was hoping she would give birth to nice offspring, as i do not know who the father was.

I did another 35% water change, (all changes with ample dechlorinator!)

I wake up this morning, and the 4 1 month old guppies are ALL DEAD!

the really weird thing is... I haven't lost a SINGLE fry. Wouldn't they, (and my clown loach) be most prone to bad water conditions?

Another water test (10 minutes ago) shows NO ammonia, under .5ppm nitrites, and 5ppm nitrates.

Tank specs:

Temp: 80*f (for the clown loach)
PH 7.4
KH 8 degrees
5ppm Nitrate
.25 ppm nitrite
0ppm ammonia

I use aquiarum pharmicuticals liquid drop tests.

I removed the dead fish, no markings... they'd just be fine... then some would stay at the top for a while, or "sleep" at the bottom, usually within an hour of doing this... they'd be dead.
The 4 1 month old guppies were swimming at the top of the tank when i went to bed... swimming against the current of the pump.

Do you really think that it was the ammonia that killed all those fish? it fits that those fish might hav ebeen week, but the one red-eye guppy throws my theory out of whack.
Any idea's?

 

[TCTFish]

Most likely because there were too many fish in a new tank. Yes, most likely the ammonia killed them and would probably take out the weaker ones first. Aquairums need to cycle...establish nitrafying bacteria that naturally control ammonia and nitrites. During the first two months of a tank being set up with a few fish (not a tank full) or some people prefer to use fish food in the tank (to create the ammonia to kick start the cycle), the water parameters will fluctuate. Ammonia goes up then when nitrite start to rise the ammonia typically goes down. When nitrites spike, the nitrate will start to rise as the nitrites go down. You do your partial water change...generally 15% once every two weeks if everything is set up right and not over feed or over populated is enough.

Understandably you were doing massive water changes in order to try and save the fish, but at the same time the establishment of the bacteria has been greatly disrupted. Right now, the best thing to do is deal with the water...let it establish the nitrogen cycle and just protect the remaining fish...and do not add in any more for a while.

10% water change twice a week for a couple of weeks then change that to once a week after until the cycle is established. This will happen after the spikes have lowered back to zero. Nitrates should be below 40 ppm...the lower the better. Use Prime or Amquel Plus water conditioner to help protect the fish against nitrite and nitrate. Feed only about two minutes worth of food a day about three times a week until cycle is established. Then fed the same amount but daily. Best to break those two minutes into two or three feeds throughout the day. Less wasted food.

The fry may have been adjusted to the rising level of toxins being they were born in it, but even then, sooner or later the levels could kill them too...and the loach eventually.

Good luck.

 

[talloulou]

I wouldn't have taken the fish with bent spines. It's either bad genetics or some type of disease, parasite, ect.... I definitely wouldn't breed fish with bent spines. How do all the fry look? If the fry actually survive the tank cycle I would watch them and cull any that develop bent spines.

 

[sudz]

the fry were born from healthy mothers from big al's. EVERY Fish i bought in that auction has died. Only ONE non-auction fish has died,m and he was feeble to start.

All the fish look healthy.
Ive cut back on the feeding, but not on the fry. How often should they be fed?

I realise i should have waited for the cycle, but i really didn't have much of a choice. My mom bought those 4 fish (including the 2 pregnant ones) otherwise, i would have had 7 small guppies and a clown loach.

I HAD to do a swap, and used old filter media. I started my 44 gallon this way, from filter media from my old 10 gallon (no decommissioned) and it never "cycled" (never had a spike)

I figured i'd have to struggle with a cycle, but i had no idea that such small amounts of ammonia will kill off so many fish!

got caught with my pants down i guess. :-(

the ONLY good thing out of this is that all my fish are now hearty and "defect" free. The guy who auctioned those fish really shouldn't have. I'm rather angry actually. Is that common practice? try and sell your culls in an auction? *shakes head*

Oh well. Bed time.

 

[7Enigma]

2 questions and a comment:

1. You mention in the first post the ammonia and nitrAte levels but do not mention the nitrIte levels until the last post or 2. Did you mean nitrIte earlier on, or did you just measure ammonia and nitrAte? If you were not measuring nitrIte early on, its possible the old filter media had a good amount of ammonia to nitrIte bacteria, but not as much nitrIte to nitrAte, and since the nitrIte to nitrAte multiply more slowly you could have had a high nitrIte level for some time. I would agree though that this SHOULD kill the fry first, due to their higher respiration rate.

2. I know this is basic (and see you have many established tanks already), but was the water you added to the tank during the PWC's the same temp as the tank water? I could see the shock to already weak fish causing the unusual deaths.

Those PWC's you did reduced the levels from ~0.5ppm to ~0.35ppm. While not terribly high, if the fish are already weak, it would have been good to get that level even lower. If your limited in PWC's due to the fry, I would take them out in their holder, and place it in a bucket of tank water. Then I'd do a good 50-75% PWC and fill the tank back up, then add the fry back to the main tank.

Remember, a 30% PWC, 30% PWC, 30% PWC does not reduce the amount of contaminants by 90%, its only ~65%. The more water you can take out at one time (while not stressing the fish too much), the less PWC's you need and the less beneficial bacteria you lose from the tank.

 

[sudz]

Yeah, it was nitrites, because i didn't even bother testing for nitrates as much until now. My mistake.

Ammonia is now gone, NitrItes are JUST about gone (its not quite at 0, but its not at .25 either) and nitrates are at 5ppm.

The temperature was probably off by a dgree or two, because i couldn't heat the water in the 3 gallon bucket. Everything was in the bucket for about... 2 or 3 hours, so however many degrees it would have fallen in those 3 hours without heat in a 71*f house, that was the temp difference.

The tank also included a bottle that had nitirifying bacteria, i used 2 caps the first day, and then 1 cap every day after that. for 4 days (until it ran out)

In retrospect, i'm thinking i should have poured it directly into the filter.

hindsight's always perfect!


Actually, I'm thinking it was the temp difference.
Because none of the four fish my mom bought died.

Also, My 10 gallon was VERY hard water (GH over 25 degrees) this one (just tested now) is at GH of 9 degrees. KH is at 5 (old tank was 9)

Everything seems good. I've inspected all the fry, one just magically went missing, no trace of it. None appear to have defects, and all seem healthy. Final count is at 27 Fry. They are growing so fast! (but not fast enough, lol) They are ALWAYS hungry. I feed them crushed flake 3 times a day when i can, and they always eat it all.

Sorry for the long winded response!

Thanks Engima!