Blacken sunset platies

[h99]

First if all, greeting from a new joiner if the forums, may all your fishes go healthy and beautiful!

Posting a problem that hope to get some help, as I cannot find an answer browsing around the internet.

I have a 16L small water tank, with some decoration. Putting into 2 platies and they almost instantly turned black, they also hate the light I setup. Below is what happened,

1) Bought the tank
2) Put in Ada aquasoil, planted some pearl grass, small air pump and a filter. Also add a golden pothos(but only with their root dip into the water)
3) After a weeks if cycling, I bought some testing stripe. It shows nitrite very low and 0 ammonia after several test, so I did a full water change and then put 2 platies in
4) the 2 platies instantly turned black, with that, I pick them out of the tank and move them separately to a quarantine tank of small bottle, with around 1L of water. I changed water in these quarantine tank daily as I have no additional filter for it. Platies are living happily and black color goes away gradually.
5) I bought api test kit and it shows a super high ammonia. Obviously the test strip is faulty or I ised it wrongly.
6) After 2-3 weeks of cycling, finally the tank shows below,
ammonia -0
nitrite -0
nitrate - around 40-50 ( it is orangish color at the freshwater test kit)
ph- 7
water hardness-200-300
temp-25
7) I put the 2 platies into the tank. Before that, I added around 150ml of water into the 1L quarantine tank and let the platies get used with it
8) However once the platies get into the tank, they turned black again.
9) what makes it diff this time is, they doesnt seem to dart like they did last time, but starting to worry about light, hiding under the dark area.

Is there any reason why they are turning dark like this? pretty worry, as it’s been the 4th days they are in the tank, and the color are still so dark.

ps the female just give birth if a few dries last night.

with some photos of my tank setup and the blacken. Thanks tones for help guys, I have been searching the network days and nights in the past few days… pretty desparate now

 

[JuiceBox52]

Fish can turn black from ammonia, I've seen it happen with goldfish

 

[h99]

Fish can turn black from ammonia, I've seen it happen with goldfish

That’s what I think, but daily check using the api freshwater testing kit gives a yellowish color, means the ammonia is 0. I used another test strip to try and get the same result

 

[JuiceBox52]

That’s what I think, but daily check using the api freshwater testing kit gives a yellowish color, means the ammonia is 0. I used another test strip to try and get the same result

Have you tried the drop test kit? Strips can me inaccurate.

The black doesn't seem to be in patches, is that correct? Just a general darkening of the whole fish?

What I've seen from ammonia is in patches. It could just be stress, or something else. Is the light super bright? Try dimming it for a few days.


Oh, and welcome to the forum! Thanks for looking out for your fish!

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Two things jump out at me initially

Cycling takes an average of 7 weeks without fish and 12 weeks with fish...and your nitrates is way way too high (0-10 on nitrate max, closer to 0 is ideal)

Test strip kits can be notoriously bad at accuracy, so getting a liquid version would be better, especially since you are still going to be cycling the aquarium

 

[h99]

Have you tried the drop test kit? Strips can me inaccurate.

The black doesn't seem to be in patches, is that correct? Just a general darkening of the whole fish?

What I've seen from ammonia is in patches. It could just be stress, or something else. Is the light super bright? Try dimming it for a few days.


Oh, and welcome to the forum! Thanks for looking out for your fish!

yea I use the dropping test kit (the one that pickup some water sample into a test tube and add chemical). I can see the ammonia level changed gradually during the cycling so pretty sure the cyclying works.

Lighting-wise is a good suggestion, let me give it a try.

Thanks dude!

 

[JuiceBox52]

Two things jump out at me initially

Cycling takes an average of 7 weeks without fish and 12 weeks with fish...and your nitrates is way way too high (0-10 on nitrate max, closer to 0 is ideal)

Test strip kits can be notoriously bad at accuracy, so getting a liquid version would be better, especially since you are still going to be cycling the aquarium

Totally missed the nitrate thing. Thanks for catching that

 

[Naughts]

A large water change will reduce nitrates and any ammonia or nitrite. Ammonia is excreted by the fish so an empty uncycled tank may be ammonia free then when you add fish the ammonia rises.
Can you retest for ammonia and nitrite today?
The dark substrate could be causing the fish to appear darker.

 

[h99]

Two things jump out at me initially

Cycling takes an average of 7 weeks without fish and 12 weeks with fish...and your nitrates is way way too high (0-10 on nitrate max, closer to 0 is ideal)

Test strip kits can be notoriously bad at accuracy, so getting a liquid version would be better, especially since you are still going to be cycling the aquarium

Thanks for your reply! I did use liquid (the one with water sample and with some chemical drop) and test strip both way and got 0

agree nitrate is high, i just did a 50% water change a few times and still got a high value. should I buy slthose conditioner and give it a try?

 

[Deleted member 149562]

You are also going to have issues with the size/volume of your aquarium. 3.5 gallons / 16 litres is far too small for fish of any species really

 

[Naughts]

should I buy slthose conditioner and give it a try?

You need to use a Dechlorinator every time you do a water change as chlorine/ chloramine is toxic. API water conditioner is a good one, but if you have a problem with ammonia you can choose Seachem Prime.
Also try to match the water temperature so as not to shock the fish.

 

[ClownLurch]

16L is way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way too small a tank for Platys. For any fish let’s be honest.
Take em back to the shop and don’t buy any more until you’ve a bigger tank more suited to fish of their size that’s cycled.
Im being cruel to be kind to the fish.

 

[h99]

A large water change will reduce nitrates and any ammonia or nitrite. Ammonia is excreted by the fish so an empty uncycled tank may be ammonia free then when you add fish the ammonia rises.
Can you retest for ammonia and nitrite today?
The dark substrate could be causing the fish to appear darker.

Thanks dude. I am doing the test daily for almost 2 weeks, covering

You need to use a Dechlorinator every time you do a water change as chlorine/ chloramine is toxic. API water conditioner is a good one, but if you have a problem with ammonia you can choose Seachem Prime.
Also try to match the water temperature so as not to shock the fish.

16L is way way way way way way way way way way way way way way way too small a tank for Platys. For any fish let’s be honest.
Take em back to the shop and don’t buy any more until you’ve a bigger tank more suited to fish of their size that’s cycled.
Im being cruel to be kind to the fish.

yea I am going to move them to a bigger tank..

 

[h99]

Thanks all. Cannot imaging I got so many help quickly, can feel the love in the forums.

In regarding the test, I have been using the dropping test kit from api daily, before and after the fish is out on. The data looks ok , except the nitrate seems to he a bit high.

This is the number I did just now. I did a 50% water change on yeaterday.

The water I gave are filtered with 50% brita and 50% zerowater filter. zerowater filter the hardness to 0 from my measure, and clorine level is super low. In fact thise fishes are using this combination of water in the quarantine tank for almost a month and they are just fine.

Do I need to lower further the nitrate? i search on the web and ppl said 40mg/l is also ok.

forgot to mention, i have also 6 amano shrimp in the tank before putting the platies in, will that be too crowded?…

 

[h99]

o yay also - before putting them into the tank, they were living on their own in a 1L quarantine tank fir a short period (1 for each), they dont show black color thou (obviously I now know it is tooo small for them)