3 dead neons and 1 dead platty

[newland]

Hi all

I've had a tank cycling for about 3 weeks and its finished it fishless cycle. It actually finished in about 2 weeks but i left it for a third.

I've reciently added new fish into the tank and 3 neons have died and 1 platty has died too.

My stats are before fish have died.
15 Gal tank.
4 neons
5 plattys

ammonia 0
NitrIte 0
NitrAte 0 (strage?)
PH ~ 7.4 - 7.6

All fish have had no indication to why they have died. I've lost 1 neon a day since putting them in and one minute their swimming along fine. Wake up in the morning to fine one has died.

I was also very shocked to find the platty dead.

any ideas?

 

[pcam86]

hmmmm a bit of a weird one. I'm not sure. Neons aren't a good starting fish anyway, they're really weak.

 

[newland]

Yeah i'm regreting buying neons now. My plan was to move the neons into my other tank and put some of the fish fro my main tank into this one. But i thought i would leave the existing fish in their origional tank for now.

Should i do a water change?

most of the plattys have been stting on the botom not doing much. I've moved the air pump and connected it up to the filter to increase oxygen into the tank.

They look a little happier and are near the top of the tank now.

I'm just really stuck to why they died.

 

[pcam86]

i doubt you should water change so soon if you're saying your water is ok right now. It could just keep the problem going on for longer.

Were there any signs of death on the fish such as spots, bloated bodies etc?

Also how much do you feed them and how often?

 

[WILDER]

Neons like a mature tank of 6 months, but your water quality is good, what is your tap nitrate it might answer some questions.

 

[dwarfgourami]

In the week between the end of the cycle and the adding of fish, did you keep on adding ammonia? If not, your bacteria will have died from starvation. Strange about those readings- you'd have expected some nitrates. Sorry, don't know what's going on here.

 

[newland]

its between 0 and 5.0 its very much the same as the tanks.

 

[newland]

Sorry the NitrAtes are between 0 and 0.5.

Also I kep upto date with the Ammonia and did a largeish water change before i went and got the fish.

 

[WILDER]

No chemical have gotten into the tank, were they gasping at the surface, or just being normal, if they were normal i would say the stress of the move.

 

[sylvia]

Can you post your CURRENT test results for ammonia, ntirIte and nitrAte?
Also, what's your pH and what's the pH of your LFS (finding out is a good idea)?
How long had the fish been in the tank when they started dying off?
What size tank are you talking about (sorry if I missed this) and how many fish do you have in there right now and of what species?
How many fish did you add in at once?
To what level were you trying to get the ammonia when you first started the fishless cycle (most people go for what it takes to get a spike at 5ppm and stick to that until they see a nitrIte spike at which point they half the dosage)?

As for doing water changes - deffinately. If you see your fish suffering from what is probably a lack of good water quality, a water change (a large one if necessary) is the first thing you should do.

 

[newland]

ammonia = 0
ntirIte = 0
nitrAte ~ 0 to 0.5
ph 7.4 - 7.6

15 Gallon US size Tank.
LFS unsue of PH

I added 5 platties and 4 neons ALL at once.
Sine adding 3 neones have died and 1 platty have died.

1 neon died 1 day after adding him.
1 neon died yesterday 2 days after adding them
1 neon and 1 platty died today 3 days after adding them.

I now have 1 neon and 4 platties left.

Fishless cycle was ran as stated below and on here.

I've now added more oxygen into the tank to see if that helps too.

Also i am about to do about a 20-30% water change to be safe.

 

[WILDER]

How long did you climatise them for, as if they were at the top of the tank, going round in circles and spinning it could of been ph shock.

 

[newland]

I left for about 30 mins for temperature and added a small amount of water into the bag. I then added a bit more about a minute later and then added them into the tank.

 

[WILDER]

If you didn't no the ph of the store and it was a far gap they could of died from ph shock, always no the lfs ph as it's very important.

 

[newland]

So whats the best way to cater for this situation?