New And Old Fish Dying

[ginap]

Hi,

We have had our tank for years, its 120 litres I believe, and has an external filter, live plants, snails, mussells and a variety of fish. On saturday we bought 5 new guppies 3 catfish type bottom feeders and a siamese fighting fish as the tank has been running very well just a slightly low Ph which has been remedied. Since saturday all but 3 of the new fish are dead, 2 catfish and a guppy are left, and now one of our large mature peppered catfish is poorly too and I'm mortified.

The symptoms are they get lothargic then sit at the top of the tank just floating around they don't gasp for air, no physical signs of illness and they die really quickly, we did a water change then last night tested the water the nitrate and nitrite is up but not critically high and the ammonia and Ph is normal we are gently treating it so as not to have extreme changes and we will do a water change tonight 20% ish.
The siamese fighting fish got a white nose but no sign of white spot and all the other fish are clear.

When we introduced the new fish we put in the anti stress treatments did it all right but still lost them, this doesn't seem like any disease in any of the books we have treatments in for all sorts and up till now have had no problems I can understand if new fish don't do so well but Harry our peppered catfish will probably die today and I'm really worried about his older brother and some of our other residents who are at the moment looking fine.

Any help would be appreciated
Thankyou
Gina

 

[stang1]

Hi Gina and welcome to the site.
Sorry to hear that you have lost some of your fish.
What are your exact readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH?
What other fish do you have in the tank?

 

[ginap]

Hi Gina and welcome to the site.
Sorry to hear that you have lost some of your fish.
What are your exact readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH?
What other fish do you have in the tank?

Hi,
Thanks for replying, The Ph dropped to 6.5 but is back up to 7.5, the nitrate is between 0.1 and 0.3, the nitrite is between 10 and 20 and the ammonia has never changed from normal, I think it was the Ph that did it after some research not sure why it dropped though didn't think it would be this bad , the nitrite and nitrate were up marginally on the scale 0.5/30 but water changes have sorted that, the nitrite/trate have gone up before with no consequence to about the same levels due to holidays and a break in the water changes, the catfish Harry, died today he was one of the best fish, his friend same species who is bigger is ok but is looking around their resting spot for the other all the time. Other fish include plecs, more catfish types albinos and 3 others not sure what they are called, neon, danios, guppys, platties, ones with red stripes, loads of snails and some that we adopted from a friend who wanted to get rid of their tank about a year ago not sure of their species yet, all very small fish the peppered ones were the biggest at about 6 and 8cm. About 30 fish in total.
Thankyou
Gina

 

[stang1]

With the nitrite being a little high, that could have caused some of your fish to be ill I'm afraid. Even though they have survived it before, they can still be intolerant to nitrite in the water. Cories are very sensitive to water conditions as are Guppies and Bettas.
I'm not sure that the PH would have made that much difference but gain, some fish are quite sensitive to changes in the water.
Your best bet would be to do another water change of about 30% tonight or tomorrow morning followed by another one the following day. This hopefully will bring your Nitrites down to 0 and you should see some improvements in your fish.

 

[ginap]

With the nitrite being a little high, that could have caused some of your fish to be ill I'm afraid. Even though they have survived it before, they can still be intolerant to nitrite in the water. Cories are very sensitive to water conditions as are Guppies and Bettas.I'm not sure that the PH would have made that much difference but gain, some fish are quite sensitive to changes in the water.Your best bet would be to do another water change of about 30% tonight or tomorrow morning followed by another one the following day. This hopefully will bring your Nitrites down to 0 and you should see some improvements in your fish.

Hey,Will do that and keep my fingers crossed Thankyou Georgina

With the nitrite being a little high, that could have caused some of your fish to be ill I'm afraid. Even though they have survived it before, they can still be intolerant to nitrite in the water. Cories are very sensitive to water conditions as are Guppies and Bettas.I'm not sure that the PH would have made that much difference but gain, some fish are quite sensitive to changes in the water.Your best bet would be to do another water change of about 30% tonight or tomorrow morning followed by another one the following day. This hopefully will bring your Nitrites down to 0 and you should see some improvements in your fish.

Hey,Will do that and keep my fingers crossed Thankyou Georgina

With the nitrite being a little high, that could have caused some of your fish to be ill I'm afraid. Even though they have survived it before, they can still be intolerant to nitrite in the water. Cories are very sensitive to water conditions as are Guppies and Bettas.I'm not sure that the PH would have made that much difference but gain, some fish are quite sensitive to changes in the water.Your best bet would be to do another water change of about 30% tonight or tomorrow morning followed by another one the following day. This hopefully will bring your Nitrites down to 0 and you should see some improvements in your fish.

Hey,Will do that and keep my fingers crossed Thankyou Georgina

With the nitrite being a little high, that could have caused some of your fish to be ill I'm afraid. Even though they have survived it before, they can still be intolerant to nitrite in the water. Cories are very sensitive to water conditions as are Guppies and Bettas.I'm not sure that the PH would have made that much difference but gain, some fish are quite sensitive to changes in the water.Your best bet would be to do another water change of about 30% tonight or tomorrow morning followed by another one the following day. This hopefully will bring your Nitrites down to 0 and you should see some improvements in your fish.

Hey,Will do that and keep my fingers crossed Thankyou Georgina

Back again not sure why the silly icon has appeared I didn't put him their either time???

 

[-germ-]

Erm...
Based on a skim read i'd have thought it was OTS or somehow related?
Camp Linkage--> Hello Sailor
Definately agree that the Nitrite was involved in some way, possibly the PH had plummeted due to excess hydrogen ions (? i think) having built up = ammonium = water changing to correct the PH = ammonia build up due to lack of bacteria = mini-cycle ?

 

[joshthesud]

sorry about your fish and welcome to the forum

 

[ginap]

sorry about your fish and welcome to the forum

Hi,

Thankyou for the welcomes and advice much appreciated

The tank issues seemed to have settled now still missing the lost fish I never realised how attached I was to some of them.
All the levels have come back to normal now so I'm gonna do some more water changes just to be on the safe side over the next few weeks.
Got some other questions, been surfing the t'internet for answers without much luck, I've kinda become obssessed with corydoras/catfish as they are probably the most fun to watch I have 2 dancing albino ones who everyone loves especially when the day lights go off and the night ones come they really come to life, my remaining peppered one as he is very large and rather cool known fondly as the Godfather or Charlie and I have 3 others who are a little mental and very little still, but I'm wondering how many I can have in my tank when its sorted, I have read they like to be in groups my tank is aroud 3ft by a foot and a bit for the floor space and about 2.5ft tall and 120 litres not gallons like I keep saying!!! I also have 3 tiger plecs firmly stuck to my bogwood.

Also Ive been told about some cleaning mat that goes under the gravel and can be used for water changes and cleaning the gravel without the use of the siphon sucky thing just wondering how practical this is, if it works and if it is safe for the fish and snails?

Thankyou

Gina