Basic Advice Needed

[ianw]

Hi all,

This is my first post so bare with me, We have an 80 liter juwel tank with supplied filter, heater etc. We filled the tank with gravel and treated our water with Tetra Aqua Safe and added 4 plants. We ran the tank with heater and filter on 24/7 for a week and the tank kept at a constant temperature. We then added ten fish to the tank from recommendation from our LFS, my mum bought the fish and did not write down the names of the fish but I know for sure we had 5 neon tetra's and 5 othe silver and orange fish of similar size.

After 6 days we have found 2 of the unknown orangey fish have died, one we found at the top of the filter housing and one floated to the surface after we moved the piece of wood in the tank. We have only been able to count 7 fish, so far today and i checked the tank and filtrer housing as best i can and have yet to find the 1 remainding fish.

Where could the missing fish be? and if the we have 3 dead fish in 3 days one of which has probably been in the tank for atleast 8 hours. How will it effect the ammonia levels, will it be capable of killing the other fish in the tank

Also we are worried as when we have been feeding the fish the neon tetras go mad and head right upto the top of the tank to feed and they eat almost all of the food. The unknown silver and orangey fish don't seem bothered and don't seem to be getting a decent amount of food. This obviously a bad sign and I don't know if theres anything i can do if they don't want to eat.

Thanks to this forum I now know about amonia, nitrates and nitrites and regularyu testing the water. I will be buying the kits tomorrow and testing the water. Once i know the levels, i will change 20% of the water and retest and if the levels are too still too high, am i right in thinking i should keep on replacing water till the levels normalise.

Also is it ok to leave the fish in the tank when I do the water change? Can I add the Aqua Safe when the tap water is already in the tank?

When should i change the filter pads in my juwel filter? I'm thinking since the tank has only been running for 2 weeks and has only had fish in for a week just rinse the filter in the water I take out of the tank.

Thanks in advance

 

[poohbear1]

from what you have said you are doing a fish in cycle.
If I were you I wouldnt wait till tomorrow I would do a large water change asap.
Your ammonia levels are more than likely too high for fish as it is.
Once you buy a test kit you will know more.
The test strips are wores than useless so if you can buy a liquid test kit like the API one.
Good luck and Im sure more experienced people will give you more and better information than I have

 

[kim03333]

with a fish in cycle, from scratch people tend to add a few hardy fish to start the cycle. what was your lfs thinking? ten fish seems a bit too many, and to make matters worse they advised you to take neons which are notorious for their sensitivity to water conditions and are not good for newly cycled tanks, let alone tanks that are just beginning the cycle. i'm not sure what the other fish may be from your descrition, but i'm not suprised they're dieing, ammonia levels are likely to be pretty high.

ok, change more than 20 % of the water, i'd say no less than 50 % you can do more than that if you want. even though we don't know the actual reading for ammonia, water changes will not hurt. if they are high 20 % won't touch them. you are correct in thinking you carry on with water change until levels decrease, but be sure to leave at least one hour between changes. fish can stay in the tank, and you can add tap safe to the whole tank if you want.

you will be pleased to hear that you don't need to even rinse out the filter pads yet, let alone replace them. if your filter is ot seeming as powerful as it once was it is probably clogged so take out the pads, rinse in tank water and put them back in filter. the thing is, this is where cycling bacteria live so if you were to replace with 'shiny new ones' all bacteria will be lost.

btw once you get over this ammonia problem you will most likely have the same thing with nitrite so keep testing your water. goodluck xx

 

[OldMan47]

Kim is giving you good advice. The water change will not slow your cycle at all and may save your fish. The number and type you started with do seem a bit much but what is done is done. Your only real option now is to prevent poisoning your fish by using large water changes. There is a link in my signature to a fish-in cycling thread because you are far from alone starting out this way. Now that you have asked the question, we can help get you back on the track to success.
Water changes need to use water that is about the same temperature as what you removed. The water being put in should be treated with a dechlorinator. I prefer to treat mine while I am putting it in the bucket but I know other people put the treatment into the tank and then add the water directly. I would not make the fish wait until I am done filling the tank before adding water condtioner.

 

[ianw]

Kim i'm not doubting you, but would be interested to hear what other peoples opinions are about my LFS recommending 10 fish including Neons for a new tank. Will be intersted to hear what my LFS says aswell? when i tell him 3 are dead, I think I may ask him to test my water aswell and get him to write the readings down for me and ask him if how harmful they are to my fish and then test the water myself and ask you guys to see how truthful my LFS is.

 

[kim03333]

yeah i think most lfs are quite happy to test water for you. as for them reccommending unsuitable fish, the individual probably just didn't know that they were unsuitable. i mean, it's not like neons are an expensive fish so he didn't see his chance to cash in. the general advise when it comes to lfs is to take what they say with a pinch of salt. there are some excellent ones out there, others are terrible. the couple that i have visited (regularly visits) are mixed. good advise often varies between different members of staff.

main thing is, if you keep on top of the water conditions you will soon have it sorted.

 

[ianw]

I have found another one dead, the one i couldn't find ,it looked to be decomposing and one other looks to be close to dying, spinning in circles and on it's side. Need to change the water and get the levels to a normal level asap. It's very worrying, I hope they don't all die overnight.

 

[toshapetriji]

Kim i'm not doubting you, but would be interested to hear what other peoples opinions are about my LFS recommending 10 fish including Neons for a new tank.

Neons are not hardy fish at all and should never be used to cycle a tank. Lfs often give out bad advice unfortunately.

You need that test kit urgently and must test frequently. Change as much water as necessary in order to keep ammonia and nitrite at zero. You are going to be busy I think.

Good luck though and welcome to TFF.

 

[Corleone]

Kim i'm not doubting you, but would be interested to hear what other peoples opinions are about my LFS recommending 10 fish including Neons for a new tank. Will be intersted to hear what my LFS says aswell? when i tell him 3 are dead, I think I may ask him to test my water aswell and get him to write the readings down for me and ask him if how harmful they are to my fish and then test the water myself and ask you guys to see how truthful my LFS is.

Captive bred neons used to be considered quite hardy, but they've been heavily bred for commercial sale, which is generally blamed for their decline in survival in young tanks.

Get that test kit, ASAP, but I'd be interested to see what they say about your water and what they tell you to do - I had a thread a while back where I did a little "sting" on an LFS with toxic water out of a fishless cycle, and was told it was ok good and only needed some chemicals for the high pH (which was the only thing not wrong with it). Get the numbers from them, too. They offered to sell me anything except discus for it (they at least acknowledged it was unsuitable for them).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there, the advice above is spot on

until you can get a test kit you should assume that the water quality is terrible, therefore do as many large water changes as you can.

start with a 50% change, when this is done wait an hour then do another 50% change, do this every day until you can get a decent liquid based test kit

 

[toshapetriji]

I want that hat MW

 

[Miss Wiggle]

£6 in asda

 

[toshapetriji]

I´l l give you 4.50 lol

 

[ianw]

We're down to six fishes now and having tested for ammonia n02 & N03 after doing a 50% water change, vacuuming the gravel all are normal. Will re-test tomorrow

 

[poohbear1]

We're down to six fishes now and having tested for ammonia n02 & N03 after doing a 50% water change, vacuuming the gravel all are normal. Will re-test tomorrow

what test results did you get??