Established Tank All Over The Place!

[Sarah.hancock]

Okay firstly I'm sorry if this is really long winded!

Tank size: 125lt
pH:6.5
ammonia:
nitrite:0
nitrate:between 60-80
kH:120
gH:120
tank temp:27 degrees

This first started when i noticed one of my barbs had a bit of finn rot, there was an open red wound on his side and some small bits of his top finn eaten away. I put in some finn rot treatment and two days later he was starting to look better with the wound not open anymore but one of my other barbs had died and i noticed that my angel fish was at the bottom of the tank breathing really heavily. He had no symptoms of finn rot and I wondered if the treatment I'd put in had upset him so I put the carbon back in my filter. I also did a levels test and the nitrate was slightly elevated so I put in some Tetra Nitrate Minus.

Unfortunately when I looked next morning he hard died, he was 6 years old

I then noticed there was a funny smell when I opened the tank, kinda chemically so I tested the levels again and the nitrate had gone up to just over 80 and the water had turned green. I have taken every ornament and plant out of the tank as they were covered in algae too.

I was intending to do a 20 % water change last night but the gravel was so dirty i ended up taking out about 40% and cleaned the filter (i was quite surprised at this as I had only done a 50% water change just over 3 weeks before) I also added some cycle to the tank.

Then when I came down this morning the water has now turned brown with the levels listed above.

Please help as I have not had experience of this before and don't know what to do next, I think one of the Corys is showing signs of a bit of finn rot too but I don't know if I should be adding more chemicals to the tank.

Theres not many fish in there now, 2 cores, 2 barbs, 2 dwarf gouramis and i zebra danio.

Thanks in advance!

 

[creeker]

I don't see your ammonia level listed. With the fraying fins, sores,the smell,and the fish on the bottom breathing heavy, it sounds like ammonia poisoning to me. Hopefully when you cleaned the filter you just rinsed it in tank water, otherwise you may have added to the problem. I would test for ammonia and if any is present, do water changes daily until ammonia stops building up. I'm not sure why you added cycle to your tank. Is your tank newly set up? Your instincts are right about adding too much chemicals. That fin rot treatment probably did a number on your beneficial bacteria as well.

 

[Sarah.hancock]

My test kit didn't have ammonia levels on it which is why I didn't list them! I put cycle in as I thought it would be helpful if there was such a problem in the tank.

Yes I only washed the filter in the tank water as I was changing it.

What would have caused ammonia poisoning? Also should I not treat for fin rot and see if it clears up on its own?

Thanks for your reply!

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Without an ammonia reading, I would be doing a ~95% water change (basically removing all but enough water to cover the fish on the tank floor).

Even without issues, it is considered good practice to change 33-50% of the water weekly, with more frequent water changes for young fish.

I cannot spot if you wrote about how you "cycled" this tank/filter, with or without fish. "Fishless cycling" would have involved adding ammonia to the tank to maintain ~4ppm for 30-60 days before adding any fish. If you added fish soon after setting up the tank, you are "fish in cycling", which will result in regular ammonia/nitrite spikes that typically need >75% whenever either gives a 0.25mg/l reading (often for longer than 60 days), while your filter gets colonised with essential bacteria.

 

[Sarah.hancock]

Im on my way out now to buy an ammonia test kit. The tank has been set up for 6 years, I put in the recommended dose of cycle for the tank size when doing a water change which it says to do on the cycle bottle, would you not bother with this at water change time then?

Thanks

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I would only be adding a dechlorinator to similar temp fresh water at water change time, I swear by Seachem Prime, because only 5ml treats 200l, making it is good value for money and it will temporarily detoxify ammonia and nitrite for upto 24 hours when overdosed upto 5x the standard dose.

 

[Sarah.hancock]

Okay I'll look at for that one then. The ammonia levels are 0.25 so not massively high. How often would you recommend I do water changes to get rid of this?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

At 0.25mg/l I would personally be doing 75-95% water change ASAP, because my tap water is hard (gH 13/14) and the amount of ammonia ions rather than less toxic ammonium is higher in hard water (lower temps also result is less of the toxic ammonia ions).