Confused - please help

What type of test kit are you using?

Water softeners are bad for fish because they increase the total dissolved solids, which is bad for fish-keeping that down is why we do water changes. I would consider R/O or distilled water with minerals mixed in for your fishtank water if you cannot get around the softener.

Ammonia and nitrite are deadly killers. If there is ammonia in your tank, it is probably what the wag platy is reacting to. No amount of medication will help, in that case.

Did you know there is a way to fishlessly cycle your aquarium?
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81388

I would return your fish and try this method if I was in your situation. You don't have to do so, fishy cycling does work, but as you can see, it is stressful on the fish and owner.

The platy could also be reacting because of lack of acclimation-did you acclimate it?

just me ... I let my tanks run for month before I put fish in them.... just to give you an idea... took nature a long time to optimize the water... and I dont rush her.

What kind of test kit are you using for your fish? Those strips or a liquid? Also, are you using anything like ammolock in your filter? It is very odd that you would lack any ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate after 7 -10 days of fish. A cycle generally takes from 4-6 week with fish in the tank to complete. Do you, perhaps, have any live plants in the tank? What kind of filter are you running? How often do you do water changes? I think we need to know a little more about your maintenance and testing routine to help you out here.

Welcome to AC !

whitepinehokie said:

I have a 29 gallon aquarium. It has been running for 1 week and 1 day. I started with 2 platies (1 red wag & 1 marigold) to cycle the tank. They seemed to be very stressed. The red wag hid in the corner and wouldn't ever come out. The marigold seemed to be doing better, but he died suddenly after 3 days. I have been doing an ammonia test every day and it has read zero every day. I live in an apartment and they use a water softener, so I worry that has hurt my fish.

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Main thing is you're caught in a fish cycle here. That means you started adding fish before there was any bacteria present to process the ammonia waste through to nitrate, the least harmful by product. That is likely the source of all/most of the problems so far.

whitepinehokie said:

After the death of the marigold platy, I went and got 6 zebra danios (thinking maybe there wasn't enough fish to produce ammonia). They seem to be doing fine at the moment. The red wag platy seems to be at death's door. I tried giving him a salt dip, in case it was a bacterial problem, but that seems not to have helped. He's glancing off everything and will sink to the bottom and sit/lean either on the floor or on a plant. He'll also spaz out and bounce all over the tank before sinking again.

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As of right now, the readings for my tank are:
No ammonia
No nitrites
No nitrates
7.2 ph
120 ppm KH
Between 0 and 25 ppm GH (I may need a more accurate test)
78.6 degrees F
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That would be normal for a tank which has just started to cycle. A week in though I guess I would expect some ammonia...how often are you changing water ?

whitepinehokie said:

First of all, is it normal to have absolutely no ammonia after a week and 1 day of having fish in the tank (and 7 fish for 4 days of that?). Secondly, is my super soft water causing my platy harm? I looked it up and it said they liked harder water. Would adding something like crushed coral to the filter help things or would that just set off some water instability or hurt something that's good now (ph/KH)?

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I would probably expect some ammonia...but you have very little fish in there. No harm in checking your test kit date btw. There is a lot number on each API bottle and it denotes mm/yy. The test is good for 3 years from the year marked.

Don't add anything to the water for the moment - hardness etc. is not causing the problems here. Any parameters outside of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and Ph are not central to your tank.

whitepinehokie said:

I'm sure I've most likely done something wrong in all this, but any advice would be appreciated. I'm not sure what else to do. :help:

P.S. Eventually, once the tank has cycled I would like to have the 6 zebras, 4 cory cats, 8 neon tetras, and 6 cherry barbs. Anything I do to the water now, they would have to like.

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What I don't see is any indication of what water conditioner you are using. By this I mean something which dechlorinates and detoxifies chloramina and heavy metals. Seachem Prime is what I and a lot of other people swear by. This should really be the only thing you add to the water.

I also don't see what your water changing regime has been - how often are you changing and what conditioner have you been using ?

So...

1. Read up on cycling here - this is a good and accurate summary : http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598

2. Check your test kits.

3. Check you are doing the tests correctly - shake those bottles good and hard.

4. Check you are reading the results accurately. They can be hard to distinguish at lower levels. A 0 ammonia on API will however after a half hour or so be an abosolutely lovely gold with not a hint of a green tinge at all.

5. What exactly is the water softener ? Does it have a chemical element of any kind ? Its a little bit odd that the fish starting going bad so quickly if you couldn't detect ammonia (but see 6 below)...makes me again wonder what dechlorinator you're using, what is the water softener and finally how did you acclimitise the fish ?

6. The platy sounds pretty bad...I don't think there is any point in a salt dip etc. Perhaps the most obvious answer here is the correct one - you got a bad pair of platys. If he doesn't improve in 24 hours, I would bring him back to the shop, dead or alive, and ask for store credit, explaining what has happened. Bring a sample of tank water so they can test for ammonia/nitrite etc. as well. Hopefully they will do you a goodwill gesture of store credit at worst.

7. On with the cycling. Your choice is a) return all fish and do fishless cycle as per the link above, or b) cycle with the danios. B) will require twice daily water testing and changing whenever you see ammonia or nitrite at .25 ppm or higher, until you see 0 on both of these for a number of days and nitrates slowly rising. The process can take a few weeks, and you don't add any fish during it. Be sure you can commit to this option if it is what you go for. Seachem Prime can really help here as it detoxifies ammonia but leaves it available as a food source for the bacteria.

8. On completion of the fish cycle your tank will have enough bacteria to cope with the danios. You can now add about 2 fish every week or 10 days until you have what you want, monitoring water parameters carefully. If you did a fish cycle you could add all the fish in one go as you would have cultivated sufficient bacteria to cope with this.

Good luck with it all and come back here with any questions

P.S....folks....leaving a tank to run for a month or whatever, without doing anything to it, does absolutely nothing to prepare it for fish. If you are preparing for fish so as to avoid a fish cycle you must add an appropriate source of ammonia so as to develop your bacteria....otherwise you are simply...well...I don't know what you're doing....looking at a tank of water I think...which can be nice...but is pointless if you think it is getting the tank ready in any way.

:welcome:

Coler great job!

qwik48 said:

just me ... I let my tanks run for month before I put fish in them.... just to give you an idea... took nature a long time to optimize the water... and I dont rush her.

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whitepinehokie said:

I also let the tank run for 2 weeks before adding fish, btw.

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it doesn't matter how long you let the tank run if you're not doing anything to cycle it (which stictly speaking neither of you actually mentioned). you can set up a tank, fill it with 78 degree water, plug the filter and heater in and have new fish in the tank before dinnertime. heck, i've done it before. it's no different than letting it run without fish and untouched for a month. except maybe the second option gives you time to make sure the filter and heater work properly. uncycled is uncycled, no matter how long there's actually been water in it.