I am a fish murderer :(

W

wxguesser26

AC Members
Jan 14, 2007
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Not intentionally though. I have a 55 gallon aquarium with a Penguin Bio filtration system set to move enough water to filter a 100 gallon aquarium. The Ammonia is 0, the PH is 7.0 and the Nitrites are 0.05 ppm. Water temp is 80 degrees. Tank has been running for a little over a month using algae killer and Stress Zyme biological filtration enhancer by Api.

Yesterday went to the fish store and bought 5 swordfish (2 males and 3 females), a sucker fish and 2 loaches. The loaches were dead less than 24 hours after getting them into the tank and one of the swordfish has passed on tonight. The sucker fish doesn't look to be doing too terribly well, as it is fairly listless at the bottom of the tank. The other male swordfish stays at the top of the aquarium in one place, and the 3 females hide around stuff. None of them seem to have much of an appetite.

I have filtered water out of the tank prior to getting fish in it, roughly 40% of the water has been changed since putting water in it. The water here in Va isn't that great, so have been slowly replacing it with RO water. Didn't have these problem in Texas. The tank was set and going in like 3 weeks, with no problems at all.

The only option I am at right now is draining the tank and trying to fill it with bottled water. The Va water here is very chlorinated since we live like 5 miles from the treatment facilities, and you can smell the chlorine right out of the faucet!

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions before the rest of these little guys pass to the next world?
 
was it cycled? prolly the chlorine coupled with a cycle is killer,
 
If you can spell chlorine in the water then it is probably high enough to kill fish. You must treat the water before placing it in the tank - your LFS will be able to sell you product to remove the chlorine from the water.
 
wxguesser26 said:
Not intentionally though. I have a 55 gallon aquarium with a Penguin Bio filtration system set to move enough water to filter a 100 gallon aquarium. The Ammonia is 0, the PH is 7.0 and the Nitrites are 0.05 ppm. Water temp is 80 degrees. Tank has been running for a little over a month using algae killer and Stress Zyme biological filtration enhancer by Api.

Yesterday went to the fish store and bought 5 swordfish (2 males and 3 females), a sucker fish and 2 loaches. The loaches were dead less than 24 hours after getting them into the tank and one of the swordfish has passed on tonight. The sucker fish doesn't look to be doing too terribly well, as it is fairly listless at the bottom of the tank. The other male swordfish stays at the top of the aquarium in one place, and the 3 females hide around stuff. None of them seem to have much of an appetite.

I have filtered water out of the tank prior to getting fish in it, roughly 40% of the water has been changed since putting water in it. The water here in Va isn't that great, so have been slowly replacing it with RO water. Didn't have these problem in Texas. The tank was set and going in like 3 weeks, with no problems at all.

The only option I am at right now is draining the tank and trying to fill it with bottled water. The Va water here is very chlorinated since we live like 5 miles from the treatment facilities, and you can smell the chlorine right out of the faucet!

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions before the rest of these little guys pass to the next world?
Click to expand...


Do a one hundred percent water change, discontinue use of the algaecide.

If you are worried about the levels of chlorine being high, douuble dose your water conditioner (i take it thats what the stress zyme you are using now is, or was it just soemthng to cycle your tank with??). I highly reccomend prime as a little goes a long ways. I can almost guarantee you that is the algaecide that killed your fish. I dont know if your water supply contains chlormaines or not, I do know that chlorine will evaporate threfore I dont think thats what killed your fish. Before you go to restock your tank, read up on cycling first. There is no nee to use an algaecide in a properly cared for tank, even if that means using a bit of elbow grease during normal maintenance to remove a bit from the glass.

If the stress zyme was just for biological purpose, I would strongly reccomend not using it. There is only one biofiltration additive that I know of that works, and that is biospira.

HTH,
Blue
 
the nitries are what killed them. nitries are toxic to fish, they probably died from the shock of going from good water with no nitrites to your tank, which has too much nitrite. algicides are also bad and can harm fish, and stress zyme is useless. read this article on cycling if you don't already know what it is:http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com/aquainfo/cycling_your_tank1.html

by swordfish you mean swordtails and by sucker fish you either mean this:
1122pleco1_lite-med.jpg

which is a common pleco

or this:
algae_eater.jpg

which is a chinese algae eater or CAE.
 
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Yea, I dechlorinated the water as soon as I put it in and let it cycle through for a week prior to putting anything else in the tank. The stress zyme was just a thing to help set-up the filter for the cycling portion. The fish store I got the algae killer from assured me it isn't toxic to the fish at all. It is only toxic to freshwater lobster and shrimp. I was using it to kill the blue-green algae growing in the tank while there weren't any fish in it at all.

Thank you for the replies. I guess once the rest of the fish in there now die off, which will probably be tomorrow :( I will drain the tank, clean it really good and then start over, doing the double dose of a chlorine neutralizer and try to change out 2 gallons of water per day with RO water. The RO system we have only makes 2 gallons of water over the course of about 3 hours, so it would take forever to fill up the tank with pure RO water on a 55 gallon tank. Wouldn't be able to start running the filter on it for like a full 20 hours until the water go high enough, and that is assuming staying up for 20 straight to continue filling it every 2 hours or so. Thanks again for the help. I am thinking I will be asking more questions on here cuz ya'll seem to know more about the tank than the fish supplier I go to. Go figure! heh

Oh yea, the Nitrites shouldn't have killed the fish either. Everything I have read said nitrites are only toxic after they reach 2 ppm. The tank, when I tested it this morning, was only at 0.05 ppm, a full 1.5 ppm under the bad level. The 2.0 ppm I am coming up with is what was written in the pamphlet with the chemical test box that I got for testing nitrites, ammonia and PH.

And yea, I did mean Sword Tail, not Sword Fish, and the sucker fish is a pleco. :)
 
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wxguesser26 said:
Yea, I dechlorinated the water as soon as I put it in and let it cycle through for a week prior to putting anything else in the tank. The stress zyme was just a thing to help set-up the filter for the cycling portion. The fish store I got the algae killer from assured me it isn't toxic to the fish at all. It is only toxic to freshwater lobster and shrimp. I was using it to kill the blue-green algae growing in the tank while there weren't any fish in it at all.

Thank you for the replies. I guess once the rest of the fish in there now die off, which will probably be tomorrow :( I will drain the tank, clean it really good and then start over, doing the double dose of a chlorine neutralizer and try to change out 2 gallons of water per day with RO water. The RO system we have only makes 2 gallons of water over the course of about 3 hours, so it would take forever to fill up the tank with pure RO water on a 55 gallon tank. Wouldn't be able to start running the filter on it for like a full 20 hours until the water go high enough, and that is assuming staying up for 20 straight to continue filling it every 2 hours or so. Thanks again for the help. I am thinking I will be asking more questions on here cuz ya'll seem to know more about the tank than the fish supplier I go to. Go figure! heh
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stress-zyme will not help your cycle at all, really. it'd pretty useless and a waste of money. algae killer can and will hurt fish if they are not used to breathing water containing it, and a week is not long enough to cycle. please read the article I posted, it is very good and has ALL the information you need to properly cycle a tank.

I advise you do not ask you LFS for advice.
 
Ok, here is my thinking on this. Drain the tank and start over from scratch. I even have 2 spare bio wheels for my Penguin filter, which I will put in. Use double the chlorine neutralizer since I have just under double the chlorine in my water than is normal. Wait 2 days for it to cycle through really good, then twice a day filter out 2 gallons of water and replace with RO water for a week, essentially switching out roughly 40% of the total water with RO water and ensure the PH stays at 7.0. Once that is done and taken care of, THEN go and buy a couple of fish. I know I will need a Pleco by then, so buy one of those and 3 or 4 Cory Catfish to start off with. Leave them in the tank until the ammonia spikes and settles back down again, then get 5 more fish and wait for the tank to settle again, rinse and repeat until I have my tank populated. I want the Pleco for cleaning algae, the Cories as bottom feeders to help clean the bottom of the tank, then some schooling mid dwellers and a couple of top dwellers. In total, in the 55 gallon tank, have 15 to 20 fish. Does this sound like it should work in theory?

But, which would work better as bottom feeders with medium sized rocks? Loaches or Cories? Also, would some freshwater shrimp help out with the bottom cleaning and algae growth?
 
a little carification please.

you mention the pH was 7 from the source? correct?

call you water supplier and find out what amount og chlorine they put in the water.



what de-chlor are you using?

nitrites in general are very bad for your fish..prolonged exposure to these nitrites will ost likely cause damage to the fish.

where did you get the fish and how close are they to you?

they probaby don't use RO..and if you do you will need to add back some buffers as pure RO is not good for the fish.

unless you add bio-spira you will be going thru a cyce in this tank...(Nitrogen Cycle) please read up on this or you will be in for more fish deaths.
typically you will see ammonia, nitrites and then nitrates.

I would not suggest cycing a tank with a pleco or cories.

why not do a fishess cycle(you can read up on this at thia forum)
 
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