Help! A big disaster in my two weeks new tank

Tom · Mar 3, 2003

Hi. This is my very first post. I've been reading this forum for the past few weeks to learn more about fish keeping and would appreciate your help.

I had a disaster on Feb.27 on my new tank after a 1/3 of water change. Both my wife and I felt so bad that we still have the pain now. I have lost 8/10 tetras, 1/3 mollie and 18/21 mollies fry.

Tank setup: 29g tank with about 25g water with gravels, 2 big piece driftwood and some small rocks.
Whisper 2 filter and Aqua clear 200 filters, 100w heater

My tank was first set up on Feb.12 with about 25g tap water with only one filter (Whisper 2 with carbon) and Aqua Plus, Wardley Sodium Biphosphate (my tap water has high PH in between 7.5 and 8), and Marineland Bio-Spira to speed up the new tank cycle according to LFS.

2/15 Bought 3 batches of plants (Anachris and Moneywort), 1 Spotted Rubber Pleco, 3 balloon mollies, and 10 glow light tetras. Replace Whisper-2 with two AqauClear 200 filter with carbon. I feed them twice daily with flakes that they can finish in 2-3 minutes

2/19 One black mollies deliver 20 fry and 17 survived. How exciting to watch the whole process!
One of Aqauclear 200 broken down, I replaced the Whisper-2 back. I did throw away one of the filter bag and replace it with a new one since it looks yellowish and dirty. Later I realized that this was a mistake. I add more feeding on the fry and adults, too.

2/20 Bought TetraTest Laborette test kit
Test water: PH:7.5
Nitrite: in between 03 and 0.8mg/l
Ammonia: 3.0
Top the tank with 2g water with Aqau Plus. The fishes behaved a little weird, so I add 1/4 Sodium Bipho and 1 capful of Aqua Plus

2/24 One Orange mollies deliver another 4 fry. So far, all the fish looks great, so did the plants.

2/25 test water: Ammonia is 0, but the Nitrite reach the bottom of the chart which indicates 3.3~33 mg/l. The color of the water turned really dark red and matches the bottom of the chart. I was very nervous and started reading and search on this forum to try to come up with way to get around it. I got the idea that the high reading of Nitrite is part of the new tank cycle. The best way is to do the water change and stop feeding for a day or two. It looks water change got a lot of benefits from reading all the posting on this forum, so I decided to do the water change.

2/26 No feeding. Change 6g water with conditioner. After a few hours, tested water and Nitrite was still way high.

2/27 No feeding. Stored about 10g water in another 20g tank with heater and add 2 capful Aqua Plus conditioner during the day. In the evening at about 8:30pm, I did 9g water change and it is when the disaster occurred. First of all, some Tetra showed struggling around and then two mollies.

2/28 I couldn't sleep during the night. In the morning I was afraid of looking at the tank. The total loss is 8 tetras, one mollies, and 17 fry. I had been thinking the reason why such outbreak could happen and still no clue. So I went to LFS and was told the PH might be too high and the water does contains Chlorine and Chloramines (we are in the same water supply area.) The LFS asked about the color change on the PH test kit. Was it turn green and blue? I could not recall the color change, so couldn't answer the question. The LFS told me to do absolute nothing for a month since now except topping off the water line. I suspected two possible reasons: One is that I did not add enough Aqua Plus. The label reads that I need double the dose to remove Chloramines. The other one is that the PH is too high and my test kit is not accurate enough for the small scales. I wonder that mollies likes high PH water?

3/1 Test water: PH: 7.5, Nitrite: possible 1.6 mg/l since I could not be sure about the color on the chart. It seems not matching the bottom of the chart. Ammonia is till zero. I still keep the water that I added to the tank, so I tested it and got PH:7.5.

3/2 This morning, one of the fry finally gone! I was amazed that he/she stayed tough for almost 3 days.
Test water: Nitrite and Ammonia are still the same as yesterday.

I used to keep fresh water aquarium for a couple of years in Pittsburgh before I moved to this area- Northern Virginia. I didn't add any conditioner and all I did was adding salt to the water. I did that since I was a kid (I had my first 20g at the age of 10). Until two months ago, I decided to read more about fish keeping on the Internet almost everyday and will do it more carefully. It turned out that I need to test the water, adding conditioner, ...etc. I know more about different species, environment setup. But my first disaster ever in my whole life for fish keeping just happened a few days ago. I got really frustrated and want to find out the reason why and should never do it again, or at least avoid the possible wrong doing in the future. I understand that my tank is not fully cycle yet. Should I add salt to the tank to reduce the stress now? (ignore LFS?s advise) All the survivors looks fine now except not eating well. Please help!

BTW, I am setting up 20gL tank for some shell dweller with sand bed. The tank cycle might take me a few weeks from now. Should I go for a fishless cycle since my 29g is not cycled yet?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

ChilDawg · Mar 3, 2003

I don't know of any fish which I would use to cycle a Rift Lake tank, so I would suggest cycling the 20g fishlessly.

I see that you have (had?) a Pleco in there, so I don't know what the salt will do to it, but I think that your livebearers may appreciate that. I need a plant person to tell me how well they will hold up.

While I do not believe that your tank was overstocked, per se, you had quite a few fish in there for starting a cycle, and some of those fish are fairly delicate.

Dechlorinator is important, but it seems like you had been adding chemicals on impulse according to how your post is worded. Check chemical interactions before you add any more, and also check to make sure that they don't KO beneficial bacteria.

I hope that this helps and that your tank situation is righted!

~Matthew

superstein61 · Mar 3, 2003

Well, first off sorry for your loss

Second, thats a long post and it is late here - so I won't try and answer everything but a few things come to mind.

It seems to me some of your initial problems were caused by the tank not being fully cycled. I see you used Bio-Spira. Wow this is a new product and the jury is still out - from the info I have read from people who have had success using it - the trick is to add all your fish at the same time you add Bio-Spira. you added the Bio Spira - but didn't add the fish til 3 days later. thus, its possible that because there was no food source for the Bio_spira over those 3 days, that you lost much of the bio filter. this would explain you initial Ammonia spike and later the high Nitrite spike.

As to your problems later down the road - that is harder to pinpoint. It could be some lingering problems from a lack of an initial cycle . It could be because you did not dechlorinate the water you changed enough and had a problem with the Chlorine / Chloramine (I am not familiar with the conditioner you used to say what is sufficient). It could be because of big temperature / PH differences in the water you added. Perhaps someone else can better pinpoint it - but there is a lot that went on, so it may be hard.

As to the future - I would feel more comfortable with a fishless cycle. however, if you wanted to give the Bio_spira another go, people who have used it according to how I noted above have had success with it - but the results are still limited since its only been out a few months

wetmanNY · Mar 3, 2003

Tom, wait on that Tanganyika tank til you're totally at home with what you're doing.
First, get a book today. The beginner book I'd suggest is David Boruchowitz' title. Go to www.amazon.com or your lbs (local book store, eh).

You'll get the general picture better from a good starter book than from dozens of piecemeal posts here. (Not that we're not here for you anyway.)

Your fish died of nitrite poisoning. Better check your testing technique if ammonia is testing zero.

Your pH around 7.5 is perfect. Don't use the phosphate buffer. Don't blast em with fast-acting sodium bicarbonate. Don't add cocktail conditioners.

All you need is sodium thiosulfate. I would suggest AmQuel, which will lock up the freed ammonia-- in a form where your bacterial colony can still use it. (Your bacteria haven't died of starvation: that would take quite a long time.)

Keep up those water changes. A little chloride will mitigate the effects of nitrite uptake-- the chloride competes with nitrite at the uptake sites on the gill surfaces. Salt (sodium chloride) is a source. A better source, without the added sodium, would be potassium chloride (Nu-Salt in the Diet Aisle).

This isn't your last fish disaster, remember!

Tom · Mar 3, 2003

First of all, thank you for taking time to read my long post.

Now I am still thinking of testing my tap water. Maybe I should get a kit to test Chlorine / Chloramine. Meantime, I will double the dosage on Aqua Plus to remove Chloramine.

To ChilDawg, I am thinking about the same thing by adding the salt, so I will do some search to determine which salt to get. BTW, my pleco is fine.

To superstein61, I have eliminated the temp difference since I heated the water before I adding in. As to 0 Ammonia, I think the plants might do some help. Right now, what I suspect are PH, and Chloramine. According to LFS, Chloramine should not be the main reason since I only change 1/3 of water. What do you think?

I was thinking of getting a Nitrate test kits to see how the tank cycle have proceded so far. As for how I should do for my tank? Any suggestion? Like LFS said, no water change for a month except for topping off.

TwoTankAmin · Mar 3, 2003

I agree with wetman- most of the things your are adding are not needed. I have plecos, tetras and many other fish in 7.4 ph with no problems.

If you are on municipal water, don't gamble, use a dechlor that handles both chlorine and chloramines. Althought it is more common with well water, it is possible there are disolved gasses in your water. I would suggest you get a "true" reading of your tap in the following manner:
Fill a small container from your tap. Put in an airstone and let it run for at least an hour, then test the water. If you have no air, then let it sit fir 24 hrs and then test.
Note- Amquel will make it impossible to test for ammonia with the standardly sold test kits- you would need one which can read through the Amquel effect. Dose accorfing to bottle directions- there is no need to overdose.

Live plants consume ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Some will accept salted water, some will even do well in brackish.

Good luck and keep coming back for more help.
Salt will help fish get through the nitrite problem. It is better to subject plecos, corys and the like to some salt, even though they dislike it, as the nitrites are even worse. Remember the only way salt comes out of your tank is through water changes. Evaporation removes water but leaves the salt. Be sure to add salt to changing water in the same proportion as you have it in the tank.

If you still have fry, you can move them to and uncycled tank or container with a heater and some air. Do water changes of 25-35% at least every other day to keep water healthy w/o cycle. Also, use small diameter tubing (airline) to suck uneaten food and fish poop from the tank daily. Feed the fry about 4 tims a day- feed less but more often than you would for adult fish. Regular small feedings and water changes are the key to healthy fry.

Definitely fishless cycle any new tanks imo.

val · Mar 3, 2003

It's a little late...

but welcome to Aquaria Central, home of the most concerned aquarists on the internet

If I missed it before, are you on public water? If so, you can find out definitively whether you have chlorine or chloramine in your water. Call your water company and ask to speak to the engineer. You'll probably get someone else, but at least you'll get someone on the professional side. Ask what they use to treat the water. Chlorine has long been the standard, but as it is relatively unstable, utilities have gone to chloramine (chlorine plus ammonia, basically). If you don't have chloramine, you don't need to get rid of it. My rule of thumb has always been put as little as you need to into your tanks.

Best of luck to you....

Val

ChilDawg · Mar 3, 2003

I would actually recommend these three books on Tanganyika over Boruchowitz:

Sabine Melke, "Success with Cichlids from Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika." (Expensive, good advice, but probably not necessary...I recommend the other two more.)

Mark Phillip Smith, "Lake Tanganyikan Cichlids."

Georg Zurlo, "The Tanganyika Cichlid Aquarium."

Ignore, if you will, the parts on fishy cycling, but the rest is solid info worth a look (and another, and a third...etc.)

Tom · Mar 3, 2003

Thank you for all the reply.

To WetmanNY,
How do you think that my fish died of Nitrite poisoning? I actually thought that they might be fine if I didn?t change the water that day? Should I keep changing water still? For how much is too much? I have Aqua Plus to remove Chlorine and Chloramine. Should I go buy AmQuel instead? I will definitely go buy either Nu-Salt (potassium chloride) or table salt.

To TwoTankAmin,
When I fill my spare 20g tank with tap water, I can see a lot of bubbles on the glass. Does it mean that there is gas or air, so I can test it right away? I?m sorry if I misinterpret your comments.
To keep the fry, my biggest fear is the water quality. You suggest that I can just move them to a container with heater and air. Should I go buy spring water/drinking water from Walmart to guarantee the water quality?

To Val,
I agree with you on putting as little extra chemical as possible to the tank and will call my water supply tomorrow to know.

To ChilDawg and WetmanNY,
It looks I will need to get some more books to read. Thanks for providing me with the reference list. It?s great!

wetmanNY · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by Tom
First of all, thank you for taking time to read my long post.

Now I am still thinking of testing my tap water. Maybe I should get a kit to test Chlorine / Chloramine.

If your ammonia test registers ammonia in your tapwater, that's chloramine. Call your water utility and find out. Too much guesswork going on here.

Meantime, I will double the dosage on Aqua Plus to remove Chloramine.

Well one of your ingredients there is salt...

I will do some search to determine which salt to get.

You'll wind up buying "Aquarium" salt or "Freshwater" salt anyway... ignoring advice about the chlorides...

According to LFS, Chloramine should not be the main reason since I only change 1/3 of water. What do you think?

Chloramine is very toxic to fish, no matter what the guys at the local say.

I was thinking of getting a Nitrate test kits to see how the tank cycle have proceded so far.

Better test for nitrite. Don't mistake nitrite for nitrate.

Like LFS said, no water change for a month except for topping off.

The worst advice yet. The nitrifying bacteria are not in the water.


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Help! A big disaster in my two weeks new tank

Tom

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