Fish Are Just Dying!

Neelie · Sep 25, 2008

Hello everyone. I really need some help please. I have kept fish for 8yrs and now have 2 tanks. The problem is with my 200L + tank, which was running fine. I had 1 discus (3 yrs), 1 cardinal tetra and 2 scissortail(5yrs old), 1bred-finned shark (3yrs) So for my birthday a few days ago i got treated to restocking my tank. We got new plants, 10 bloodfin tetra, 10 cardinal tetra, 12 rummy nose tetra, 4 scissortail and 1 sailfin plecostomus. After getting the fish, i acclimatized all fish for 40-45min. They all seemed very happy and took to feeding straight away. Two days later i woke to find 2 dead cardinals, that afternoon another 2 dead cardinals. I inspected all fish but could find nothing wrong, they all look in perfect health. As i walked passed my tank yesterday afternoon my heart just sank, in the conner was my beautiful discus dead, s/he was in perfect health that morning and eat well. This morning i found a dead cardinal and rummy nose. I am now down to 2 cardinals and 10or11 rummy nose (they swim too fast to be sure), all other fish are fine.

In my tank i have logs, stones and a fine gravel.
Use 2 lights.
TertraAqua AquaSafe for water changes.
Feed: mornings mix of TetraPrima and TetraMin and afternoon is 1 cube of frozen bloodworms, and PlecoWafers for the plecostomus ( i am very careful not to overfeed)
I have two filters running, 1 smaller 1 inside the tank and 1 Penn-Plax Cascade outside the tank.
Water temp is at 27degrees C

Can you pls healp me with any ideas on what could be wrong or if i am doing anything wrong. I cant stand to have any more fish die on me : (
All i can think of is
*stress
*aggressive pleco??
*Pleco has moved the gravel around, so maybe dirt/toxins?
*something wrong with the food, as i just bought TetraMin?
*Some disease that has no symptoms?

SharonCC · Sep 25, 2008

I think you may have added too many fish at once and you've got an mini cycle going on...Check Ammonia levels. If any registers, do a 20% water change immediately. If you don't have a test, do the water change anyway....

lilfishie · Sep 25, 2008

do you have a test kit, if so do the neccessary test (ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) and post the results, if not then i would suggest an immediate 30-50% water change

Neelie · Sep 25, 2008

No test kit, have never acctually come across 1 in the stores. Any names of good kits? Doing water change now, then off to the shops to look for one. Thank-you so much for the fast replies!
Fish were add on the 19th and 20th of September. The guy that helped me seemed to know a lot and never once said to me im adding too many fish : (, sure he was just happy for a sale...

LauraFrog · Sep 25, 2008

That sounds about right, and tetras and discus are very sensitive to ammonia, discus in particular. They are all eager to sell fish. It's an unfortunate reality of the trade that you can only trust a retailer as far as their till isn't involved. You'll need to do at least 50% water changes every day until your tank cycles because it was running on so few fish.

Miss Wiggle · Sep 25, 2008

don't mean to patronise as you've obviously been keeping fish for a while, but do you understand how the filter works to keep the water clean, are you familiar with the nitrogen cycle? If not please read the link in my sig 'whats cycling' which will explain it all to you, will explain what all the levels are and why you need to test for them. It does also have recommendations for a test kit.

I agree with the above that you've added too many fish at once and the filter can't catch up. This process is a mini cycle where the bacteria grow to cope with the increased ammonia. It may just take a few hours, may take a week or so. When you get some test results we can let you know where you are in the process but in the mean time it's safest to assume that the levels are toxic, so until you get a test kit you should do at least a 50% water change every day.

You may find that when you test the water it comes back OK, what this will mean is the mini cycle has now finished.

Unfortunately the process of cycling is highly dangerous to the fish, the ammonia in the water can cause permanent respiratory damage so you may find that some of the existing or new fish were damaged while the cycle was going on and they may still die after the levels have been recified, unfortunately there's nothing you can do if the damage has been done, all you can do is make sure the water is as clear as possible with water changes for now.

lilfishie · Sep 25, 2008

make sure you get a liquid test kit, most on here use API master freshwater kits, they do all the results needed :good:

Neelie · Sep 25, 2008

Thanks all again for all the info. I am aware of how filters work and the Nitrogen Cycle. I was, tbh, unaware of "added too many fish at once and the filter can't catch up. This process is a mini cycle where the bacteria grow to cope with the increased ammonia" I thought having 2 filters would be enough, oh man was i wrong and not only have i paid for it but my poor fish aswell.

I have managed to do +-35% water changed but have run out of water conditioner so omw to the shops for some more and a test kit. I can hit myself over the head for allowing this to happen.. I should have also kept a sample of water to test.

Will post the results of the test when i get home.

I am really happy I found these forums.

Miss Wiggle · Sep 25, 2008

no probs if you already knew, just thought i'd better cover it off incase you hadn't come across it!!

never mind though i suspect in a nice mature tank like you'rs it'll catch up in no time, you may well find that by the time you can test the water it seems fine and you'll hopefully have no more problems from now on.

oh and welcome to the forum! Hope you stick around :good:

Neelie · Sep 25, 2008

Just go home, only test i could get is called: Tetratest Total Ammonia. Have to w8 20min for the results.
Another 2 rummy nose have died while i was out : ( Funny how they are going in 2s.

Ok, from what i can tell from the colour, it's between 0-0,25mg/l after about a 45%-50% water change.

SharonCC · Sep 25, 2008

That would mean that the Ammonia was probably reading about .5ppm before the change. Let's allow for inaccuracy of the test strips(I'm assuming the test is strips), so it couuld be higher. I'd do another water change this evening and keep a close eye on it....

Miss Wiggle · Sep 25, 2008

yup, well at least that confirms our suspicions so we know what's going on. diagnosis is the first step to curing this!

so for now you are in a mini cycle, you're goal is to keep ammonia and nitrite as low as possible, max 0.25ppm preferably 0. So you do as many large changes as you need to keep levels there. so start with a 50% change every day, one hour after the change test the water again, if it is still over 0.25 then do another 50% change..... so on until they hold steady at 0,0.

Neelie · Sep 25, 2008

Not a strip, it comes with 3 little bottles that is then added to a little container with the test water in it.
Only tests here (South Africa) seem to be made by Tetra and i went to 3 stores to look for the API master freshwater kits. So i hope this 1 was ok.

Miss Wiggle · Sep 25, 2008

no that's fine, so long as it's one with liquid reagents then that will be relatively accurate.

i don't know exactly what's available in SA but you may want to try ebay or a specialist fish website that would ship to you.