Fish Dying In New Tank

[Murpy2680]

I changed to a bigger tank, from 10 gal to a 37 gal. I had two Tiger barbs and a clown pleco go down with what started as ick and moved to something else and we didn't get it in time. Now one of my silver tipped tetras is swimming vertically, head up, and sort of twitching. Now she has taken to laying on the bottom of the tank. I just tested my water my ph and alkalinity were okay but my water was a bit hard, nitrite level safe. My nitrate stick was a dark grey so I'm not sure what that means and my amonia water vial didn't really turn a color. I only have two silver tipped tetras (one sick) and a checker barb left.

 

[glolite]

Did you cycle the new tank?

 

[WILDER]

Size of tank in gallons or litres.
How many fish and which type.

Is there still tiny white spots the size of a grain of salt.
Has the ph changed.
Anymore symtoms to go on.

 

[Murpy2680]

Size of tank in gallons or litres.
How many fish and which type.

Is there still tiny white spots the size of a grain of salt.
Has the ph changed.
Anymore symtoms to go on.

The size of the new tank is 37 gallons.

I did not let the new tank cycle. My LFS told me to take my fish out of the old tank. Fill the new tank with the old water and gravel and whatever new gravel and top it off with new water, I use a dechorinator. I also ha dthe old filter in the new tank for about 10 days butit got all jammed up with the filtrate I added on the bottom of the new tank. I medicated with Super Ick cure, then was told to medicate with Maracyn-Two, both of which I did. I raised the temp. of the tank to 80-82 degrees F. I did several water changes in the first week.

In the old 10 gallon tank all the fish were just fine and living well together. When I put the fish into the new tank I had

1 clown pleco (died covered in white spots)
2 Tiger Barbs (died, had white spots, but then their fins started to deteriorat and they looked like they had raised scales)
2 Checker board barbs (1 died, turned a very dark color and simply died)
2 Silver tippped tetras ( 1 is now sick, swimming vertically and twitching or laying on the bottom of the tank)

The silver tipped that is sick now got sick a couple of days after I started the Maracyn-Two treatment.

Tested water last night using Mardel strips, not a great read from that

pH- 7.5-8.0
Akalinity- around 180
Hardness- hard to very hard
Nitrite- looked to be in the 0.0-0.5 range
Nitrate- reading gave me a dark grey color that I could not match it to
Ammonia- very faint yellow coloring if any at all, so down around the 0.0 range


The silver tipped has no other physical symptoms I can see.

 

[Marve99]

If the old filter was only running for 10 days alongside the new filter, I doubt the new filter had time to obtain a decent colony of bacteria, so you will be in a fish in cycle.

Nitrite in range 0 - 0.5 is a worry (especially if its nearer to 0.5) as anything above 0.25 needs to be controlled with regulare water changes. Keep testing the wtaer and performing water changes to ensure neither ammonia and nitrites get above 0.25 and preferrably closer to 0 until you are cycled.

Good luck

 

[WILDER]

You can use maracyn with some parasites meds.
But the meds could of also knocked your water stats.
Also parasites can cause bacterial infections.

 

[Murpy2680]

You can use maracyn with some parasites meds.
But the meds could of also knocked your water stats.
Also parasites can cause bacterial infections.

Thank you for the advice. The silver tipped tetra in question has passed on into fish heaven, a good fight but she didn't make it. The medication cycle finished last night. I changed 25% of the water and reinserted the carbon filter, it had only a bio-wheel going for the last 10 days. I will test the water again and see where the numbers are at and probably change another 25% of the water again tonight. Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it.

 

[WILDER]

Bless Him. R.I.P.