Need Help Urgently - Fish Dieing :(

[wheeler-dealer-1988]

hiya all.

my GF just started up here own tank in her mams house..

it have not had a fishless cycle but she wanted to do a fish in cycle. well the tank was running for about a week with no fish, then she added 5 tetra neons, then she when out and bought 8 guppies, 1 loach, 2 mollies, and somthing else but cant remenber..

well she no expert but every thing was ok as far as i knw untill she asked can she test here water with my API kit so off course i said yea sure..

well after a test it came back as

ammonia - 1.0
nitrate - 5.0
nitrite - 0.25
PH - 7.2

well i told her go home and do a urgent water change just now (9.00pm)

but at 8PM she told me 1 of her fish have dies, how can i get this all down to 0 apart from PH. also she not got another tank, i told here put the fish in the bucket and doa 90% water change, and every day a 60% water change untill 0. also add conditioner ect

any help will be great

 

[WILDER]

Don't move the fish it will stress them even more.
I wouldn't advise 90% water changes either as it altering water stats to fast.
If the ph changed due to the cycling tank it could cause ph shock.
No more than 50% water changes.

How many gallons or litres is the tank.
She added to many fish to soon.
Tell her not to buy anymore fish.

Could you give her a mature filter sponge for her tank.

 

[wheeler-dealer-1988]

she only gt a 40L tank so its over stocked plus her filter is very small, i am planning giving my fluval plus3 to her to help her have more sucsess.

ok ill tell het 50% water changes daily..

i knw she stocked to fast and did warn her, but will it come ok.

ill give her my filter media and then in the nxt 24 hours my filter as i bought a new 1 tonight

 

[WILDER]

She needs to reduce her stocking as she setting herself up for disaster.

I would take the loach back to the lfs.

 

[willquinn]

I had something similar to this when I started a year ago. I did 25% water changes daily for a month or so. After the first water change you will notice that the levels do drop a little but don't return to 0 completely. Over the next 3 or 4 days the stats will take care of themselves as long as you change the water daily. Dony't forget, you must use Stress coat plus or similar to remove the chlorine from the tap water. You will see a significant visual improvement in the health of the fish.

You will need to do this for around a month, gets very monotonous but after that then all you need to do is change the water on a weekly basis (20%), also make sure to take daily readings, when the readings are at 0 across the board (apart from Nitrates) for more than a week, the you're ready to do a 50% water change and do weekly water changes from then on.

 

[OldMan47]

If your Fluval 3+ is fully cycled in your own tank, it may be all that she needs to get her fish into a safe environment. Just keep it moist while you move it from your tank to hers and it should be ready to start supporting her crowded tank. The high fish population will force the bacteria in the filter to grow to a larger population and will mean more frequent and larger water changes than in a lightly populated tank just to keep the nitrates in line. I must disagree with Wilder on the perceived danger of a 90% water change. When the fish are threatened by high chemical concentrations, I do not hesitate to do large water changes and the fish always look much better after than before the water change. I do take precautions to match temperature properly but, unless the tank has been ignored for quite a while, the mineral content of the water before and after the change will be quite close and the pH really doesn't matter. What was once thought of as pH stress is now recognized as stress caused by rapid changes in mineral content of the water. See the link in my signature called Hardness Shock vs pH.