New Tank; Corkscrew swimming behaviour in new Danio's

R

roland6543

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Jun 27, 2012
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Hi all,

So I just set up a 70g freshwater tank. After a day settling in (I added the appropriate quantity of dechlorinator, plus some salt for freshwater tanks), I decided it time to buy some hardy fish to begin the cycling process. I put in 3 Zebra Danios (they came with a second, smaller tank I bought), plus 4 new small Danios and 4 Tiger Barbs that I bought from a big box store.

On the way home from the store, one of the new Danios was swimming in a crazy corkscrew pattern. By the time we got home he was swimming normally again. Stress I thought. We acclimatized the fish to the new temp by floating the bag, then added some water from my tank to their bags in two stages, then finally netted them out and popped them in the tank.

Within 6 hours 1 Danio was dead, and another was also doing the corkscrew olympics, and shortly also dead. I took them out. By the next morning of the 2 remaining newly purchased Danios, one was missing (half of him showed up later in a Barbs mouth), and another spiralling out of control (which I euthanized in the freezer).

I figured a bad batch of Danios from the store, since the 4 Barbs and the older Danios were doing fine. To get back to the original planned stock level I went to a different specialized LFS and bought 3 more small Danios. By the next day one of the new Danios from the small LFS is showing the same symptoms.

My tank is obviously still in the early stages of cycling. Results are:
pH NH3 NO2 NO3
Day 1 (before fish) 7.4 0.10 0.00 0.00
Day 2 (1st day of fish) 8.0 0.10 0.25 0.00
Day 3 8.0 0.10 0.00 0.00

I'm thinking one of the following could be happening:
- The chemistry in my tank is causing this (Unlikely because the first symptom was on the way back from the pet store).
- Both stores that I bought the Danios from bought them from the same supplier and they are carrying the same "issue".
- The 4 small Danios that I bought from the big box store brought in a disease that is beginning to spread to the other Danios (the 3 older Danios are still doing OK).

What do you think? Any suggestions on how to deal with this?
 
roland6543 said:
My tank is obviously still in the early stages of cycling. Results are:
pH NH3 NO2 NO3
Day 1 (before fish) 7.4, 0.10, 0.00, 0.00,
Day 2 (1st day of fish) 8.0, 0.10, 0.25, 0.00
Day 3 8.0, 0.10, 0.00, 0.00
Click to expand...

This ^ likely is part of the problem and why so many of us advocate fish-less cycling. Any ammonia present has the potential to cause problems (especially at that pH). Nitrites looked to be on the rise, as well. I'd start dosing Prime if you haven't already...and get some 'bacteria in a bottle' or some filter media from an established system. Make sure you're also using a good quality liquid test kit rather than strips. http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-health/healthy-aquariums/controlling-ammonia.aspx

The spiral corkscrew swimming really could be caused by any number of things and the added stress likely aggravated it even more.
 
Slappy is right on the money. Looks like water quality is a big issue here, especially since your pH is at the level where ammonia is more toxic. Poor water quality adds on quite a bit of stress and could be aggravating any underlying issues.

In my opinion, water changes are the best remedy and they are essential if you are doing the cycling process with fish. Most definitely get a liquid test kit if you are not using one already. A conditioner like Prime or any other one that is used to help detoxify ammonia/nitrite is also a nice thing to have on hand.
 
Thanks for your comments.

Some follow up questions:
Is Prime the same as Nutrafin Aqua Plus (Ive been using Nutrafin)?
Should I try artificial means to drop the pH, or just stick with water changes? I did nothing specific to cause the high pH, so my concern is that water changes alone wont bring it down.
Ive been using Nutrafin Aqua Plus to neutralize. Is Prime superior?
Finally, when doing water changes using an Equeos Water Changer, how do you add water back to the tank without causing a high chlorine spike? I understand that one should add a neutralizer to the water, but adding it to the tank seems like it will take a while to take effect, in the meanwhile affecting the fish and the biology. Should I fill a bucket at the right temperature, add Prime, then add to tank (not the way they show how to use Equeos on their site)?
 
Prime has the addition benefit of neutralizing ammonia. It's also possibly the most concentrated de-chlorinater on the market, so you are dosing less per gallon of water, but still able to safely go up to 5x the recommended dose. If you are adding water directly to the tank (do you mean "Aqueon" for the brand?), as it seems, then yes you should be dosing the tank. The chlorine/chloramine wont have such an instantaneous effect as you are imagining.

Don't mess with the pH as it does more harm than good. Bottom line is that seeing ammonia at any pH is a red flag and IMO water changes are the best step to get that level down.
 
Thank you so much....

Equeos??? Perhaps I've been watching too many scifi movies!! Both have that kind of ring to it.
 
Prime

One more thing. As mentioned, I have been using Nutrafin AquaPlus to neutralize chlorine which in my area is very high. I will go out and get some Prime today since it seems to be a better, broader scope, product. My question is should I add Prime to treat the whole volume of the tank, or just the volume of future water changes?
 
Either way is fine. If you use a Python (or similar) to do water changes, then treat the entire tank. If you use a bucket, then treat the bucket. When using Prime to detoxify ammonia in a cycling tank, treat the entire tank every other day until the ammonia tests 0.
 
Depending on your test kit, it may not always bottom out if you are JUST dosing Prime...some test kits actually test for total ammonia, which includes ammonium.

Personally, I would make sure you are doing water changes as well. I see Prime as a nice safety net for emergencies...but water changes are the only way to physically remove the ammonia.
 
I use the API kit which I believe tests total ammonia/ammonium so adding Prime will not "hide" the ammonia from the results while at the same time offering protection to the fish. Of I'll continue with regular water changes too.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
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