Moarning the death of my bala sharks......

diannehale80

diannehale80

AC Members
May 18, 2009
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Indianapolis, Indiana
Well, we have a 55 gallon aquarium and it has been running for well over 2 weeks now. We bought it and set it up in our new house for over a month (without any fish) and then when we moved in we trasferred our fish from out 30 gallon to the 55 gallon.
We originally had 3 bala sharks, 1 Oscar and a Pleco. Then our Oscar got to aggressive so we returned him to the pet store. We waited a few days and we added 6 Tiger barbs and 2 Silver Dollars. Later that day my dad took his 10 gallon aquarium down and added 3 Austrailian Rainbows, and 1 Indian Glass fish. We didn't lose any fish for a couple of days. Then we started losing 1 Tiger barb a day til we only had 1 left. I checked our aquarium for pH and ammonia. Our pH was neutral...the ammonia was 0.5. I did a 25% water change and added some ammonia buddies. We also added 1 new Silver Dollar to give us the correct 'school' number. He has done great.
All of our Tiger barbs died except 1 and he has been fine all by himself. He has lived for a long time now and seems to be doing great.
We bought the 6 tests in One Strip Quick Dip. I checked our water yesterday and the resutlts were: Nitrate 200, Nitrite 0.5, Hardness 300 (very hard), Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 180 (which shows ideal), pH was neutral. So, I did a 25% water change to try to lower the Nitrate level. Today when I woke up 2 of the Balas were either dead or dying and the third died while I was at work. I got the dead Bala out with my bare hands and found the it was slimy....I know fish are slimy anyways, but it was slimier than usual.
My hubby got home today and went and bought some Prime (for freshwater and saltwater) and added the correct levels. He added it at about 4pm and when I got home from work I retested that water....the Nitrate level is still hanging on at the danger level. What more can we do to lower our Nitrate and could this be what killed our Balas?
 
You need to do more water changes as soon as possible and get more reliable tests (liquid) as the strips are not very accurate. Your nitrates are far too high and nitrites and ammonia should both be 0 ppm.

It sounds like you did not cycle the new tank, so did you move over the filters from the existing tanks with the same filter media? Were those tanks cycled at one point? What is your maintenance routine like?

Your tank is also inappropriately stocked from the looks of it, although can we get a list of what is in the tank at present time?

But for now you need to be doing large water changes to get those nitrates down. Sorry to be throwing questions at you but its imperative that you give us more info.
 
I guess I should have added that out new tank was previously owned and we used the same filers/media. All of the aquarium decorations were also either used in the previously owned or on our old one.

Right now we have 3 Silver dollars, 3 Austrailian rainbows, 1 Indian Glass fish, 1 Cory, 1 Pleco, 1 African butterfly, 1 Tiger barb, and 2 Swordtail mollies.

Right now our maintenance has been weekly tests and treatments according to the results. I did a 25% water change 2 weeke ago because the ammonia level was in the unsafe zone. I tested our water last week and everything was good. Nothing changed in our aquarium from last week to now.
 
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I'm so sorry for your loss :(

It does sound, though, like your tank never cycled. There is a great sticky on this site on how to appropriately cycle a tank.

With your parameters that high, I imagine that you'll continue to lose fish. It may be in the majority of your fish's best interest for you to rehome them or bring them back to the pet store.

Something to think about for the future... If it is a common, that pleco will eventually outgrow your tank. Also, I believe silver dollars require a much larger tank than a 55g. Finally, please don't replace your aggressive Oscar with another one. The ABSOLUTELY need a larger tank than you have right now.

Edit - sorry... just read your above post. How long did the tank sit between the time that it was emptied by the previous owner and when you filled it, ran it, and added fish. The bacteria that colonizes filter media, decorations, etc only live for several days to a week without any food (i.e. fish poop)
 
sounds kind of crowded in a 55....an oscar needs a minimum of 55 by his self.....
besides that glad u returned him......since you were not prepared to really provide for his needs.

Also u have learned an expensive lessons: quarantine all new fish for minimum of 2 weeks beforeu put them in the tank....saves lots of heartbreak....and then when u add them only add one or two at a time cause bluntly the increase in fish numbers increases the bacteria load which can cause the ammo levels to sky rocket....

but alas that is all in the past sooooooo

i would do a 40% water change,
with that number of fish i would add an air pump and put in 2 air stones.
you didnt say what kind of filter u are using but i would take the one from the 30 u had an add it to the 55 as an additional filter system.....
also get some ammo chips toss them in a filter bag,,,,rinse em real good and put in your filter to help reduce that ammo
no matter what u do it is going to be high (in my humble opinion) its just a lot of fish....tho now with the reduction....but i will assume you will prolly want to add tons more .....so might i suggest you talk to folks on here aobut compatability and water chmistry. also read the threads it will help u keep your fish alive and save u money as well.
 
If those readings are accurate, a 40% wc still leave the nitrates well above the 'safe' zone of 40 ppm. One change wouldn't do much.

OP: You should get a liquid test kit as the strips are not very reliable. In the mean time keep doing the water changes. The more water changed, the better.

Can we get a list of the present fish? The time line is hard to follow.
 
Our aquarium does have an air stone. I have one of the treasure chests that open and close and I have the valve open so there are good sized air bubbles coming out. I don't understand the overstocked bit. We ask the local pet store before we buy anything new and we always tell them what we already have.

We bought the 55 gallon from a bulletin board, it was already up and running and we took it home and set it up in our house. Didn't clean anything, didn't replace anything. We took his stuff and used it in our house. It was set up and run for a month before we put any fish in it at all. Then when we moved in we put our fish in. Our fish were in there for 2 weeks before we added anything new.

So here's a more accuate time zone. We bought the aquarium March 17th. Took it to my dad's house and set it up. We replaced the boring brown gravel with a new blue and black set up. Set the aquarium up on March 17th. We moved in with my dad the second week of May. We brought over our 3 Balas, the 1 Oscar, and the Pleco. We noticed 2-3 days later that the Oscar was getting to big for his britches and he was taking bites out of our balas. We took the Oscar to the pet store and donated him back. We didn't get any new fish right away because we wanted to give our balas a chance to heal. About a week later we went fish shopping. We then bought 2 Silver Dollars, 6 Tiger Barbs, and a Redtail shark. The Redtail died the next day. His black sides had patches of grey so we just assumed it was sickly when we bought him. We got an in-store credit for him and we used the money to get the African butterlfy. Meanwhile, the same day we bought the Silver dollars my dad decided he was going to take his 10 gallon aquarium down. So, he added 3 Rainbow fish, a Cory cat, and our Indian glass fish. At this point I know we added too many fish to fast but I was hoping we would be ok. Our Tiger barbs started dying one a day until we were down to just one. So, over a period of a week, all but one of our Tiger barbs died. We did a water change now because we found that Tiger barbs aren't to hardy of fish. We found that our ammonia level was to high. It has 0.5, our pH level was neutral. One Tiger barb survived and he has thrived since. He has even gotten bigger. I test the water weekly. Last week our levels were all pretty normal.

May 20th we took our nieces to get a fish a piece for their aquarium (our old 29 gallon). At this time we bought a pair of Swordtails (my husband said that all of our fish were gray and we needed some color) and we added one more Silver Dollar to our school. Now when I say Silver dollars, I am talking about the small ones. They are not much bigger than quarters right now. I tested our water yesterday and found that the Nitrate level was in the danger zone. I did a 25% water change. This morning we had the dead balas. That is the timeline. We have had fish in our aquarium since the 2nd week of May and we have only had the redtail and the Tiger barbs die.
 
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The problem with running things by the people at your pet store is that they want to sell you fish. The fact that they sold you that number of fish for a tank that size shows that they aren't the best people to ask. The members on this forum are very knowledgable (usually :) ) and have a lot of experience actually keeping fish.

As far as having your tank set up for a month before putting any fish in, the bacteria that break ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate (ridiculously simplified explanation of the nitrogen cycle) would have all died out because they had nothing to feed on.

If I were you, I would rehome / return as many fish as you can, properly cycle your tank (instructions on this site) and then research what fish work best for your tank plan and skill level. You will definitely enjoy your tank more in the long run IMO :)
 
I agree with the above poster. The fish store you are going to is not giving you good advice at all. Your tank sounds like it is in the middle of cycling since it probably lost all of the beneficial bateria in the filters during the month it was ran fishless. Unfortunately, you will probably continue to lose fish until the cycle completes, I would try and rehome/take back the fish you have purchased and start reading up on the fishless cycle sticky in the freshwater newbie forum. Also, invest in a liquid test kit. They are much more reliable in their readings than the strips.
 
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