First Dead Fish

[cocomonkey24k]

I woke up this morning to find one of my guppies in my small tank had died I tested the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and the results are as follows:
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
PH: 7
Should I be concerned or are those test levels fine.

Thanks scott

 

[electropunk06]

Hi you need to get ammonia to 0ppm i would do a 25% water change now and then maybe later if its not lowered.
Did you cycle your tank?
How big is your tank?
What other fish do you have?
Lloyd

 

[cocomonkey24k]

The tank is around 1ft square it's a aqua start 320. The only fish in the tank are guppies male and female there were 12 guppies all together. They have only been in the tank since thursday. All other fish seem to be doing well swimming around chasing each other and eating well. The one that died didn't seem interested in food yesterday. The tank was second hand and still had water and fish in when I went to collect it. Obviously the guy emptied it while I was there. I filled it with tap water once I arrived home and left it for 48hours to warm up and settle.

I'll do a water change today and see if that helps.

Thanks for the advice.
I am currently cycling another tank so hopefully I will be transfering fish in a couple of days time

 

[Gilli]

You obvioulsy need information about tank cycling if you are unaware that those water stats were bad. If you want to keep your fish and not have them suffer please read up on cycling a tank with fish in asap on this forum and follow the instructions on the link below.

cycling a tank with fish in

 

[cocomonkey24k]

I have just tested the tank I am currently trying to fishless cycle and the levels were:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
PH: 7

What should the levels be?

Thanks scott

 

[cocomonkey24k]

You obvioulsy need information about tank cycling if you are unaware that those water stats were bad. If you want to keep your fish and not have them suffer please read up on cycling a tank with fish in asap on this forum and follow the instructions on the link below.

cycling a tank with fish in

Thank you for the link. I have just read it and now understand the levels required for my fish to live happily. My roma 200 is showing good signs of these levels required. I will check it daily until Wednesday and if the levels are fine I will transfer the guppies from my small tank. I am about to do a 25% water change to the small tank to bring the ammonia levels down to 0.

 

[electropunk06]

You obvioulsy need information about tank cycling if you are unaware that those water stats were bad. If you want to keep your fish and not have them suffer please read up on cycling a tank with fish in asap on this forum and follow the instructions on the link below.

cycling a tank with fish in

Thank you for the link. I have just read it and now understand the levels required for my fish to live happily. My roma 200 is showing good signs of these levels required. I will check it daily until Wednesday and if the levels are fine I will transfer the guppies from my small tank. I am about to do a 25% water change to the small tank to bring the ammonia levels down to 0.

Hi on your roma 200 are you adding ammonia, because if your not then it isnt cycling.
Have a read of the fishless cycle link in my signature.
Lloyd

 

[cocomonkey24k]

Hi. The guy I bought the tank from still had the tank setup when I arrived to collect it he also left the water in te Fluval 305 filter to ensure that any bacteria in the filters would still be living when I got the tank home. He gave me a small bottle of ammonia and said only to use it if i cleaned the filters out completely which I didn't. That's why I haven't bothered using it.
I won't be adding any fish to the roma200 until mid week and they will only be added if the ammonia and nitrite levels stay at 0. I will be testing daily.

He said let the tank cycle for a few days before adding fish. I guess my idea of a fishless cycle is different to the proper way of doing it. I will have a read and add some ammonia and see if the bacteria is doing it's job
Thanks

 

[electropunk06]

Hi i would be careful because if the bacteria aren't processing ammonia then they will start to die off and thus be less efficient when the fish are added.
Lloyd

 

[cocomonkey24k]

So should I add ammonia to the process to make sure the bacteria is working efficiently.

 

[cocomonkey24k]

I've just cleaned my filter out and I'm going to start the fishless process again. Thanks for the help

 

[Tizer]

shame, you should have added a bit of ammonia to the tank and tested it in the morning, might have saved yourself 5 weeks of cycling.

 

[Miles_hot]

when you added the tap water and allowed it to heat up did you de-clorinate the water first, if not you may have wiped out a load of the bacteria ...

 

[cocomonkey24k]

I de-chlorinated the water first before putting the heater on and let it flow through the filter for around 30minutes before I turned the heater on. It would seem that I got off to a bad start on this forum.
I'm willing to learn.

My tank seems to be ok at the moment after a debate with the LFS he persuaded me to do a fish in cycle as it was the most natural way so I bought a few hardy fish. 5 barbs and upto now they all seem fine. Ammonia 0. Nitrite 0. Nitrate 10-15. Ph7. The fish seem happy enough and there eating very well. All tests were done with the api master kit.


Scotty

 

[waterdrop]

Ah, "willing to learn" is the right attitude! You'll come out ok in the end. It's indeed a shame to miss the powerful learning opportunity of a fishless cycle (fish-in cycles are really just to the advantage of shops making money more I think) but reading threads here a interacting a lot can still start to bring you up to speed on biofilter hands-on experience.. it's a core skill and one of the main reasons for this subforum.

Read the "The Nitrogen Cycle" and "The Fish-In Cycle" articles again if you haven't already and that will help I think. It sounds like you now have two fish-in cycles going on two tanks? Or perhaps the communications are just confusing - it gets tricky for us on the forum to keep two tanks straight unless you repeatedly label the discussions.

I think the members will need to help you with the feel of fish-in cycling.. it can swing on you pretty quickly and is often close to being a life and death situation as far as the fish are concerned.

~~waterdrop~~
ps. welcome to TFF!