I have a 30 gallon long that has been set up for about 12 years. The last fish that I had in the tank died about a month ago (it was very old though), so I was getting ready to start slowly restocking it again with some new fish. I have had a Rena Filstar XP2 Canister filter on there for the last year, and before that I was using a Emperor 400. I've had problems with the Filstar not restarting after a power surge (which happens all the time around here). I got tired of constantly having to empty and reprime the cansiter, so I switched back to the Emperor 400 that I had in storage.
I got 2 fish and the lfs gave me some Malaysian Trumpet Snails. I was horrified when the 2 fish died within 24 hours. Then I started looking for the MTS and found them dead also. I thought that maybe my biological filter was not intact, since there hadn't been any fish in the tank for about a month, so I immediately checked the water, but the Ammonia and Nitrites both tested 0, just minites after I removed the dead fish.
Please help! What do I do now? Since the deaths were not caused by an ammonia spike, I'm concerned that there may be some other toxin that caused this. I'm afraid to put even one more fish because I don't want to cause any more deaths. What should I do to find out if there is something wrong with my tank. There are live plants in there too, so I don't want anything to hurt them either. Is there any way to find out what is wrong or fix this, other than completely breaking down the tank and starting over?
I got 2 fish and the lfs gave me some Malaysian Trumpet Snails. I was horrified when the 2 fish died within 24 hours. Then I started looking for the MTS and found them dead also. I thought that maybe my biological filter was not intact, since there hadn't been any fish in the tank for about a month, so I immediately checked the water, but the Ammonia and Nitrites both tested 0, just minites after I removed the dead fish.
Please help! What do I do now? Since the deaths were not caused by an ammonia spike, I'm concerned that there may be some other toxin that caused this. I'm afraid to put even one more fish because I don't want to cause any more deaths. What should I do to find out if there is something wrong with my tank. There are live plants in there too, so I don't want anything to hurt them either. Is there any way to find out what is wrong or fix this, other than completely breaking down the tank and starting over?