Do A Need To Be Concerned ?

[swampey]

Guys

I bought some fish today from LFS - six female guppies and one male, did a water check b4 we added any fish to tank and all readings where 0

Only 10 hours later I got one dead fish

So weve taken it out and done yet another water test and still all my readings are 0

Seems that some of the females ie one or two are staying near the surface, any reasons Y

Dont wanna come down in the moring to find more dead fish... everyone else in the tank seems happy including some of the new guppies

 

[kizno1]

it might just have been shock. do the guppys staying near the top look fat because thats what they do when there near having birth.

 

[swampey]

yeh one or two of them look fat ........but the one that died wasnt at all fat

 

[shelaghfishface]

all of your readings were 0?
if this is the case then you have an uncycled tank and what size is the tank, as 7 fish is a lot to add at one time,especially if 0 is the case

 

[swampey]

Weve already done the add ammonia bit for the cycling the tank over a few weeks and we have got more fish in the tank that just the guppies....

 

[shelaghfishface]

well if all the readings are 0 its not been done with sucess..

what size tank is it and what other fish are in there, what filter. whats your maintainence routine.
if you can answer these couple of Q`s we can help a bit more, other than that you may well find you lose a lot more fish, guppies are sensitive at the best of times these days, in an uncycled tank is ...well not good

 

[swampey]

My tank is a 3ft and we are running a fluvel 4 - real plants - other fish ..... cardinal tetras - harlequins ... zebra danios.... maintainence - feed every two days.. water changes once a week 25%

one thing I must say is I am reading stuff on here, have a very good LFS and it seems alot of advice flying about is conflicting

 

[Truck]

the plants will explain the 0 nitrate readings

 

[shelaghfishface]

the plants will explain the 0 nitrate readings

not really truck, i have real plants .. a lot infact and still have a nitrate reading, unless the tanks is stuffed full with greedy ones i still suspect an uncycled tank

yes there are conflicting opinions, its a forum and we all do things a wee bit differently, the differnce is we wont try to sell you something to cure anything infact we have nothing at all to gain from sitting at 23:40pm giving free advice
what we usually recommend is that you take the advise on offer from the LFS then come back here, get a few more opinions, use your common sense to evaluate it and then act accordingly

 

[Truck]

possibly, but lighting and CO2 are a major when it comes to plants absorbing nutrients, i know full blown planted set up is un likely, but you never know...but also anaerobic bacteria could be a possibility from pockets in the substrate...they will convert nitrates into nitrogen which will then gas off.

but if it was uncycled there would be ammonia from the existing fish

 

[shelaghfishface]

yes i was also thinking the same thing.. maybe a dodgy kit ... or nitrate test ( a tricky test anyway) hasnt been carried out correctly.. maybe swampy you could retest ( with sufficent time lapses and shaking time as instructed) just to be on the safe side?

 

[swampey]

Yes and I would say thankyou for the replys so late on a Saturday evening

But to say my tank is uncycled is some what an easy assumption to make..... As I have been lead to understand from numours books and advice from both this forum , LFS and someone who used to own a tropical fish company, now retired all have pointed to keeping all the readings 0 where possible

 

[shelaghfishface]

may i suggest you read up on the nitrogen cycle? may help you understand a little more, i certainly am not trying to contradict what your friends etc have told you, but the fact that you say one is retired leads me to believe that they kept fish according to the rules of "old school".. there was nothing wrong with this... at the time, but research has now proven that far superior methods of fishkeeping are more appropriate/benificial to aquaria kept fish these days

follow this to view write up on nitrogen cycle

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=271928&hl=

 

[ManMakeFire]

To be honest it sounds most likely that it was a fish that was stressed in transit. Its always worrying when a new fish dies, you start looking for all the possible causes and worry something might have been passed to your existing healthy fish. Tis a good reason to have a quarantine tank set up... advice which I must take myself!

 

[pippoodle]

what sort of water testing kit are you using ? - strip?