Help fix my 'tank of death'

[push350z]

Well after losing a good number of my fish I'm at a loss of what to do. The only thing left in my tank is 2 danios who seem to be doing ok. What steps should I take to neutralize any bad bacteria/parasites that may be living in my tank? I was thinking of raising the temp and adding aquarium salt to kill off any ich/velvet that may have been the cause of death. I want to avoid having to rip up everything and boil it because I really don't want to have to go through another cycle or go purchase another $14 bag of bio-spira to cycle it with any new fish, but I'll do whatever is necessary to insure I don't kill anymore fish

 

[Cathy G]

We will need your water parameters to find out what is wrong. Can you tell us about your water changes, how long the tank has been set up, what your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are? Did you see ich spots? Did you see a gold dust covering your fish? What were their symptoms before they died?

Cathy

 

[Zen4t5]

Well we have to find out why your fish died. What kind of fish? What size is your tank? What kind of decorations? What is your water like? Ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites? Was there anything abnormal about the fish that died? Filters? Plants? What are your water change habits? We'll get to the bottom of this.

 

[plah831]

I agree with the above posts. Without knowing why your fish died in the first place, you stand a high chance of repeating the process and creating another "tank of death" even though I'm sure it's not your intention. Don't worry, lots of people make mistakes with their fish tanks (myself included) and we're here to help.

Is this the same tank where the cory with swimbladder problems died? Even if it's not, it seems like your tanks are having issues. Give us some details and we'll try to help you sort it out

 

[push350z]

We will need your water parameters to find out what is wrong. Can you tell us about your water changes, how long the tank has been set up, what your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are? Did you see ich spots? Did you see a gold dust covering your fish? What were their symptoms before they died?

Cathy

Water parameters:

ammonia: 0 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 10 ppm
ph: 7.4

I've been doing 25-30% water changes daily to see if that helped the cory but it didn't help.

I didn't see any ich spots, there was gold on the cories gill flaps and behind the gills but I saw that on a lot of julii cories that I looked at on the web, and that was one of the first things I noticed about them when I looked at them before they went into the tank.

Here's what he looked like last night:

Here's what looks like some fluid build up inside of him while he was laying on his side:

I took some shots of his gills because I thought they looked a little red. Ammonia and nitrite are both at 0 ppm and nitrate at 10 ppm at the time of the photo.

 

[push350z]

Well we have to find out why your fish died. What kind of fish? What size is your tank? What kind of decorations? What is your water like? Ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites? Was there anything abnormal about the fish that died? Filters? Plants? What are your water change habits? We'll get to the bottom of this.

Tank is a 46 gallon oceanic bowfront, it was a corydora julii. Here is a shot of the tank setup:

Filter is a penguion 350, water temp stays stable at 80F. The cory exhibited swim bladder problems (barrel rolls when swimming) prior to it's death and rapid breathing. I ended up euthanizing the poor guy because he got stuck to the filter and it actually pulled some of his skin off and he looked to be in pain. You can see in the one pic of him he had some fluid build up. I've been doing 25-30% water changes daily since he started acting weird. Before that I was doing 10-15% changes daily as I had changed out to PFS substrate and wanted to get rid of and debris that came up with the change. I washed all decos and sand thoroughly before putting them in the tank.

I have a 5 gallon setup with 4 harlequin rasboras that are doing fine, not sure what I'm doing wrong on this tank?

 

[push350z]

I agree with the above posts. Without knowing why your fish died in the first place, you stand a high chance of repeating the process and creating another "tank of death" even though I'm sure it's not your intention. Don't worry, lots of people make mistakes with their fish tanks (myself included) and we're here to help.

Is this the same tank where the cory with swimbladder problems died? Even if it's not, it seems like your tanks are having issues. Give us some details and we'll try to help you sort it out

Having done a 5 gallon tank and figured out some of the dos and dont's I thought I had gone about doing this tank right. I started off with 3 danios and a couple cories. There was a bacterial bloom overnight and I did a 30% water change immediately to minimize the amonia level, and went and got bio-spira to help with the cycle. Put it in and 24 hours later I was reading 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5 ppm nitrate which has since come up to 10 ppm nitrate.

 

[plah831]

it looks like you cycled your tank correctly (shortcut courtesy of Bio Spira ). did you quarantine new additions? they could have diseases that are now spreading through the tank. thus, your rasboras in the 5 gal tank are doing fine.

 

[push350z]

it looks like you cycled your tank correctly (shortcut courtesy of Bio Spira ). did you quarantine new additions? they could have diseases that are now spreading through the tank. thus, your rasboras in the 5 gal tank are doing fine.

I didn't because at the time the cories were the only thing in my tank (besides my few danios) and I vowed I wouldn't put any other fish in until I was certain the cories were fine. So in effect I essentially used my 46 as a quarantine. I originally was going to use the 5 as a quarantine but my sister wanted a tank so badly I let her have it for her rasboras. I was going to purchase a 10 as a quarantine as soon as I decided to add more fish, after I was assured the cories were in good health. Obviously I wish I would have had a quarantine set up now so I didn't have to risk contaminating the 46, but that's a lesson that I've learned and I'm going out to purchase a 10g for that purpose tonight most likely and start fishless cycling it.

 

[IceH2O]

Is it possible you just got a bad batch of cories?

How did you acclimate them?

How long were they in the tank before they died?

I'm inclined to think that since everything looks good parameter wise that the fish either weren't in the best health or weren't added to the tank correctly.