Hi,
Ok so i started a 20L tank 2 weeks ago, 10 small neons, 1 small Angel and 2 Guppies.
They were all fine up until 2 days ago.
1 week ago i got 2 Cherry barbs, they looked a bit aggressive but calmed down.
However i have now lost 5 of my Neons and 1 barb, i awoke this morning and found 4 neons dead, and there wasn't much left of the bodies.
Is it the angel?
The guppies are all fine.
Any help would be much appreciated!!!
Alix
Hi there, sorry to hear about your fishy problems.
This is a classic case of bad pet shop advice leading to "New Tank Syndrome".
Many pet shops will say that you only need to have your tank up and running for a few days before you can out fish in. They often tell you this is so your water can "mature" or your tank can "cycle". Many fish shops will also let you put almost any small fish (or baby fish) into a small tank, as they don't feel responsible for what happens when that little fish starts to grow bigger and either gets aggressive or even gets sick because it can't grow in a small tank. I hate to say this (as I used to work in an aquatics store) but in many cases the advice given in aquatics stores is rubbish.
There could be many things happening in your case but before you worry about diseases and aggressive fish, there is something far more pressing to worry about - the New Tank Syndrome. This is a condition that fish get (and that can kill them) when they are put into newly set up tanks. In very basic terms, this is what happens:
1) Tank is set up - it is nice and new and clean
2) Water is added
3) Tank is left to stand and "mature" for a few days
4) Some fish are added
5) Everything seems fine
6) Some more fish are added
7) Fish start getting sick, dying and/or going missing
Why does this happen? In the vast majority of cases, it is because the fish are actually poisoning themselves. Think about it - when they poo and wee, where does it all go? Into the water. And how does it get out of the water? It doesn't. If they are really lucky, they might get a water change once a week which makes things a little better. However, in the end, they are living in their poo and wee and that starts to make them sick after a while.
Next question - if your fish are living in their own waste, how do fishkeepers keep their fish alive? This, my friend, is why you have a filter!
Filters circulate the water and catch big bigs of poo and uneaten food. However, they are not just there to keep the water looking clear - they have a much more important function. Over time, tiny bacteria realise that the fish are producing chemicals in their poo and wee that they can eat. So the bacteria come and live in the filter, because the high flow of water means there is lots of poo and wee to munch on. They make the chemicals from the poo and wee into other, safer chemicals. It's literally a little, tiny eco-system! Neat, huh. However, the down side is that these bacteria (there are actually two sets of them) take weeks and weeks to grow properly and until then, the fish live in their own poo and wee and get sick.
How do we get around this and why do pet shops not tell us this?
Firstly, we get around it in one of two ways:
The Fish-In Cycle
1) Buy liquid testing kits for the chemicals ammonia and nitrite
2) Add a couple of teeny fish
3) Test the water
every day for ammonia and nitrite
4) Do a large water change (50-80%)
everytime the tests have even the tiniest amount of those chemicals showing up
This is a lot of hard work as it can take up to two months to get the water good enough, and as you can see, the fish get exposed to small levels of those nasty chemicals. This isn't a total disaster, but however you look at it, it isn't good for them. The more fish you have, the more dangerous the water gets and the higher the risk of the fish being in pain or getting sick.
The Fish-less Cycle
This is much less work but a little bit complicated.
1) Buy liquid testing kits for ammonia and nitrite
2) Buy pure ammonia (from a hardware store or department store)
3) Add enough ammonia to the tank to read 5ppm (parts per million) or5 mg/l (milligram per litre) on the test kit.
4) Test every day for ammonia and always add enough ammonia to keep the levels at 5ppm or 5 mg/l
5) Keep testing until you see the levels of ammonia reach zero within 12 hours of adding new ammonia
6) Start testing for nitrite and ammonia, and keep adding new ammonia if you need to
7) Keep testing for both until they both reach 0 after 12 hours
8) Do a very large water change (90%)
9) Add fish
Now, this is a little tricky but it saves you many hours of water changes and means that you are growing those lovely bacteria without hurting fish in the process!
Now, how do we save
your fish. I'm sorry to say, but there is no easy way of doing this. First of all, your shop has advised you to keep far too many fish in the little tank. In a little 20 litre tank, you'd be looking at something like:
1 x betta splendens and 5 x ghost shrimp
or
6 x microrasboras or mini-tetras (even your neons are too big, I'm afraid)
or
5 x male guppies
As you can see, that is not very many fish. In a small tank, too many fish leads to two problems - too much extra fish waste that the filter can't handle and stressed fish who don't have enough space to swim. Both of these problems can (and will) kill fish.
Secondly, your tank contains some fish that shouldn't really be in there at all. Neon tetras and cherry barbs should really be in tanks of at least 40 litres, and even then in quite small groups (about 6, with a handful of other fish). The angel fish will reach a whopping 6 inches or more and needs a 125 litre tank that is also quite tall.
Thirdly, neons and guppies are renowned for being fragile fish that don't do at all well in new tanks. Sadly, because they are pretty fish that sell well, many pet shops say that they are ideal beginners fish which means that every year, thousands die from being put into newly set up tanks.
Finally - even if all your fish were small enough and there were not too many of them for a mature, cycled tank (i.e. a tank with a healthy bacteria population), you've still got too many given how young your tank is.
So, what do you need to do?
1) Rehome some of your fish - this is a must. even if they survive the initial period with all those nasty waste chemicals, they will just end up stressed and sick anyway from lack of room. What we think of as a nice, busy fish tank with lots going on is actually fishy hell! I would very, very strongly suggest rehoming them all. See if your local store will take them back.
2) If you can't rehome any of them, you will need a much bigger tank. I would suggest 125 litres (and at least 18 inches tall) to give the angel fish space to grow. If you go for a smaller one (60 litres would be a good stop-gap), you'll need to upgrade again ASAP. However, in the long term the angel fish will probably eat the neons and any other very small fish.
3) Buy a set of liquid testing kits - do not rely on the store to test your water. Often they don't know how to do it properly and even if they do, you need to test your water
every day for the next few weeks. The kits you need are for ammonia and nitrite, but it's also good to have pH, KH/GH and nitrate. This is essential.
4) Do a very large water change NOW. I'm talking 80%. Make sure you add good quality water conditioner (I'd suggest Tetra Aqua Safe, API Stress Coat or Seachem Prime) while the new water is still in the bucket and make sure the new water is the same temperature as the tank water, to minimise shock to the fish.
5) Either get rid of all your fish as soon as you can and do a fish-less cycle, or rehome all but the guppies and do a fish-in cycle. You can't do a controlled and safe cycle in a tank that small with so many fish. More fish will very probably die in the attempt.
I know this is all really overwealming and complicated and I hate telling you to rehome your fish. It is very unlikely that your angel fish or any of the other fish are killing the neons and barbs, but they are probably eating them once they have died.
Here are some excellent links to get you started:
Beginner's Resouce Centre
Remember - most fish shops just want to make money. I hate to say it and someone will always say "I know a great shop" or "I work in a shop and I'm great" but in the end, many shops just want to make money and many people who work there don't really know what they are talking about, either because they've been badly trained or because they've simp,y not kept up with progress in fishkeeping.
GOOD LUCK!
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