Hi! I'm new to the forums as well as aquariums. I started about a month ago. I did a lot of research online and began keeping some goldfish and small koi. I started with a 20 gallon long aquarium and quickly found out the pitfalls of NTS. I was able to correct my mistakes and didn't lose my fish. However, I had over stocked my 20 gallon and was fighting nitrite levels too much so I decided to upgrade to a 40 gallon breeder.
After setting up my new 40 gallon breeder I checked my levels (Temp, chlorine, PH, GH, KH, nitrites, and nitrates) and the test strip looked great. I transferred some water from the 40 gallon tank to the container my fish were in. They seemed to be doing well. I added my fish to the aquarium and they swam around like they were good. within about an hour though I could tell something was wrong. I checked my levels again and they seemed okay. But as the night went on fish started dying one by one by one. I ended up losing all of my fish.
SO, today I start over again. I emptied 95% of the water in the aquarium and filled it up again. dechlorinated it and waited several hours before getting a water sample and taking it to PetSmart. I had them do a quality check and again, it looked great. So I bought 4 goldfish to test with. Again, I floated the bags for 15 minutes, added some water from the tank, waited 15 minutes, added more water, took them out of the bag and put them in my aquarium discarding the bagged water. This was about an hour ago.
As I'm sitting here typing this I can look to my right and see one fish has already died. The others are sitting in the bottom of the tank huddled in a little group. The ONLY thing That's different between this tank and my last one is that I put gravel in the bottom. Is it possible that the gravel is bad? I rinsed it all thoroughly before putting it in the aquarium but I can't for the life of my figure out what is going on! I just checked my water again and the levels look great except the KH is low but it was in my last tank as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone else heard of or seen a situation like this?
for reference
temp - 78F
nitrate - 0
nitrite - 0
GH - ~75
KH - 30
Chlorine - 0
PH - ~7.5
After setting up my new 40 gallon breeder I checked my levels (Temp, chlorine, PH, GH, KH, nitrites, and nitrates) and the test strip looked great. I transferred some water from the 40 gallon tank to the container my fish were in. They seemed to be doing well. I added my fish to the aquarium and they swam around like they were good. within about an hour though I could tell something was wrong. I checked my levels again and they seemed okay. But as the night went on fish started dying one by one by one. I ended up losing all of my fish.
SO, today I start over again. I emptied 95% of the water in the aquarium and filled it up again. dechlorinated it and waited several hours before getting a water sample and taking it to PetSmart. I had them do a quality check and again, it looked great. So I bought 4 goldfish to test with. Again, I floated the bags for 15 minutes, added some water from the tank, waited 15 minutes, added more water, took them out of the bag and put them in my aquarium discarding the bagged water. This was about an hour ago.
As I'm sitting here typing this I can look to my right and see one fish has already died. The others are sitting in the bottom of the tank huddled in a little group. The ONLY thing That's different between this tank and my last one is that I put gravel in the bottom. Is it possible that the gravel is bad? I rinsed it all thoroughly before putting it in the aquarium but I can't for the life of my figure out what is going on! I just checked my water again and the levels look great except the KH is low but it was in my last tank as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone else heard of or seen a situation like this?
for reference
temp - 78F
nitrate - 0
nitrite - 0
GH - ~75
KH - 30
Chlorine - 0
PH - ~7.5