Neon Help Please!

[SarahJayne]

Morning all,

I recieved a 30l Tetra tank for Christmas. I got it set up, had Tiger Barbs in there and some orange Sword Tails, everything was lovely!
However, the Tiger Barbs died and the Sword Tail's remained. I recently moved house and brought some Neon Terta's to go with the Sword Tails. I brought 6 on Saturday and this morning I only have 2 left The orange Sword Tails also seem to keep hanging around the top of the tank as if gulping air

Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong??! I have loads of air in the tank, I brought a new heater as I was unsure about the old one. The only thing I can think of is that they have gone from 'soft water' in my old house, to 'hard water' in my new house.

Can anyone please help

Thanks, Sarah

 

[toshapetriji]

Not much to go on here. Are you able to get reading for ammonia and nitrite? Water quality can be the reason for fish dying. Did you cycle the tank? If so how?

 

[SarahJayne]

This is all still new to me Cycle the tank? Sorry

 

[petertr]

This is all still new to me Cycle the tank? Sorry

Have a read on these forums around the ammonia cycle and how you should prepare a tank before putting your fish of choice in it.

 

[minxfishy]

When you originally set up the tank, did you cycle it? Ie fishless by providing an ammonia source, or with the fish in the tank?

I assume you have used the fish to cycle the tank as this is the advice usually given out by the fish stores. In which case the fish were likely to have suffered from some ammonia and nitrIte poisoning. Read through the beginners source centre at the top of the new to the hobby forum to give yourself a better understanding by what we mean to 'cycling'.

The neons are not a particularly hardy fish these days and could have died from either ammonia, nitrite poisoning and the swordtails would have eaten the bodies.

If you can, get your water tested or buy a liquid based test kit to find your readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph and post these results in order for us to understand what may be happening in your tank.

Also how to you clean the filters? How often? How often do you do water changes?

How many fish in the tank? Whilst waiting for these results I would advise an immediate 50% water change, remembering to dechlorinate the water you are returning to the tank and temperature match as closely as possible.

Also if you can, direct the outflow of the filter to break the surface of the water to allow more oxygen into the water and if you have one, turn on an airstone this will also add some oxygen to the tank.

 

[SarahJayne]

Thanks for all of your info!

I have 5 fish in total - 3 sword tails and 2 tetra'a now.

When I first set up the tank I left the fish out for the bit then put them in once the water temp was right. Saying that though, the water does seem cold but the stat is turned to 26 degrees

I brought new filters for them when I moved house. Change the main green one every 4 weeks and the black part I brought new saturday too.

They don't seem very active

 

[tyyrlym]

First, a simple thermometer will help you tell the temperature. The markings on the heater itself are not terribly reliable. A simple mercury thermometer will do you good and should only cost about $3. The stick ons are not very reliable and you don't need to spend the money on a digital unless you want to.

Second, in order to help keep your fish alive a good test kit is needed, liquid preferably. What's mostly likely happening is your fish are being poisoned by ammonia. A test kit will let you track the levels of ammonia and help you keep things under control. If I were you I'd do a 50% water change immediately using dechlorinated water and keep doing 50% changes once a day for the next week. That will help get the ammonia under control. After you have your kit monitor the ammonia levels daily and do a 50% water change if the level goes over 0.25 ppm. Read up on cycling tanks to understand what's happening.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi SarahJayne and welcome to TFF!

Without a connection to experienced fishkeepers, its easy for a beginner to focus on air bubbles and temperature and things like that. It turns out that there is a whole other interesting area that is much more important for a beginner to be concentrating on. It is the key to becoming a good aquarist and there are many good members here that will guide you and help you learn about it. minxfishy has already asked many of the right questions.

When you buy a filter for an aquarium, it only comes as raw hardware and unfortunately there is never the info there to gain the necessary knowledge to prepare it and get it operating properly prior to having fish. A filter can sometimes require weeks or months of careful preparation prior to it being ready. The filter has three major functions: mechanical, chemical and biological. Mechanical filtration is the one most people expect - clearing the water of waste particles. The chemical function turns out to be only a specialized one that is not normally used except in special situations, so we'll skip that function. The biological function is the critical one and is key to the entire hobby.

Lets talk about the biological function. Believe it or not, we need to grow two entirely different, but specific, species of bacteria in the filter. These bacteria grow and live in "biofilms" that adhere to the surfaces of the media in our filter. Certain media substances have come to be accepted by hobbyists as optimal for encouraging these biofilms. Sponges are really great for this and also there are ceramics that are very tough and long-lasting and come in various helpful shapes. Most experienced hobbyists learn about these and customize the media within their filter (this usually comes as a bit of a shock to the beginner who has expected the manufacturer to provide the best of all this.)

Some of the articles pinned at the top of our "New to the Hobby" forum seek to help you learn the "Nitrogen Cycle" of nature. This is the environmental setting that helps you understand why we use biofilters and the knowledge is well worth learning. I'll leave that for the moment and just say that the practical outcome of this cycle is that there are two substances, ammonia and nitrite (NO2) which are bad "poisons" for our fish and both of these will build up immediately in an aquarium unless there is a system to remove them. A biofilter with sufficient populations of the two species of bacteria we need will serve the amazing function of more or less instantly and constantly removing these poisons so that we don't have to do it manually throughout the day. The bacteria will perform conversions. The "ammonia eating bacteria" will eat ammonia and turn it into nitrite (NO2). The "nitrate eating bacteria" will eat the nitrite (NO2) and turn it into nitrate (NO3) with is not a wonderful thing for our aquariums but is not a bad poison for fish and can safely be removed by regular water changes (ideally on the weekend or some such convenient time.)

The members have already pointed you in the right direction, as the first thing every beginner needs is a good liquid-reagent based test kit. Here on TFF, many of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit (which gives many of us a common lingo to use when describing test result colors etc.) but the important thing is that the kit you get be liquid-based and not strips, which unfortunately are not very accurate beyond pH. Testing your tap water and learning to use the test kit is fun and its the first step to feeling more in control over the environment your fish will live in. The test results on your tank water will serve as your guide for growing the correct two species of bacteria in your filter and finally having a correctly functioning aquarium system ready for fish. When fish are already trying to live in an aquarium with a non-functioning biofilter, the test kit will be essential to help you see the results of your daily water changes that will manually keep the poisons away from your fish.

I hope this helps explain and set the stage for the help you are getting. If you have followup questions, please just ask us!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum. You are finding yourself in a difficult situation but there are ways to get out of it gracefully SarahJayne.
One of the first options you should explore after that water change is getting some mature media from another person who has a healthy tank. There is a list in this thread of people willing to trade some of their media with you so that you can get an almost instant cycle of your tank. http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...ia-To-Newbies-/ The process is called cloning a filter and it can move things along quite quickly.
Whether or not you clone a filter, you can have good success with a new tank filter, which is what you have. This thread will give you some information on how to go about things when you find yourself in your position. http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...eady-have-fish/
I hope these will help you get going and help you save your remaining fish.