New 180 gallon upgrade from 65 gallon freshwater

[Maverick85]

just upgraded tanks for two irredeccnt sharks a sephleypod giant catfish, a dragon eel which died along with about 4 bala sharks and 3 columbian sharks and a black ghost knife. Ph levels were high checked ammonia levels were even higher. note i am only caretaker of my roomates fish, i dont know exactly what to do but have been looking up directions on how to fix this problem. I dont want to see the fish die i think their cool. Tried to lower dangerous levels of ammonia with 25% water change and anti ammonia tabs from tank buddies and some amquel. Several of the balas contracted ick along with the columbians. Recently seperated the last ick survivor which is a bala in the 65 gallon alone. Trying to fill the tank now just felt had to get him out if hes going to die anyway i dont want him infecting the other fish. Added some quick cure for the ick and wanted to use this lifeguard all in one treatment by tank buddies but it says you have to remove the carbon from my filter canisters and run them without it but i dont know how thats going to affect the filter canisters or if it would affect my tank and the water i dont know but i dont want my fish to die they are very hearty one convict cichlid 2 grommees and a bunch of little fish my roomated dumped in there last week which from my research i found is what is killing the fish. Too many fish at once and the aquariums ecosystem cant handle all the crap they produce and homeboy get anxious and starts overfeeding dumping ghost shrimp in for the sharks and now all heck breaks loose and the fish start dying by the threes. Please help me need advice like quick, got a full bottle of amquel, tetra aqua and two extra tanks a 35 gallon octagon tank and a 65 gallon rectangle. Also found that the water that comes from the tap behind my fridge thats connected to a brand new water filter for the fridge produces water with 0 levels of nitrite and nitrate and moderate levels of ph and alkaline.

 

[Rbishop]

Are you using a good liquid test kit to get the water parameters? The pH sample left out overnight in a shallow dish before testing?

Large water changes are your best friend right now. Got any pics of the "ich"

 

[Maverick85]

been putting in a lot of work did a 25% water change with a dose of ammonia clear by tank buddies but dose was only for 80 gallons and i have a 180 needless to say it didnt help much. got to an open store today and got sum nitraban, sum Correct Ph by tank buddies and some more ammonia clear and i use 5 in 1 test strips and ammonia test strips. didnt get the liquid tester unfortunately. Set up the old 65 gallon and quaranteened a bala he didnt like going in look like he wanted to die but he survived me changing the water and even a bit of a shock cuz my water wasnt quite 76 yet. wouldve made a bigger water change but didnt have enough amquel and water conditioner. The 65 gallon has perfect ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels. Alkaline and ph a high in both tanks still.

 

[Maverick85]

Im guessing by the end of my chemical dumping binge im probaly going to have to change the water out soon in my 180 gallon tank. I dont like the thought of putting so many chemicals in at once but its all i can think to do when bout 10 of my fish have died.

 

[Maverick85]

Used some Lifeguard by Jungle says use 1 tablet daily per 5 gal of aquarium water repeat for 5 days. Im treating the 65 gal with the bala in it in fact i picked up a couple odd fish today from scummy dirty walmart. In fact i feel i saved them bcuz the two blue grommees i got were in a tank with over 1/3 the population dead floating at the surface. told the guy to go after the biggest one and he ended up losing it on the floor. I picked it up and bought it anyway for 2.54. Got 1 pictus catfish too. Just want to see if i can get the 65 gal going. So if i need 1 treatment tab for every 5 gallons and i have a 65 gal can i drop in four tabs at once. I only got twelve in a pack.

 

[prober]

Wow, first off, water changes are your best bet. Until the tank cycles you may have to do 25% a day to keep the ammonia and nitrite in check. Feed very sparingly if at all for a few days. The fish can live a long time without eating and slowing their digestion will help your tank recover.

As for the Ich meds, remove the carbon since it will remove the medication if you don't. Add the appropriate amount for the tank and then add it to any water you change. Try to get the new water to the same temp as the tank before adding it and use chlorine remover such as Seachem "prime".

You should also raise the tank temp to 80* for a few days as that will help with the ICH.

 

[WeeNe858]

You're all over the place. First off, you should stop buying more fish when your tank isn't even ready for them yet. Hardly "saving" them from crummy Walmart when you introduce them into your un-cycled tank.

Stop using ammonia removers. Your taking the beneficial bacteria's food away and won't get any colony growth when you keep doing that. What you should be doing is %35-%40 water changes once a week to keep the ammonia in check while the bacteria catch up. After some positive test results, you can slow down on the water changes and introduce the fish.

The only reason why your fish have ich is because of the environment you placed them in. They were stressed and unhealthy. Like prober said, heat up that 65 gallon to 80 degrees with some salt and quarantine your new fish in there too.

Tabs are horrible. Get yourself a liquid medication.

Dip strips are okay once your tank is established. Try and get a more precise test kit.

They're spelled gourami, not grommees.

Periods and commas help us understand better.

good luck

 

[Maverick85]

I got a precise Ph test kit with liquid droplets and i also bought some expensive liquid Start Right said if i would've introduce it into the water b4 the fish got dumped in then they may not of experienced the new tank syndrome. Anyway water changes huh ok got ya. Thought the more you changed the water the more you set the good bacteria back from growing. Why are tablets bad? Is the ph correct tabs ok if i dissolved them in a bucket of aquarium water b4 i put them in or during the water change. Should i use the ph tabs to balance my tap water b4 i put it in the tank?

 

[prober]

Leave a bowl of tap water out overnight to allow the gasses to escape and test the tap water for PH etc. Most places there will be little need to adjust it.

I am not familiar with the tabs but many of the PH adjusting products, (usually labeled PH up or PH down), will adjust the PH but lack the buffers to hold it there. They will get the PH to the range you want but in a couple days it will go back to what it was before you used the product. This causes a PH rollercoaster and is not good for the fish. What you want is an alkaline buffer and an acid buffer and by using both you will achieve a balance that will remain stable.

Your tap water already has buffers in it but until you test it we do not know whether it is buffered to high PH or low. Test it and post the results here, it is quite possible that you may not need anything other than chlorine remover, which you already have.

As for the ICH, many people have had good results just raising the temp to 80 for a couple days which seems to help make it go away faster.

 

[Maverick85]

Believe i killed the ich. As for my tap water i realized the filter i was intending to filter all the water through not only filters chlorines and carbon it has a removes all bacteria from the water and im sure that cant be any good. So i flopped that idea and stuck with the tap water. this time i used more exact measurments of water conditioner and amquel. My roomate who owns the tank told me he usually over-did the measurments a bit to speed things up or something i dont know. Is it ok to use large amount of water conditioner, will it help speed up bacterial growth in the tank"? I added ph balance to my tap water and let it sit out to room temperature. Actually use the other aquarium heater to heat the water to 76 slowly. Anyway got the precise ph its about 7.2 in the bucket. My question to you is if i've started a 50 % water change and refill the tank with condition, and ph balanced water will levels go back to normal? Specifically Alkaline and nitrite levels. How do i balance Alkaline, my levels are so high i think my fish were sizzilling when i took the dead ones out the tank? How can you over arerate a tank?