New Fish Dieing!?

[Philuk]

New to the tropical fish side of things and still getting to grips with it,

bought a tank before xmas and got everything i needed to start it up. gave it about 3 weeks before putting fish in and all was good. got a few fish in there over the past few weeks and then i bought some Ramms from our local pets @ home. atr the time i had a red tail shark and it wasnt happy with the 2 new fish so i got rid of the shark (it was picking on em and injured one of the fish) this caused a cotton woll ball to appear on the fishes behind. i went back to the fish shop and they said it sounds like a bactierial infection use this to treat it - Interpet No 8 Anti Fungus and Finrot. i did this and after about a week it dropped off and it was all gravy again. i bought 2 tetras and a panda catfish and within a week the 2 tetras had died. both seemed to get whitespot or something similar and went fluffy once they had died. they went from being fine to dead within hours and within days of each other. put some anti whitespot in and bought a pair of platys last friday and they seemed to be fine, then i noticed this same white spot look on one of em. now during the course of today. i think they are both dead. one is definatly dead and i cant seem to spot the other right now.. during the course of it all my nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, high and low ph levels have all stayed roughly the same,
ammonia being at 0.25
ph 7.0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0

any ideas what is causing this. all the other fish seem to be ok

before i put the ramms in and took the shark out i had about 4 guppys die, but from what i hear they can just be like that.

the yellow barbs and guppys seem to be rubbing themselves on the bottom, on the gravel?

 

[pauly]

New to the tropical fish side of things and still getting to grips with it,

bought a tank before xmas and got everything i needed to start it up. gave it about 3 weeks before putting fish in and all was good. got a few fish in there over the past few weeks and then i bought some Ramms from our local pets @ home. atr the time i had a red tail shark and it wasnt happy with the 2 new fish so i got rid of the shark (it was picking on em and injured one of the fish) this caused a cotton woll ball to appear on the fishes behind. i went back to the fish shop and they said it sounds like a bactierial infection use this to treat it - Interpet No 8 Anti Fungus and Finrot. i did this and after about a week it dropped off and it was all gravy again. i bought 2 tetras and a panda catfish and within a week the 2 tetras had died. both seemed to get whitespot or something similar and went fluffy once they had died. they went from being fine to dead within hours and within days of each other. put some anti whitespot in and bought a pair of platys last friday and they seemed to be fine, then i noticed this same white spot look on one of em. now during the course of today. i think they are both dead. one is definatly dead and i cant seem to spot the other right now.. during the course of it all my nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, high and low ph levels have all stayed roughly the same,
ammonia being at 0.25
ph 7.0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0

any ideas what is causing this. all the other fish seem to be ok

before i put the ramms in and took the shark out i had about 4 guppys die, but from what i hear they can just be like that.

the yellow barbs and guppys seem to be rubbing themselves on the bottom, on the gravel?

You're putting the new fish who are used to good water conditions into your tank which obviously has very bad water conditions. This stresses the new fish out causes the white spot etc. Your fish that are 'ok' have got used to the bad conditions which is why they're still alive, but they will be suffering.

You need to get rid of ALL TRACES of ammonia before adding anymore fish. You might even want to get rid of all your fish and start again with a fishless cycle (see the stickies on the forum).

The fish rubbing on the gravel is a sign of whitespot. For future reference, don't add fish into a tank that you know has a whitespot infection. You must clear that up before adding anything else.

In short, the filter in your tank hasn't cycled - you need to get that sorted before adding any new fish. You can start by treating the whitespot and carrying out water changes at least daily.

Cheers.

 

[rabbut]

Well, Ammonia is presant, so that's whats probibly caursing the flicking/rubbing. Ammonia is an irritant and poison and needs to read zero at all times. Poor water quality can kill in one of two ways; directly through acute posioning or indirectly through organ failure or disease as a result of the stress of poison being presant weakening the fishes immune system. Ammonia damages the fishes gills, permanatly, and this will shorten their lives, even if it does not kill them.

If white spot is presant, you need to start another course of Anti-Whitespot. Even if the symptoms clear before then, complete the full course of the disease may come back Add enough Whitespot to treat any and all replacement water you add. You'll see why I add this here, when you read the links to the articles below....

Now down to water quality issues. The raised Ammonia is as a result of the tank not being cycled before adding fish How long have you had the fish in now roughly and what test kit are you using? It sounds like you have had fish in for a while, so you'd expect to be seeing some NitrIte by now What are the chances of returning some fish? Guppies and Rams are hard enough to keep in a mature and well established 6 month old tank, let along one thats cycling, so keeping them will most likely kill them Same with the Panda Corry.

Have a read of the Fish-in cycling thread by Miss Wiggle, which is the main working document for "newbies", followed by my own version to ensure you have all the bases covered. If fish can be returned, do that and then have a read of the Fishless cycling thread by RDD. Fishless cycling is far safer for your fish, as it does not expose them to Ammonia. You need an Ammonia source to start the cycle, so leaving the tank sat for 3 weeks unfortunately wasn't "fishless cycling" the tank Very few shops will accept diseased fish back due to the risk to their own stock, so you may well be forced into a fish-in cycle

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Philuk]

oki, the test kit i am using is a API freshwater master test kit, i took a sample of water into the shop and they said it was fine to add fish, the tank has been set up for nearly 3 months now. not a chance of taking any fish back as the latest ones to go in that are still going have been in there maybe 3 weeks?, should i do daily water changes? and how much, i did a 25% and cleaned the filter today but that was because it was not doing much of anything. i have only cleaned the filter in the water i have taken out of the tank. according to the test kit apart from 0, 0.25 is the next level of ammonia up. is there a way of getting rid of all the ammonia in the tank, ie buying a product to get rid of it or is it a case of just emptying the water out and putting fresh in..

thanks for the help guys. but i didnt no this was bad . the pet shop where the first few fish came from did a test and said it was fine to put em in after a week but i gave it 3 lol,

the whitespot treatment i have just said put an amount in then a week later put some more in. i have done this and its on its second week. how long should i carry it on for?
how much water should i be changing daily to get the ammonia to come down and for how long? should i do a test every day before i change the water?

sorry for all teh questions but you dont get if you dont ask! hehe

 

[Philuk]

right ok. read that topic. looks like im gonna have to stick with what i have and hope they battle thru it! they have done well so far so i just hope that now i kno what to do i can fix whats wrong!

gonna make a note of my levels in this topis as long as its ok? and to keep everyone updated of how they are all doing!

so today
18/02/09

Ammonia 0.25
PH 7.6
High PH 7.4
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm

will do another test tomorrow and then a water change!

 

[waterdrop]

Use your API kit to take readings on your tap water and post those results up here for the members. After they see those, they can advise you on water change percentages. If the tap water is clear of ammonia and nitrates and the pH is not a huge difference from your tank, I suspect significantly larger water change percentages (along with good gravel cleans while performing the water changes) are in order.

You've fallen victim to pretty much the classic situation we see here dozens of times a month, with no prior access to good training about cycling and non or counterproductive information from the LFS for the most part. All these things are correctable and the good thing is that you've stumbled across the best possible place to get all the right advice and information. The members here are great!

Good Luck!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Schmill]

right ok. read that topic. looks like im gonna have to stick with what i have and hope they battle thru it! they have done well so far so i just hope that now i kno what to do i can fix whats wrong!

gonna make a note of my levels in this topis as long as its ok? and to keep everyone updated of how they are all doing!

so today
18/02/09

Ammonia 0.25
PH 7.6
High PH 7.4
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 0ppm

will do another test tomorrow and then a water change!

You are still showing an ammonia reading there, so hopefully you are going to do a waterchange today asap, not wait until after tomorrows test to change the water?
Whenever your test kit shows ammonia it means one thing, do a water change! (if you aren't fishless cycling of course )

 

[Philuk]

i had done that just just before i did a water change and filter clean so yes i didnt wait till (now today) to do it. just done another test and results are..

Ammonia 0ppm
PH 7.6
High Range PH 7.4
Nitrate 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm

The Test from the tap water is as follows

Ammonia 0ppm
PH 7.6
High PH 7.4
Nitrate 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm

thing today is the water is all cloudy. it was a little bit yesterday when i did the water change but i put it down to disturbing the gravel and such?

 

[Truck]

there is no need to do a filter clean!

 

[Philuk]

the filter was hardly doing anything. i just removed all the excess poo in the water i was throwing away, didnt over squeeze or anything?

 

[Truck]

oh ok seems ok then, but only do it when flow is reduced

 

[Philuk]

any ideas as why its gone cloudy or how much water to change, i wanted to do it before i take my car, wind down the coilovers and end up blathered lol

 

[Truck]

did you use the hot tap for doing a water change?
did you leave the water to run out of the cold tap for a while first?

 

[Philuk]

yes i used the hot tap just to add some warmth to the water, and i dont think i did let the cold tap run, smeg. crappy water thats been sat in teh tap!

 

[Truck]

yep not good, let it run and boil cold water instead of using hot.

unless you have a combi boiler, inwhich case just let the tap run for 2 or 3 mins