Needing advice with new aquarium.

[AnnT]

Hi there, just after Christmas this year we bought a 40 litre tank with a view to buying temperate fish for our grandson. We set up the tank as per instructions giving it 5to 6 days to cycle before adding fish.
We bought 3 black widow tetras, one gourami and a rainbow shark and put them in tank. Things went well for about two weeks then we lost a black widow. After reading up that black widows should be in groups of 6 or more we bought another two. Things have been going good , we’ve been testing water , doing water changes when necessary and not over feeding.
About two weeks ago we introduced two ghost shrimp but they unfortunately died. When testing the water we’ve noticed a spike in nitrites and one time in ammonia so we did a partial water change and cleaned gravel. Unfortunately over the last two days two more black widows have died and also the black shark . They were twitching a lot before they died and just before the shark died he seemed to have a fit. Pleas can someone tell us where we’re going wrong as my grandson loves the fish.

 

[Aiken Drum]

You can't cycle an aquarium in 5 or 6 days. It normally takes a few months and there is a process. You really only want to be adding 1 or 2 small fish into an uncycled 40 litre aquarium. How exactly did you cycle the tank? What is sounds like is you are trying to do what's called a "fish in cycle" but you are doing it with too many fish for the size of your tank. 1 or 2 small fish in 40 litres and you gradually increase the numbers over an extended period as the aquarium cycles.

Black widow tetras aren't temperate water fish, they need a heater and tropical water temperature. Same for the rainbow shark. There are probably species of gourami that are temperate, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. What species of gourami did you get?

And 40 litres is simply too small these species of fish. There are smaller gourami that can do well in 40 litres, but the black widows need at least 60 litres, and 80 litres would be better. The rainbow shark needs 200 litres to give it enough swimming space. So to keep these fish together you need at least a 200 litre aquarium, although that gives you scope to add more fish.

So you have an uncycled aquarium, where you can't maintain safe water parameters. Too low temperature for the species you are keeping, which will generally lead to ill health. And it's overstocked with species that need space, so the fish will be very stressed, which leads to ill health and aggession.

How do you wish to proceed? If you want to keep a 40 litre, temperate species aquarium we can advise on this but it will mean returning/ rehoming fish. If you are attached to these species of fish, we can look at some upgrades. Now the rainbow shark is gone, we could make the best of a poor situation with black widows in 40 litres, but its not ideal and you will keep coming up against issues. 40 litres won't provide any quality of life for these fish.

And your profile says you are UK based. Who on earth sold you these fish to go into a too small, too cold aquarium?

 

[AnnT]

Thank you for replying. We bought tank , heater and filter at Pets at Home and we also bought the fish there . We only started with 2 black widows and gradually added the other fish as we were advised, also they give different fish different points and as the fish we got were 2 points each we were told the size of tank would let us have fish up to 20 points as long as they all got on with each other. In hindsight we should have gone to a fish specialist . Whilst writing this im watching another black widow struggling. I feel really bad for the fish now this is all happening. Any advice on how to rectify this ?

 

[Aiken Drum]

What are your water parameters right now? What have they typically been, preferably just before a water change? What sort of water change schedule have you been doing?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Pets at home can be really infuriating. Their fish are good and healthy, I've never had a problem with them, they ask all the right questions, but then totally fail to give correct advice from the answers given. I might sound a bit snobbish, but I don't like being questioned by someone who doesn't know anything themselves. I'm happy to answer questions if they know what to do with the answers however.

It's just all a data base, "computer says no" type of thing. They have their points system which is essentially a 1" of fish per 1 gallon of water deal. While this might help you not overstock an aquarium, it's only part of the story. So a 10 gallon aquarium might be OK with 10 x 1" fish, it won't work with 1 x 10" fish. Their equivalent is to say a 40 litre aquarium is 20 points, and a black widows is 2 points, a rainbow shark is 10 points, so you can have 5 black widows and 1 rainbow shark, but it doesn't take account that some fish need to be kept in groups, and some fish need an amount of space to comfortably swim about in. So a rainbow shark might be 10 points, but it needs a 200 litre aquarium to have enough space, which would be a 100 point aquarium. But pets at home are perfectly happy to say that fish can go in a 10 point (20 litre) aquarium because that's what the database says. They are getting better, they doubled the number of points for goldfish recently, so they now say it needs 40 litres (20 points) instead of 20 litres (10 points), but they really should be 40 points by their system and going in no smaller than 120 litres.

I'm making those numbers up BTW, I'm aware of their points system, but don't know the details. I havent been through their staff induction, I don't think I'm far off though. I believe aquatics is 2 days of their 10 day induction.

Black widows need a 500mm long aquarium to give them enough space to swim back and forth, and most 40 litre aquarium aquariums won't give that. You could make it work, but its not ideal. A black widow species only 40 litre aquarium isn't what I would do, but its doable if you kept at 5 or 6 fish.

And then we get to water temperature. They look at the database and see something like black widows tetras 18c to 26c and the lower end of that range would be in the temperate water area, so they tell you they don't need a heater. But the upper and lower end of that range is what they will tolerate, it's not healthy for long periods. You want something in the middle, so 22 to 24c. Unless your heating is on 24/7 and set quite high, you need a heater. My room temperature might drop to 15c overnight in the winter. You also want fish that enjoy a similar range of temperatures. You don't want temperture at top end for one species, and the bottom end of another's kept together, as what you end up with isn't right for any of them.

 

[AnnT]

God I feel I’ve gone about this all wrong. I took the advice from the guy in Pets at Home and find myself not knowing quite what to do. We did water changes dependent on what the water testing kits results were and we regularly cleaned the gravel . The heater is set to 24degrees. We used tap safe and filter boost. If you had a 40 litre heated tank what would you go for when choosing fish ? Meanwhile I have a feeling that the remaining 3 black widows are going to die they’re swimming quite erratically and that’s what happened to the other ones.

 

[Aiken Drum]

What have been a typical set of water parameters? What are they right now? What test kit are you using?

How much water have you been typically changing and how often?

You have a heater. That's good. Do you have a thermometer in the aquarium to confirm the temperature? Just because it's set to 24c doesn't mean that's what the temperature is.

Unfortunately poor water quality causes long term issues that your fish may not recover from. Keeping the water pristine will help, so up the water changes.

Apart from the twitching are there any other symptoms? Any redness to the gills? Does a water change improve things for a short while? There are other things that might be a cause, but without much in way of symptoms, and with you saying there is ammonia and nitrite in the water, without saying how high these parameters got, there isn't much else to go on, and water quality in a new aquarium is an obvious issue.

What aquarium did you get? I'm hoping you don't say a biorb.

Assuming you got something like their panorama 40 litre, it would make an excellent home for a single male betta. If you wanted more fish and to stick with the heated aquarium, a handful of guppies would suit. If you wanted to return to your original temperate plan, celestial pearl danios (sometimes called galaxy rasboras) would be good. They now sell CPDs at pets at home too.

 

[AnnT]

I’m using Aquarium Water Mini test from NTLabs. At the moment my ph is 6.5, my ammonia is 0 but my nitrite is 4. I’ve done a 25% water change and have been doing that nearly every day for the past few days.There is only twitching and slight erratic swimming with the black widows but all this didn’t start happening till three days ago and yesterday the rainbow shark looked as if it was having a fit just before it died.I don’t have a biorb just a bog standard tank . If the remaining 3 black widows and gourami come to no harm should I not consider any more fish unless I get a bigger tank.?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Nitrite is way, way way too high. Not to get too over complicated but nitrite is more toxic at acidic pH. Too high nitrite causes a condition called brown blood syndrome, which lessens the blood ability to transmit oxygen.

Symptoms include gasping at the surface, rapid gill movement, lethargy and disorientation. Sound familiar.

Things you need to do. Get the nitrite down. Ideally below 0.25ppm. Based on this being 4ppm currently, that will take 4 x 50% water changes. So thats your job for today. Keep doing 50% water changes an hours or so apart until your nitrite is down below that 0.25ppm target.

Increase O2 content in the water. Water is oxygenated through surface agitation. You want to see ripples on the surface of the water from your filter output. Either direct the output towards the surface, or lower the water level. Or get an airstone, as the bubbles from airstone will cause this surface agitation too. You want to maximise O2 content so that the weakened blood can transport as much as it can.

Get some aquarium salt. And dose 4 tablespoons in your 40 litre aquarium. If you do a water change, you have to redose salt. So redose 2 tablespoons after a 50% water change. Aquarium salt will reduce the amount of nitrite absorbed by the fishes gills. So in between the water changes see if you can nip out and get a box of aquarium salt.

Change your water conditioner. See if you can get either Seachem Prime or API AquaEssential. These claim to detoxify some nitrite. I'm not sold on this claim personally, but its a safety net along with all the other measures.

Let us know how you get on with these items, we can work on keeping the water quality at safe levels, hopefully seeing the tetras pull through, and then look at long term plans for the aquarium.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Just an additional point. You haven't mentioned how the gourami is doing.

Gourami are labyrinthine fish and can breathe oxygen directly from the surface by just taking a gulp of air, which they do when they need some additional O2.

Because of this I would expect a gourami to be less effected by nitrite poisoning.

 

[AnnT]

Just an additional point. You haven't mentioned how the gourami is doing.

Gourami are labyrinthine fish and can breathe oxygen directly from the surface by just taking a gulp of air, which they do when they need some additional O2.

Because of this I would expect a gourami to be less effected by nitrite poisoning.

The gourami doesn’t seem to be affected ,goes up to top occasionally but nothing else.
Can I use tap water to refill tank with tap safe in it , in Scotland we have soft water .

 

[Aiken Drum]

I presume you mean Love Fish Tap Safe?

That's pets at homes own brand water conditioner. Water conditioners remove chlorine from the tap water and make it safe. Some tap water is chloramine treated, and most water conditioners also removes chloramine. Love Fish Tap Safe doesn't explicitly say it removes chloramine. If your tap water is chloramine treated i would contact pets at home and ask if it treats chloramine. You can ask your water company if your water is chlorine or chloramine treated. It could be either.

However, if it wasn't treating the chlorine/ chloramine your fish would just die in an hour or 2, and would show distress in minutes.

Assuming your water is chlorine treated, remove half the water, add enough water conditioner to treat the whole 40 litres to the aquarium, refill the aquarium.

What I'm saying is that although the tap safe will do its job of removing chlorine, there are better products. Both Seachem Prime and API AquaEssential treat both chlorine and chloramine. They both detoxify some of the waste products produced by fish, which the Tap Safe doesn't. So these 2 products give you a safety net. They will also work out cheaper because they are more concentrated, so you get more water changes from a bottle. You won't get Prime from Pets at Home, you might be able to get AquaEssential there.

 

[AnnT]

Nitrite is way, way way too high. Not to get too over complicated but nitrite is more toxic at acidic pH. Too high nitrite causes a condition called brown blood syndrome, which lessens the blood ability to transmit oxygen.

Symptoms include gasping at the surface, rapid gill movement, lethargy and disorientation. Sound familiar.

Things you need to do. Get the nitrite down. Ideally below 0.25ppm. Based on this being 4ppm currently, that will take 4 x 50% water changes. So thats your job for today. Keep doing 50% water changes an hours or so apart until your nitrite is down below that 0.25ppm target.

Increase O2 content in the water. Water is oxygenated through surface agitation. You want to see ripples on the surface of the water from your filter output. Either direct the output towards the surface, or lower the water level. Or get an airstone, as the bubbles from airstone will cause this surface agitation too. You want to maximise O2 content so that the weakened blood can transport as much as it can.

Get some aquarium salt. And dose 4 tablespoons in your 40 litre aquarium. If you do a water change, you have to redose salt. So redose 2 tablespoons after a 50% water change. Aquarium salt will reduce the amount of nitrite absorbed by the fishes gills. So in between the water changes see if you can nip out and get a box of aquarium salt.

Change your water conditioner. See if you can get either Seachem Prime or API AquaEssential. These claim to detoxify some nitrite. I'm not sold on this claim personally, but its a safety net along with all the other measures.

Let us know how you get on with these items, we can work on keeping the water quality at safe levels, hopefully seeing the tetras pull through, and then look at long term plans for the aquarium.

Hi there, did 4 water changes as you advised and added aquarium salt . The nitrite reading is now .25. The remaining 3 black widows are chasing each other frequently but I think we might lose another. Where do we go from here. Should I let the tank settle now and see what happens with remaining fish?

 

[Aiken Drum]

Keep the nitrite at that level and see how it goes. Test every day and if the nitrite is above that 0.25ppm level do water changes to bring it back down.

Did you do the other things mentioned?

 

[AnnT]

Keep the nitrite at that level and see how it goes. Test every day and if the nitrite is above that 0.25ppm level do water changes to bring it back down.

Did you do the other things mentioned?

Yes I got aquarium salt and ordered the aqua essential treatment.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Use the AquaEssential instead of the Tap Safe going forward. Make sure you check the dosage, you won't need as much as the Tap Safe.

 

[AnnT]

Use the AquaEssential instead of the Tap Safe going forward. Make sure you check the dosage, you won't need as much as the Tap Safe.

Thank you so much ,fingers crossed his remaining fish survive , I’ll no doubt be back in touch regarding what if any fish we can add in the future.

 

[AnnT]

First day for a while ammonia and nitrite within normal limits, I’ll keep testing daily and see how it goes.

 

[Aiken Drum]

If you are seeing zero ammonia and nitrite for a week or 2, we can consider plans for the aquarium. As long as there is nitrite in the water keep the aquarium salt in there. Once there is no nitrite, you can gradually remove the salt through some small daily water changes. Say 15% water change, every day for a week.

How are the fish acting now? Are they still showing signs of "twitching" as you put it, or just chasing each other now?

If you see some erratic behaviour could you take a video, upload it somewhere like YouTube, and post a link?

 

[AnnT]

If you are seeing zero ammonia and nitrite for a week or 2, we can consider plans for the aquarium. As long as there is nitrite in the water keep the aquarium salt in there. Once there is no nitrite, you can gradually remove the salt through some small daily water changes. Say 15% water change, every day for a week.

How are the fish acting now? Are they still showing signs of "twitching" as you put it, or just chasing each other now?

If you see some erratic behaviour could you take a video, upload it somewhere like YouTube, and post a link?

If you are seeing zero ammonia and nitrite for a week or 2, we can consider plans for the aquarium. As long as there is nitrite in the water keep the aquarium salt in there. Once there is no nitrite, you can gradually remove the salt through some small daily water changes. Say 15% water change, every day for a week.

How are the fish acting now? Are they still showing signs of "twitching" as you put it, or just chasing each other now?

If you see some erratic behaviour could you take a video, upload it somewhere like YouTube, and post a link?

No twitching at the moment behaviour looks more normal.Should I continue to do 50% water changes daily at the moment until nitrites are undetectable ?