My fish keep dying ?

[Jennifer23]

Hi,

I have cycled my new tank for a month. Have a heater set at 80, a filter, air bubbler. I got my water tested and they said it was perfect. I got my 3 glofish tetras last weekend... next day they were all dead.. my friend got a glofish from the same shop same tank and hers was dead the next day too, and she has a very established tank, so we just thought their fish were sick. I dumped out about 20% of my water, put a tiny bit of conditioner in there and let it re cycle for another week. Took my water back (to a new place) they said my water was fine... so I got three more glow fish hoping for the best. I got them last night at 8pm... at 7:30am one was almost dead. One was slowing down and the other one was fine. So I took them to the pet store and they took all 3 back and told me they didn’t know why they were dying since my tank levels looked good and my tank was set up good. Anyone else have this issue and have some insight? I don’t want to be the fish grim reaper. Thank you!

 

[Aiken Drum]

If fish are dying overnight, the most likely causes are chlorine (lack of dechlorinator), not acclimatising fish properly, or them being sick from the store.

I also wouldnt take a fish stores word for it that your water is safe. Either get your own test kit and do your own tests, or get the actual test results from the fish store. Also, its impossible to say from a test result alone whether the tank is cycled. All the test can say is whether the water was safe at the point in time the sample was taken, not whether the system is sufficiently established (cycled) to maintain those safe water parameters with fish in it.

If the store gave you actual water parameters what are they.

 

[Jennifer23]

I have test strips saying it’s good, the store did some kind of drops or something in the water. They didn’t give me numbers or anything just color changed water.

 

[LaloJ]

In addition to what Aiken told you, I want to add that glofish often die out of nowhere, they are quite commercial fish and are sold a lot for children and aquarist beginners who are attracted by their phosphorescent colors, I know from a good source that these artificially set colors will of course bring death sooner or later to the fish, so maybe your water is really fine or it's some chlorine, or maybe your LFS lied about the correct levels, you need to get a test kit to you, the instructions are simple and it's one of the smartest investments you can make for your tank. You have not told us how your tank is configured, what filtration you use and what tank size, I see many bubbles and many ornaments, it provides more details to help you better, the photographs help a lot.

 

[Aiken Drum]

I have test strips saying it’s good, the store did some kind of drops or something in the water. They didn’t give me numbers or anything just color changed water.

What are the test readings?

 

[Jennifer23]

What are the test readings?

Readings below. My sucker fish is doing great and so is my platy so Maybe it’s the glofish... my friends have them with great success though so who knows. The aquarium store I went to said it’s very hard to manage a 10 gallon tank and recommended I get a bigger thank so I am working on that. Hopefully it will be better.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Some fish are more hardy than others. Glofish are notoriously not hardy and will be more likely to become sick and die from poor water conditions or not being acclimated properly.

I cant see an ammonia test on that strip (although its difficult to see). That's the most likely parameter to be not safe on a newly established tank. You have some nitate, which is good. That shows you have some cycle (or possibly nitrate in your tap water). Dont let nitrate get to 100ppm as suggested on the test strip as being safe. You don't want it going above 40ppm. Fish can adapt to high nitrate, but it will give you other problems.