high nitrates, dead tetras?? (longish)

[Traci]

A couple of weeks ago I used the wonderful advice of Tempest and Oriongirl on identifying what I had and what I could add. I siphoned out what we decided was a 15 to 20 gallon tank, used AmQuel to detoxify the replacement water before putting it in. Then I went out and got 4 Lemon and 4 Serpae Tetras to be tank mates with the Gold Gourami, Spotted Raphael, and Chinese Algae eater. This was 2 weeks ago last Friday. Everything was great. No floaters the following Monday, happy swimmers all.

4th of July I came in, all was good. Still had my newbies, and the older set. Then, last Monday one Lemon Tetra was gone and no remains remained. Clearly it died and became part of the food chain. Last Friday I set everything up to clean the tank (see Oriongirl? I'm trying to stick to your recommended schedule!) I vaccumed out about 2.5 gallons and added the same back in after using the AmQuel and acclimating the new water temp to the old.

AND...

One of the Lemon tetras quietly drifted to the bottom and keeled over. About 20 minutes after adding the water, a second Lemon Tetra begin swimming frantically and rather horizontally, drifted onto a plant and died. Whoa! Wasn't expecting THAT! So, I waited for about 30 minutes to make sure I lost no others. Then I took a water sample over to Petsmart. The nice lady there tested, said the ammonia was a bit high, that the nitrAtes were HIGH (bright purple on the strip and reached it within 10 seconds), but everything else was great. They recommended another water change with AmQuel PLUS and bring test again before restocking. Also suggested live plants as opposed to the plastic ones.

I did that (this time siphoned maybe 50% of the total volume) and replaced after treating with the Amquel +, and also took out the old plastic plants.

SO..this AM, the last Lemon Tetra is history. No body to be found. I snagged my dad's test kit from home and the nitrAtes measured between 20 and 30 ppm. I treated the tank with more AmQuel + and tested an hour later, down to 5 ppm. Tested 4 hours later and showing @ 0 ppm.

I'd originally intended to add live plants, but as the tank has gravel don't know if that would work. Also, just noted multiple feathery algae clumps growing on the faux rock castle that were not there on Friday.

Any idea what my tank is doing? Think it's safe to add some new fish (obviously not more Lemons, though the Serpaes all made it through), and should I add some plants and if so what. Currently emply except for several small rocks and the castle inhabited by the raphael.

Much thanks for any help/.

[NJ Devils Fan]

How long has the tank been running for? If there was an ammonia reading, your tank might have not cycled yet, or, there was a big difference between the water in your tank and the water from your sink. I would test the ph of the tank and the ph of the sink water and if they are very different, then that could be the reason.

[Traci]

The tank has been running for at least 2 years in the office, probably longer as it was a hand-me-down bbrought in when the boss' kids got bored with it. Time restraints and general disinterest caused it to get only minimal attention for that time.

There is a post by me a few down with further details. Before the "great revival" I never tested the water, so the ph suggestion is probably a pretty good one!

[aquariumfishguy]

Why were you only taking 2.5 gallons out at every w/c? Thats not very much considering the size of the tank...

-Cory

[NJ Devils Fan]

Come to think of it, if I read it right, you added 8 fish in one day to a 15-20 gallon tank. That is way too many at one time. You have to add them slowly so you give your bioload a chance to get bigger to support the fish load. So, the reason you had ammonia was because your tank was going through a mini cycle.

[kveeti]

Originally posted by Traci
I'd originally intended to add live plants, but as the tank has gravel don't know if that would work. Also, just noted multiple feathery algae clumps growing on the faux rock castle that were not there on Friday.

There are several plants that you don't actually have to plant in the sustrate that would work to eat up some nitrates - anubias, java fern, java moss (they attach to ornaments instead) and anything floating, like water sprite or duckweed. The algae could be because of the high nitrates, or excess of other nutrients. Make sure you are not overfeeding.

[Traci]

Originally posted by aquariumfishguy
Why were you only taking 2.5 gallons out at every w/c? Thats not very much considering the size of the tank...

-Cory

Well, I wasn't quite sure how much to take out. OrionGirl said that a complete water change wasn't necessary and to siphon into a bucket, and the bucket I got was 2.5 gallons. When I did that, the water level was about 11 inches, almost to the top of the little castle, so I thought that seemed sufficient. Should I be removing more than that? I'm not sure of the tank volume. 15 to 20 gallons was an estimate based on the tank dimensions from my previous post.

[Traci]

Originally posted by NJ Devils Fan
Come to think of it, if I read it right, you added 8 fish in one day to a 15-20 gallon tank. That is way too many at one time. You have to add them slowly so you give your bioload a chance to get bigger to support the fish load. So, the reason you had ammonia was because your tank was going through a mini cycle.

Yes. 4 Lemons and 4 Serpae. I added that many based on the suggestion of the guy at the aquarium store. In fact, he said that I had the room for another small school of tetras if I wanted.

So, then why did it take 2 weeks before affecting the Lemons and how did the water change figure into it? Obviously it had to, since at least 2 died immediately afterwards.

And, how many should I add now? Or rather, how many can I safely add now?

[NJ Devils Fan]

I don't know, thats the thing. Maybe is was just a coincidence, or there was obviously something in the new water. Don't add anything for awhile, wait a few weeks for everything to get stable. Also, buy test kits for your tank so you will know when there is a problem: ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, gh&kh test kits.

[Alex]

Could someone have used the bucket for something else? Like cleaning?

Alex

[Tempest]

Traci-- Did I miss something in these posts? You said you had between 20 and 30 ppm of nitrate? There is certainly nothing in that to cause fish death. I've also never heard of Amquel causing nitrate to go down. You may indeed have caused a mini cycle but I myself wouldn't have expected the deaths to have been only one of the kinds of fish you added. That sounds suspiciously to me like there was a problem associated with them *before* you got them. I think I'd wait a couple of weeks to let the tank settle back down before completing your stocking. (let the bacteria bed catch back up). I change about 20% or so a week in a water change by the way. It's best not to let water changes go too long and then try to play *catchup* by doing large changes because the clean water you are adding is going to be quite different from the dirty water in the tank.

[anonapersona]

I think that question about the bucket is an important one. A bucket used in water changes must be a "dedicated" bucket, never used for anything else. i won't take much soap to kill fish.

[Traci]

The bucket isn't used for anything else, and has been used before to change the water.

It was actually Amquel PLUS, which does say that it will bring down nitrItes, nitrAtes, and ammonia levels on top of what Amquel does.

At this point I suppose there's little hope in determining what went wrong exactly. The initial water change was minimal (less that 3 gallons from a 20 gallon tank) and after the large water change following Amquel plus treatment (about 50% of the volume) no fish died.

At this point I am going to try and make the tank as "healthy" as I can by itself and the guys living in it, before I try to bring in plants and other tetras. So....

Here's a general plan, garnered from everyone's very welcome input. Please let me know if it seems okay.

1) clean the tank every Friday, replacing about 5 or 6 gallons through gravel vacuuming and siphoning
2) treat the water to be replaced with Amquel plus and stress coat for the fishies
3) test daily and log the results - consult either this forum or the aquarium store guy for what is "normal"
4) see if the aquarium store will take back the gourami and the spotted raphael (the gourami is a bit frantic and getting kind of big, the raphael is completely inactive and I *think* way too fat to be particularly healthy) If not, keep them.
5) when testing seems to indicate a healthy level all the way around, add some appropriate plants
6) test after that until the levels all settle again
7) and fiinally, add some more fish!

So, please let me know where I have erred in my game plan, and how you would modify. Also, any idea how many weeks my overall process should take?

Every bit of advice helps!!
Thanks.

[Traci]

Okay, just used my handy dandy new test strips, which showed...

ph = 6.4
kh = 20
gh = 300
nitrite = 0
nitrate = 200
ammonia = .50

all ppm

the test i used yesterday for the nitrates was one i borrowed from my dad, and used drops and solutions and all that jazz, so I don't know if I did that wrong while testing, if the nitrates were lower yesterday and the Amquel + dropped them for a short period of time, or what occurred there.

[Tempest]

I know this is your office tank so I don't know how much time you can spend on it but you need to use water changes to lower the nitrates. If it were my tank, I'd do 20% daily until it got lower than 40ppm. Doing huge ones with the fish in the tank already might really shock them. The tank had evidently been neglected for some time to build up to that high a level. You found ammonia also which tends to indicate you did start at least a mini cycle when you added so much new stock all at once.

[Traci]

okay then. daily water changes until my levels drop.

thanks, Tempest

[yashinfan]

Alright, you stated that the pH of your tank water is 6.4 I don't know what the tap water in your area is but mine is about 8. You also said one day you did a 50% water change. Well, that's enough to kill fish. I have never done more than 20% water change at a time- even when I had an ammonia spike. A daily water change of 15-20% is a good idea, add the amquel first before adding and wait a minute- this does actually help. But please do check the pH of your tap water to see if that is the culprit. Also, I recommend you leave the tank be and not add any more fish for at least two weeks to see how everything is. Than I would add one or two fish and see if they do alright, if they don't then you know your water is not ready yet to support new fish. No sense in making daily trips to petsmart with dead fish in bags. Also, do not ever trust the PetSmart staff!! They are what killed my first four fish.. stupid woman was like, "Ah, the pH is... uh... normal? you know? like water...??" :mad: grrr I wanted to throw the dead fish at her but that's probably assault... mehp. Good luck to you!

[Tempest]

Yas--- I do 50% water changes on my planted tanks *every* week and I don't have fish deaths due to it. :) A 50% water change is fine as long as the water in the tank and the water you are adding are similar. The problem Traci faces is that her tap water won't be like her tank water at all if she has 200 ppm nitrate.

[Traci]

All my fish survived the 50% water change. It was the first 20% water change AFTER introducing the 8 tetras that killed off the 4 Lemon tetras.

So, todays readings, drumroll please...

pH still at 6.4
kh at 0
gh at 300
nitrItes at 0
nitrAtes at 160
ammonia at .25

Thanks again! I'll keep everyone posted on how it progresses

[Traci]

Success!

With everyone's help, extensive daily water changes, and contant monitoring of the set-up, the office tank is doing dandy.

I am fairly sure it is an Eclipse 18" high. Happily swimming away are:

the original Gold Gourami
the original CAE (which I have to say is getting a little aggressive!)
the original spotted Raphael - although we rarely see his face

the 4 serpae tetras, all lovely and flaring their fins

AND

3 cute head and tail light tetras that flit around the tank
2 gorgeous whiteskirt tetras (would have gotten at least 2 more, but the LFS only had two)


They make the tank much more active and fun!

My levels are good now, got the nitrates down, and learned so much that I started a new tank at home!!

Thanks everyone (especially Oriongirl) ;)

[anonapersona]

nevermind,