The plague in my tanks

[haydenm315]

I've had a 10 gallon tank running for about 8 months with minimal fatalities since the beginning until now. Recently I've lost 2 fish, a male swordtail, and a male guppy. Both exhibited similar symptoms. They sat on the bottom of the tank, breathing heavy, and not moving very much. .

The contents of the 10 gallon tank for the life of the tank was 1 red tail shart, 1 molly, 1 fantail guppy, 1 swordtail (lost the other one early), 6 small neon tetras, 1 rednosed rummy, 4 tetras that I don't know the species, and a plecostemus that grows like a new york city rat. Unfortunately somebody in the tank had babies and they have also been growing very rapidly.

After reading around here for a while, I think I've been doing injustice to the fish even though I thought I was doing a good job. I know the tank is overcrowded so I thought extra filtration would help some. I had 2 of the whisper biobag filters running until I came up with more real estate. I've done only 3 water changes over the history of the tank. I have one of those ammonia gauges with the suction cup and it has never moved from the safe color. I usually add about a gallon of aquasafe preconditioned water every 3 weeks or so. I thought the evaporation rate was high enough to keep the ammonia down since the color never changed. The ph has always been around 7-7.2 when I've tested it. Periodically I'd dissolve a 7.0 maintainer tablet in the tank. I add a teaspoon of aquarium salt once every couple months.

I think the contents of the tank and too infrequent of water changes is what killed them, but I'd think the smaller tetras would bite it first. Apparantly not.
I'm thinking the ammonia guard thing is pretty much useless on an established tank because from what I've read here ammonia is converted into nitrite and then nitrate by the filter bacteria and it's nitrate that kills the fish if the water isn't changed enough. I guess the ammonia gauge is for figuring out if you've got too much fish to bateria ratio and not a nitrate toxic tank.

I did about a 20% water change yesterday in the 10 gallon. I've since setup a 40 gallon breeder tank and moved the plecostemus, the 5 mystery babies, and the molly out to lighten the load. The sword tail and guppy are deceased. I think I'm on the road to the right direction, though I've got cycle worries about the 40 gallon tank because I found out I didn't fully cycle it before adding fish.

 

[mvigor]

I've had a 10 gallon tank running for about 8 months. I've done only 3 water changes over the history of the tank. I usually add about a gallon of aquasafe preconditioned water every 3 weeks or so. ...evaporation... I add a teaspoon of aquarium salt once every couple months.

Maybe you added so much salt (over time) without doing PWC that the concentration eventually got high enough to stress and kill the fish???

 

[wataugachicken]

you sounds just like me when i started my first tank. water changes? what are those?! i only topped it off, and eventually my water was so toxic that everything i had died.

ammonia gauges only measure the ammonia, which is the waste that the fish produce. nitrites (the second step) and nitrates (the final product) need different test kits in order to be measured. bacteria get rid of the nitrites, but produce nitrates, which can only be removed through water changes and should be kept under 20ppm.

not only will the salt and nitrates build up, as it does not evaporate out of the tank, but all the trace minerals and other things in the water will be building up in the tank if you only top it off instead of doing changes.

don't mess with the ph, those things only work for a little while and then the ph jumps right back up. your regular level is just fine for the fish as they have adapted to it. a stable ph is infinitely better than one that jumps around as you try and make it perfect.

for now you should do 20% every other day in the 10g for two weeks. might be excessive but it will help to dilute the metals and salts that have built up in the water. a big water change in this case may actually harm the fish since the conditions of the tank water and the tap water are probably very very different. smaller changes over time will allow them to adapt to the water as it only changes a little each time.

you really don't even need to add the salt at all. it is good if you are treating for specific diseases, but over the long haul it can cause the fish a lot of stress and weaken them.

get actual liquid test kits for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrate, and use them to help you cycle the other tank. ammonia and nitrites should be kept under .25 through daily water changes. i recommend moving one of your filters on the 10 over to the 40 to help it cycle faster. you may not have any spikes at all, just make sure you've used the dechlor every time you add water. once your ammonia and nitrites are at 0 with visible levels of nitrates, then you're cycled. you could put the small filter back on the 10 if you wanted to. if your filter cartridges get dirty, don't throw them away, just rinse them in the old tank water after you've done a water change, and put them back. only replace if they're falling apart.

 

[wataugachicken]

and after your 40 is cycled, i would move the rummy nose over there and get it some friends. like the neon tetras, they prefer to school in a group and will be less stressed than if they were alone.

 

[haydenm315]

when I'm doing water changes, should I disturb the gravel, or just get rid of the water. The gravel has a lot of gunk in it. I'm used to digging in and sucking all that gunk out, but I'm thinking that's wrong since a lot of the other things I'm assumed were.

 

[anonapersona]

Several important things

First, if you had two filters on the old tank, then as you move some old fish out to the new tank you should move one of those filters with the fish. the new tank will cycle very fast with that old filter alongside the new filter. The old tank will not miss the second filter as long as you take half of the biomass of the fish out along with half of the filtration.

Second, nitrates are not the big killer, ammonia is. Nitrates are more like smoke in a room. If it builds up it will first make you irritated, then damage your health, eventually if it is bad enough it will kill you. Ammonia, on the other hand, is a killer all by itself, just take a good whiff of Windex or other ammonia based cleaner and you will know that you do not want to get that in your eyes or throat or to swim in it!

Ammonia guard, though I am not familiar with this specific product, can only work for awhile, then, suddenly, it will be exhausted. In fact, if it completely traps ammonia, it may starve the bacteria in the filter so the filter does not actually cycle, then when the point of exhaustion comes, you may suddenly see a big buildup of ammonia too fast for the filter bacteria to cope with.

I suggest that you continue with the small water changes, 20% every day for two weeks, like wataugachicken said, then 50% a week after that, forever. Gently rinse the filter media in the water you remove from the tank, clean the impellor and input tube too. Then try to keep to a weekly cleaning schedule, changing 25 to 50% of the water each time, every other week at the worst. Do clean the gravel, but do it slowly so that nome of that gunk is released into the tank, use a gravel cleaner and stay in one spot until it is clean. You may only be able to do 1/4 of the tank at a time or less, as you remove only 20% of the tank water. Take your time, you cannot do this fast because you do not want to be adding too much fresh tap water to this 10 gallon until the tank and the tap water are more alike.

 

[wataugachicken]

it's important to clean the gravel. vaccum it while you change the water, that kills two birds with one stone. how were you cleaning it previously?