Tank went crazy after new fish. Please help!

[tlsimon]

I've had the same tanks setup for four years without any problems from the tank or fish. We have had a variety of fish form bars to tetras to mollies, guppies, female bettas, and of course a snail or sucker. Here recently we've had only tetras.

We rarely buy new fish, only when we're down to a few after they have passed of old age. We were down to two (a rainbow tetra and red eye tetra) and I thought they were lonely so I bought seven new fish and a sucker - two rainbow tetras and two red eyes, and three black and green strip tetras, introducing them slowly and thought I would eventually have little schools of them again.

Within a week all of the black and green ones died, the new red eyes died, and the sucker died. I called Petco during this twice asking them their opinion (this was a first, I always research online any questions I have since they usually have no clue what's going on). All they said is to bring in a sample of my water to be tested, they were positive I did something wrong. I assured them it was something on their end as I have never had any problems whatsoever. Then I go back to look in my tank... the remaining fish are now covered in white spots and the algae (on the plastic and fabric plants and deco) has turned bright yellow - I ever had anything but dark green algae. The whole climate in there looks like a death trap. I put some stress coat in there and thing have just become worse. I feel at a loss.

Petco is being a butt about this insisting it is all my doing. The tank was in usual condition (I'm a neat freak, it's always clean) I feel like just scraping the whole thing, but I don't want to murder my remaining fish because I've given up on them. I'm worried that whatever it is will hang out in my filter and infect a new tank I might setup after doing away with this one. I'm already going to be out for an all new setup. I love my fish tank and can't imagine getting rid of it, but there's only so much I can do...

Do any of you have advice as to what I should do or what's going on?

Thank you!

 

[FisheyLisa]

Do you have your own test kits? Then you can test and post your numbers and we can provide you with accurate help.

how often do you change the water?
How slowly did you add the fish?
Were their water conditions in the bag the same as in your tank with regaurd to pH temp ect.?
Did you keep them in a Q-tank? Did they seem sick there?
Do the fish have the white dots on them (ich)?

 

[indiginess]

did they give you a reason they were positive YOU were at fault? did they find something by testing your water?

i can think of two things.

1) your tank went through a mini-cycle when you added the new fish, leading to ammonia and nitrite spikes, just like a new tank.

do you have a nitrAte test? that brings me to #2

2) you have a case of OTS. the link is a very good article by an AC forum member. the old tank members grew accustomed to ever-increasing nitrates.

chances are, its a combo of 1 & 2.

don't scrap the hobby... we all run into the occasional snafu. sometimes they are more serious than others, but we all come out on the other side as better fishkeepers.

good luck

eric

edit: either reason i gave could lead to disease due to stress...

 

[tlsimon]

Thanks for the quick replies. I guess I am at fault because I didn't test anything this time. Things have been crazy around here and I just haven't been able to do much other than clean it. I have always done it the same way - once a month I pull out a pitcher of water with my fish and completely clean the tank replacing it with new gravel, cleaned deco and plants, new filter. I let it set for an hour and once temp is good, I put everybody and their water back in. I will probably be frowned on for this practice as I'm sure it's wrong, but like I said, I've never had any problems. I guess I'm a bad fish mom. I should have tested it before getting new friends. The article is very informative btw, thank you. If this isn't straightened out I'm thinking of sterilizing the tank, filter and heater and trying something new. I would like to try a planted tank (is that the correct way of saying it?) for my betta and a snail or two. Just something nice and calm. I'm going to hang out here while I have sme time this morning and read up on some of these beautiful tanks people have here. I really want to become more serious about my tank and evern when things do get crazy, be sure to check everything out.

 

[rrkss]

Based on your post I don't think Old Tank Syndrome was the cause of all your problems but believe it or not, I think you had a combination of New Tank Syndrome and some sort of disease. My guess is a parasitic disease called ich which is very virulent and needs to be delt with if you want to save your remaining fish. By your very thourough methods in cleaning the tank, I am sure you wipe out all the beneficial bacteria that purify the water for your fish. These bacteria convert the toxic ammonia your fish + any rotting detritus in the tank produce into a harmless chemical called nitrate. When you change the gravel, scrub the glass, change the filter and most of the water in one shot, you pretty much wipe out all the bacteria causing your tank to theoretically be new again. My advice is to not buy any more fish at the moment and rather use a simple treatment to take care of any potential disease.

1. Change 20% of the tank's water and vacuum the gravel with a gravel vacuum. Also raise the tank's temperature to 80* F

2. Add 2 tablespoons of aquarium salt per 10 gallons of water in the tank.

3. Buy Quick Cure ($2.99) and add 1 drop per gallon or if you have tetras add 1 drop per 2 gallons.

4. Continue steps 1 & 3 until they get better + 3 days. Only add the salt once. If your filter cartrige is more than a week old, you can leave it in otherwise take the filter cartrige out (to remove the charcoal).

There are much more gentle methods in treating fish like salt but in this case I would go for the medications since you need a more broad spectrum treatment.

 

[FisheyLisa]

You might consider changing your cleaning practices. Every week or 2 the tank's water gets syphoned (about 25 -30%) which vaccuums the bottom when you use the syphon to suck up the stuff there. Don't be afraid to dig down in the gravel esp with an unplanted tank. Rotate cleaning decor and rinsing out filters every other cleaning- both in removed fish tank water before discarding.

Add new water- conditioned to remove chlorine and chloramine if necessary, brought up to the same temp as the tank water. It should also have the same pH. Aquapharmasueticals has a great master test kit with all the tests you'll need to match the water.

Read stickies on cycling and ask questions here!! Good luck!

 

[anonapersona]

everyone missed the obvious -- quarantine

You added new fish without a 4 week quarantine period. That is always a recipe for trouble.

Buy a 10 gallon tank (locally), keep bare bottom, cover optional, netting if no hood. Add paper to bottom, back and sides (optional). Buy a heater. Buy a separate net. Buy a large air driven sponge filter or a small HOB filter. (these you buy online)

Do 50% water changes every other day and siphon wastes off the bottom of the tank for 4 weeks, you can get lazy about the water changes when you are sure the ammonia is 0.

Best to run the sponge filter in your main tank for a few weeks before setting up so there is no cycle to worry about, but the big water changes will take care of that for the most part anyhow.

After 4 weeks with no fish deaths, add a fish from the old tank to the Q tank. After a week if no one dies, then add all fish to the new tank and clean out the Q tank to store it.

If any fish does die, it will be a new fish, covered by warranty, not your old fish which will not be covered.

Been there, done that. Lost 25 cardinals when I added 7.

 

[tlsimon]

Update: The last of the new fish has died and back to my original two. Each of them just has one or two spots the size of a pin head, it's almost cleared up - they were covered. I figured it was ich they had. I went through that with a betta before and got rid of it pretty fast. I'm picking up a whole new setup today. I want to get it cycled and all to try a planted tank with my betta and the two tetras. Hopefully once it's ready my two tetras will be healed up and ready for a nice, non-death trap home. I promise to change my cleaning habits! Thank you for your help and replies... it really did help me out! I'm going to try this once more.