Depressing Day......

[KRamgren89]

well, a few days ago we sent our male 3 spot gourami to our LFS because we thought he tourtured our male mollie to death, well this morning we found our mickey mouse platy dead. nothing out of the ordinary in my tank besides this little algae looking stuff that appeared on the side of my tank and around my filter and heater, but i posted a topic bout it a few days ago and was told its probably ok.

and im really worried about my big female Black Mollie. she's been pregnant an awful long time, and the little white spot appeared 2 days ago and she still hasent had her babies.

before anyone asks about my water parameters, ina few days, we ran outta testing supplies and i dont get paid for a few more days. but up until my male mollie dieing a few days ago we havent had any issues in the tank. this probably sounds like a really stupid question, but our male mollie died 3 days after we got him (and our swordtail pair) and now our mickey mouse platy died 2-3 days after we got rid of our gourami and got 2 bronze corys. does something happen in the tanks then you add new fish that could be potentionally lethal to my other fish??

 

[pablothebetta]

Did you acclimatize them properly, eg float for 'x' acount of time and/or gradually add tank water into the bag containing the fish to help them adjust to the new water?

 

[Cazgar]

Sometimes you just get bad fish who may be carrying something not obvious when you get them.
If we all had the space we'd quarantine them, but in most cases that isn't practical.
Sorry you've lost fish

 

[KRamgren89]

Did you acclimatize them properly, eg float for 'x' acount of time and/or gradually add tank water into the bag containing the fish to help them adjust to the new water?

yep sure did, we always ask our LFS to add as much air in the bag as they can because we have a 30min drive home and we float them for like 20-30 min to let them adjust. but our mickey mouse had been in our tank from pretty much the beginning. it was only after we added our bronze corys (2 days later he the m.m.p died) everyone else looks good except our tiny yellow mollie who stays by herself and sometimes just chills at the top i dont think she's sick tho just a loner. but when i get my paycheck we are getting our testing supplies and running a full test the same day! also we are gonna be doing a water change and a light gravel clean later this evening when my husband gets home.

 

[pablothebetta]

Can't really think of a reason why, personally. Seems a little strange. Perhaps the test kit will yeild some suggestions.

 

[Cazgar]

Do you net them out of the bag or just pour the water they're in into the tank.
I know the fish could be carrying something but I never pour the water from the bag into the tank

 

[Rummynose]

Is your tank cycled? Did you cycle your tank with the fish? How long has the tank been set up for? You haven't done any gravel vacs yet?

How often do you change the water and how much?

 

[KRamgren89]

Do you net them out of the bag or just pour the water they're in into the tank.
I know the fish could be carrying something but I never pour the water from the bag into the tank

we either net them out of the bag or dump the bag into a bucket and net them out there. never dump their water into our tanks.

 

[Cazgar]

Can't think of anything else, looks like unfortunately you got a bad batch of fish

 

[KRamgren89]

Is your tank cycled? Did you cycle your tank with the fish? How long has the tank been set up for? You haven't done any gravel vacs yet?

How often do you change the water and how much?

yes, our tank is cycled (i think) heres the scoop on our tank, we had it completely cycled a little over a year ago, and i kinda fell away from fishkeepign and rehomed my fish, we took our tank apart but kept everything including our media and filters. so when we set up our tank again about 6 months ago we used the same everything. so ive had the tank for like 3 years but its been up and running again for only about 6 months. we origonally had 2 blue gourami, 2 pink gourami, 2 barbs, 2 corys, 2 balas in the tank. rehomed EVERYONE and added my mollies platys swordtails and kept our corys , got a few more. (signature)

we do about a 30-40 percet water change every week (or sometiems 2 i wont lie we fall behind but if its 2 weeks we do closer to 50) but we are almost constantly adding water every few days to keep the leverls where we want, our tank evaporated quickly. and we have only done 1 gravel vac that was a couple weeks ago, planning on doing one tonight or tomorrow if its ok to do it again so soon... i never had alot of fish before so i never really did gravel cleans. but last time i kept fish i wasent really ''into'' it.

 

[lloyd]

how long have the fish been in the tank since you have newly set it up because your media will in effect be brand new and all your bacteria will well and truly be dead, so if you have only just set it up then your tank will not be cycled. also if you have cycled it properly (sounds to me like you havent) bugt you have used the same carbon from years before then that is probably not doing the job and may even be poluting the tank. you need to get a test kit really.

hope this helps

 

[Rummynose]

Well, you have fish that are dying, a tank that probably has way too much organic matter in the substrate, we don't have any test results to go with, but I'm thinking this could be old tank syndrome! That means that the fish in your tank are doing OK with the bad water, they have grown accustomed to it but any new fish can't handle it and die!

 

[KRamgren89]

well the only ''new'' fish we had that died is the male mollie (who honestly didnt look the GREASTIST) as for the carbon we replaced the carbon and biomax when we reset up our tank 6 months ago.. i havent had any die in 6 months but the 2 in the last week or so.. but get his i know i just put a post in ''common livebearers'' cuz i just found out my mollie started laying her babies! but we did our water change at about 60-70 percent cuz of the death and cuz of the gravel vac, our heater was shorting our in our tank, all our fish like to hang up in the area of the heater but maybe this contributed to the two who died??


im not saying my tank is 100 perfect properly cycled its probably not, i didnt join this site until well after my tank was set up so we are just tryin to do the best we can until everything is in the clear, so your probably right it might be old tank syndrome. i'll get the test kit thursday anything else anyone can reccommend?? should i get new 'foam' for my aquaclear 70 filter (and i can replace the carbon n biomax again if need be its been awhile)


but on the up side to my depressing day, our mollie is havin babies finally, even tho we probably killed a bunch during our water change cuz we had no clue!

 

[Rummynose]

Wait for the test kit before you do anything with your filter. The sponge should be fine as long as it doesn't fall apart and you washed it very well in hot water before you set up your tank 6 months ago. You can of course remove it and add a new one if you think it may not be healthy for your tank.

You can remove the carbon you don't need it! You only need to place a new one in there if you have to remove any meds. The ceramic beads are where your beneficial bacteria is, so if you remove them, you will again have a non-cycled tank. If you remove the carbon there is lots of space to add some new ceramic beads to the old beads, they will then get seeded with the good bacteria from your old beads. I would just put the new beads in their own bag and after a month or so you can bit by bit take out some of the old beads and discard them.
There is no badly cycled tank, it either is cycled, or it isn't so wait for the tests. There is bad water though on the other hand. If no gravel vacs are performed there is a build up of organic matter that raises your nitrates, and promotes bad bacteria and fungal growths. It contributes to your fish being more susceptible to diseases like bacterial, fungal or parasitic infections.
Also, doing sufficient water changes helps replenish minerals in your tank that are being used up in there, these minerals help keep your ph stable and your tank healthy!

This hobby really is more about keeping good water than keeping fish, if you provide the environment they need you will have healthy, happy fish!

 

[OldMan47]

You are likely to have a fully cycled tank with the history that you have. Since you are doing regular water changes, you are not suffering from old tank syndrome as Rummynose suggested. The only suggestion I can give is to do another rather larger than usual water change, using appropriate dechlorination and temperature matching.
I never add any water to my tanks from a fish bag. Maybe you could try a drip acclimation instead of simply floating a fish bag. That means that you set up a bucket of some kind and slowly drip water into it from your tank while the new fish swim around in the water they came in. The easiest drip system I have used is a simple air line with an overhand knot in it. Adjust the knot to achieve a slow drip and let that water drip into the acclimation bucket. When over 80% of the water in the bucket came from your tank, that is after an hour or two, the fish will be accustomed to your tank water and they will do fine. I almost never lose a new fish when I do things this way. Once the fish are acclimated, I go to the bathroom sink with that acclimation bucket and dump its water through a fish net. From the fish net, the new fish go right into the tank.