im this close to throwing away this hobby.

[allecb]

ok im gonna give you a bit of history.
first tho: 55 gallon. not a new tank. previously had 2 platies, 6 neons, 1 rainbow shark, 10 tiger barbs, and 2 german blue rams.

the newest addition to my tank were the rams. i noticed my tiger barbs stated becoming inactive. they just kept floating in the trees doing nothing. this isnt uncommon i know, but they did it 24/7. THEN i also had noticed a couple ick spots on the rams, so i looked up how to treat them. i didnt use any medicine, so i decided to take out 5 gallons of water, and dose the tank for salt. i think i put 2 or 3 teaspoons per gallon. i also raised the temp up. i put the water in the tank slowly over like 7 hours, and hoped to see a difference.

the ick calsified, and fell off the ramps. all the other fish seemed to suffer like a plague hit the tank. my barbs were losing color. my barbs would swim, then lose control like they were in space. they'd be floating at the very top, or floating at the very bottom. over the days theyd lose more and more control, probably 80 percent. a couple of the barbs were constantly picking off/kissing/pecking off scales off of my two green tiger barbs..which is weird to me..after awhile barbs dropped left and right. i lost a neon. my rainbow shark looked real sick, infact..all fish looked like they were about to die EXCEPT my rams, whove been fine the WHOLLE time.

anyways, i posted my situation somewhere else and osmeone said i pretty much poisoined my fish with salt. so i started doing water changes. the barbs seemed to be getting better sometimes, but then seemed to lose control again, anyways, all of my barbs died. i lost a neon. and i lost both my platies. my shark made it, and rams did too.

fast forward a week 1/2 or 2, and also i probably managed to change out a whole tank worth of water, plus more over all that time.

a fish store was having an annviersary sale. 50 percent off all fish. so i decided to get 10 tiger barbs. all died within 3-4 days except two. im guessing it might have just been a bad stock cause of all the stress and the excessive amount of barbs they bought for the sale, since the worker said he had dug out 20 dead rummy nose tetras just that morning! so anyways, the two left over were doing ok, and then i went to petco to get one to see if it was just that stores stock, and this little guy was doing ok too.

a day or two later, i got 7 new fish from my fish store i usually went to, and it was fun seeing all 10 barbs swimming from side to side again. and i got those guys on the 17th.

remeber my petco fish? that one died a few days ago. i woke up today, and saw a dead tiger barb. i saw a dead neon tetra too. rigth now im noticing two green tiger barbs look to be losing a few scales from being picked on, apart from those two losing scales and color, a couple of the other barbs are doing the same things the LAST TWO FRICKEN BATCHES OF BARBS DID!! floating around, losing control, flicking in spots, etc.

im starting to get REALLY PISSED OFF. i went MONTHS with my tank FINE, and all of a sudden i got this fricken plague, and now ive gone through atleast 20 tiger barbs, and looks to me that i might be goin through another 10 within a week or so.

WHAT IS GOIN ON!?!!? all my levels are fine. and by fine, i mean undetectable, zero, zich, nada. so dont ask me about that. what is the ****in casue of this!?!? is it something in my gravel? is it somethig in my filters!?!?!? is it something in my brine shrimp food!?!?? what do i need to change or take out? i just took out 10 gallons of water a day and a half ago cause i noticed one barb was acting weird, so dont tell me to do a water change.. i can tell youre probably sensing my frustration.

 

[tekonus]

Brine shrimp food? Can we get a little better description then that? Is it all you are feeding them? Also, I know you seem touchy about people asking you about your levels, but even your nitrAte is at zero? I find that hard to believe in most common cases. I would think a situation like this could be a number of different problems, so we need to do a process of elimination.

 

[jschall]

ok im gonna give you a bit of history.
first tho: 55 gallon. not a new tank. previously had 2 platies, 6 neons, 1 rainbow shark, 10 tiger barbs, and 2 german blue rams.

the newest addition to my tank were the rams. i noticed my tiger barbs stated becoming inactive. they just kept floating in the trees doing nothing. this isnt uncommon i know, but they did it 24/7. THEN i also had noticed a couple ick spots on the rams, so i looked up how to treat them. i didnt use any medicine, so i decided to take out 5 gallons of water, and dose the tank for salt. i think i put 2 or 3 teaspoons per gallon. i also raised the temp up. i put the water in the tank slowly over like 7 hours, and hoped to see a difference.

the ick calsified, and fell off the ramps. all the other fish seemed to suffer like a plague hit the tank. my barbs were losing color. my barbs would swim, then lose control like they were in space. they'd be floating at the very top, or floating at the very bottom. over the days theyd lose more and more control, probably 80 percent. a couple of the barbs were constantly picking off/kissing/pecking off scales off of my two green tiger barbs..which is weird to me..after awhile barbs dropped left and right. i lost a neon. my rainbow shark looked real sick, infact..all fish looked like they were about to die EXCEPT my rams, whove been fine the WHOLLE time.

anyways, i posted my situation somewhere else and osmeone said i pretty much poisoined my fish with salt. so i started doing water changes. the barbs seemed to be getting better sometimes, but then seemed to lose control again, anyways, all of my barbs died. i lost a neon. and i lost both my platies. my shark made it, and rams did too.

fast forward a week 1/2 or 2, and also i probably managed to change out a whole tank worth of water, plus more over all that time.

a fish store was having an annviersary sale. 50 percent off all fish. so i decided to get 10 tiger barbs. all died within 3-4 days except two. im guessing it might have just been a bad stock cause of all the stress and the excessive amount of barbs they bought for the sale, since the worker said he had dug out 20 dead rummy nose tetras just that morning! so anyways, the two left over were doing ok, and then i went to petco to get one to see if it was just that stores stock, and this little guy was doing ok too.

a day or two later, i got 7 new fish from my fish store i usually went to, and it was fun seeing all 10 barbs swimming from side to side again. and i got those guys on the 17th.

remeber my petco fish? that one died a few days ago. i woke up today, and saw a dead tiger barb. i saw a dead neon tetra too. rigth now im noticing two green tiger barbs look to be losing a few scales from being picked on, apart from those two losing scales and color, a couple of the other barbs are doing the same things the LAST TWO FRICKEN BATCHES OF BARBS DID!! floating around, losing control, flicking in spots, etc.

im starting to get REALLY PISSED OFF. i went MONTHS with my tank FINE, and all of a sudden i got this fricken plague, and now ive gone through atleast 20 tiger barbs, and looks to me that i might be goin through another 10 within a week or so.

WHAT IS GOIN ON!?!!? all my levels are fine. and by fine, i mean undetectable, zero, zich, nada. so dont ask me about that. what is the ****in casue of this!?!? is it something in my gravel? is it somethig in my filters!?!?!? is it something in my brine shrimp food!?!?? what do i need to change or take out? i just took out 10 gallons of water a day and a half ago cause i noticed one barb was acting weird, so dont tell me to do a water change.. i can tell youre probably sensing my frustration.

Maybe you should just give up on tiger barbs.

 

[allecb]

Brine shrimp food? Can we get a little better description then that? Is it all you are feeding them? Also, I know you seem touchy about people asking you about your levels, but even your nitrAte is at zero? I find that hard to believe in most common cases. I would think a situation like this could be a number of different problems, so we need to do a process of elimination.

i feed them top fin freeze dried brine shrimp, and omega one freshwater flakes. i thought it might be the brine shrimp cause maybe theres something in it thats hurting the fish..and i'd like to point out, before these two fish foods, i was feeding my fish "tetra color" tropical fish flakes.. i'd say about 2 months ago i got the two new cans of fish food. do you think it could be one of these? my barbs (the original ones i first had long ago) were fine for weeks/a month though eating them so maybe its not the food, unless it could slowly effect the fish overtime? but that wouldnt explain the two new batches of barbs goin out cause they've only been eating the food for a short amount of time. however, they are young barbs so maybe they're weaker

and i dont have an api test kit for nitrAte. only nitrIte. but im guessing it cant be high cause ive been doing a lot of water changes...

 

[irmuddled]

If you say you've changed 100% of the water and more in less than two weeks, that's probably it. :/ You're not supposed to change more than 25% in a month, so you probably hurt the cycle. You should really have those nitrates checked up, your LFS should offer tests for free...

THAT and the fact that it's most likely that your fish were stressed out by the illnesses, the salt, and the frequent water changes, that they're still sick and passed out the illnesses to the new fish. Aaand last but not least, you shouldn't buy so many fish at once! Especially if you've been going crazy with the water changes. Simply it takes a while for the bacteria to get used to the new fish/waste levels, and rapid changes like that only makes the water very unstable.

Sorry for your frustrations and I'd be bald from pulling my hair out if I were in your shoes, but honestly those things don't happen out of nothing and we need to figure out what went wrong. The hobby is very enjoyable, but sometimes these hickups happen so don't feel bad! Take it as a learning experience

 

[allecb]

If you say you've changed 100% of the water and more in less than two weeks, that's probably it. :/ You're not supposed to change more than 25% in a month, so you probably hurt the cycle. You should really have those nitrates checked up, your LFS should offer tests for free...

THAT and the fact that it's most likely that your fish were stressed out by the illnesses, the salt, and the frequent water changes, that they're still sick and passed out the illnesses to the new fish. Aaand last but not least, you shouldn't buy so many fish at once! Especially if you've been going crazy with the water changes. Simply it takes a while for the bacteria to get used to the new fish/waste levels, and rapid changes like that only makes the water very unstable.

Sorry for your frustrations and I'd be bald from pulling my hair out if I were in your shoes, but honestly those things don't happen out of nothing and we need to figure out what went wrong. The hobby is very enjoyable, but sometimes these hickups happen so don't feel bad! Take it as a learning experience

ill go to petsmart tomorrow (i know the test strips arent accurate) and ask them to check my nitrates..however a couple weeks ago when i did this, they said it was fine. ill report tomorrow.

are you sure i got rid of all my bacteria or something? bacteria is in the gravel, and in my filters..not in the water...? also, people keep saying i put too many fish in my tank at once! and i dont know why!! people keep forgetting, i had 10 almost-adult sized barbs in my tank for a few months previously..so i dont think once those died off, and i replace them with 10 baby tiger barbs, is doing anything to my bioload? lol:huh:

 

[Lycanthropic]

ALWAYS QUARANTINE. I bet, if you QT'D you would barely lose any fish... and if so, most places give a refund.. or at least the ones near me do.... You would only have to treat the fish affected, and it would keep you from having to dose a full tank.
QT for 3-5 weeks. If nothing shows up, add them slowly to your big tank. problem solved

 

[tekonus]

ill go to petsmart tomorrow (i know the test strips arent accurate) and ask them to check my nitrates..however a couple weeks ago when i did this, they said it was fine. ill report tomorrow.

are you sure i got rid of all my bacteria or something? bacteria is in the gravel, and in my filters..not in the water...? also, people keep saying i put too many fish in my tank at once! and i dont know why!! people keep forgetting, i had 10 almost-adult sized barbs in my tank for a few months previously..so i dont think once those died off, and i replace them with 10 baby tiger barbs, is doing anything to my bioload? lol:huh:

A. You need to get yourself an API Master Test Kit, like this one. No proper fishkeeper should be without one.

B. Don't feed the brine shrimp food daily, maybe 1-2 times a week. Just enough of the Omega flake a day for them to eat all of in less than 2 mins. Twice a day at most.

C. If your tank is properly cycled most of your beneficial bacteria is in your filters. I've started new tanks with just transfering a cycled filter into a fresh tank with fresh de-chlorinated water... Never ever had a problem. So in theory you can't change enough water to hurt your cycle. Do not clean out your filters every time you do a water change, however. Some people do not realize this.

 

[irmuddled]

I'm sure you still got bacteria in there, but by changing the water so often you're making the conditions in general unstable. PH always goes lower/higher when the water is settled, so the PH rate has been changing with each water change. Rapid PH changes are very stressful on fish and is a common cause of death... that's why it's recommended that you don't change too much water often. Stress also makes fish weak and susceptible for diseases, so assuming they were sick before, there's STILL a possibility of ick around the tank (ick is invisible when it's not leached into your fish yet, but it's still there), and/or they can contract other diseases by stress.

But, along that, even though you didn't remove all of your bacteria, the bacteria takes some time to get used to your conditions when it comes to changing water, dying/adding fish... and considering how rapidly your fish have been dying, you've been replacing all water, and added so much fish at once, I wouldn't be surprised if you had bad water conditions in that end. That's mainly why I recommend getting your water checked out, like someone mentioned... elimination process. Finding out what caused the problem is the best way to prevent it from happening again ;>

 

[allecb]

ALWAYS QUARANTINE. I bet, if you QT'D you would barely lose any fish... and if so, most places give a refund.. or at least the ones near me do.... You would only have to treat the fish affected, and it would keep you from having to dose a full tank.
QT for 3-5 weeks. If nothing shows up, add them slowly to your big tank. problem solved

you think i have the patience to keep new fish i just bought in a crappy QT for 3-5 weeks? HELL NO lol!!!, and by the looks of "what works for me, may not work for you" thread, most others dont QT fish either.