Instant Death Tank

[erika.c]

I just set my 40 gallon tank up about a week ago after being away from the hobby for a few years. So all new water, new filter catrdiges, old gravel and old artificial plants. I rinsed all the gravel and artificial plants beore set up. I filled the tank treated the water with stress coat and went to the store and bought 5 guppies to start the cycling process. Within five days all five guppies were gone. The ammonia levels had started to rise, so my intial thought was that this was the problem. A day later I bought ten comet gold fish (feeder fish) thinking that they might be hardier. Five died within 3 hours and the other five we dead by the morning. I then tested the ph and found that it had dropped to 6.0 (could have been lower, this is as low as my ph reader shows). There was one guppy that I never found, so I assumed the decaying guppy dropped the ph. I pulled everything out of the tank, found the decaying fish, changed half the water, added some ph up and the ph returned to 7.4. I bought ten more comet gold fish today and all ten were dead within 2 hours. The fish tend to sucked at the top of the water and some get cloudy eyes and then die. My next thought would to pull all of the artificial plants and boil them...I can't think of what else could be wrong. Any thoughts?

 

[Truck]

try fishless cycling best way to go IMO

 

[erika.c]

try fishless cycling best way to go IMO

So you think it's just the ammonia that is killing them off?

 

[Truck]

most probably the ammonia, thats why fishless cycling is the best

 

[erika.c]

most probably the ammonia, thats why fishless cycling is the best

Ammonia is at 0.75. I'm just afraid I'll cycle it, add fish, and they'll still die.

 

[pippoodle]

please go with the fishless cycling route and dont buy any more fish until the cycle is complete
its a lot better than poisoning fish

in 4 - 5 weeks time you should be able to add fish - as long as tests are ok

take the time inbetween researching their needs and the breeds of fish you would be interested in

Sarah xx

 

[Tolak]

With all the inbreeding over many years guppys are nowhere near hardy. Feeder fish are usually disease ridden, and not sold for the buyer who plans on keeping them alive very long, as they are feeders, or intended to be. Ammonia will take out either in short order.

Adding pH adjusting chemicals is a useless effort in all but the softest tap water. Fluctuating pH, plus ammonia and fish that are not very hardy equals deaths.

If you want to attempt a traditional cycle with fish, start with 3 zebra danios, no more. 50% water changes daily, forget the Stress Coat. Get Seachem Prime, or Tetra Aquasafe, use double the amount suggested.

A fishless cycle would be best, next best would be some cycled filter media, a list of donors is here; http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=150631

 

[Behold]

There are benifits of fishless cycling

It will allow a good 80%-100% stocking from day N (N being the last day of cycle) This is because you will cultivate too much bacterial due to the high levels of ammonia you add to cultivate them.

It will allow you to run a few tank water tests and learn the true PH of the tank and tap water and understand your water conditions. This is very useful as if its Low or High you need to be more diligent on aclimatising your fish

I take about 5 hours doing mine as i have hard water with a high PH

When I get new fish, I acclimatise them by sticking the bag in the water on top and leaving for an hour so the temp matches and not shocking the fish.

I remove a little of the water in the bag giving me more room to add my tank water
Then add a little water every 20 mins to the bag from the tank. I do this on mine over 4 hours
I aim to make the bag mixture 80% my tank water and 20% the LFS water.
Then I pour in to a container and net the fish out in to my tank so not to contaminate the tank with LFS water.

I never used to be this diligent but i lost a few fish early on when i was not slow about it.

Finally what is the gravel you have? just checking its not coral based or something.

 

[AdAndrews]

do a 50% water change, go get 8 white cloud mountain minnows or zebra dannios and do 10% a day to keep the mmonia down, buy bacteria cleaner and add double dose daily, in a week or 2 it should have calmed down

 

[erika.c]

Thank you for all the advice! I'll start a fishless cycle today and maybe add three danios at the end just to be sure...I'll keep you posted.