New Guppies In Iso....update- They Both Died. Why?

[This Old Spouse]

This has happened to me a few times over the course of a year and a half, but not where they just keep dying. There just might be something in your tank, but maybe not. My most recent loss was a tiger barb. I purchased 6 of them, and within a day one died. That was probably 2 months ago and the surviving 5 are just fine. Sometimes these things are just mysteries.

 

[trianglekitty]

I just pulled the fish out (I was at work all day, and didn't have the heart to deal with it this morning). The gold one very obviously has bright red gills, so now I'm thinking ammonia poisoning.

Can an API liquid test kit 'go bad'? I have had this one for quite a while (I thought i had lost it, bought a new and used it up, then found this one again). I'm getting a new one just in case, but is that even something that could happen?

 

[snazy]

Well, if you just pulled that fish out of the tank, then test the water now for ammonia as there maybe a spike with the dead fish in. It may give you a reading if the test is right.
You can check the date of manufacture on the bottle as well just in case. I have the same kit but forgot how many years the ammonia bottles should last They can go bad sometimes alright, but without experimenting with a new one you wouldn't know, unless you have ammonia lying around to test

 

[trianglekitty]

Well, if you just pulled that fish out of the tank, then test the water now for ammonia as there maybe a spike with the dead fish in. It may give you a reading if the test is right.
You can check the date of manufacture on the bottle as well just in case. I have the same kit but forgot how many years the ammonia bottles should last They can go bad sometimes alright, but without experimenting with a new one you wouldn't know, unless you have ammonia lying around to test

It's still reading at 0 ammonia/0 nitrites- and that's after two dead fish has been in there for about 15 hours.

I feel awful that I may have poisoned them by using a bad test kit. And worried that I could have been getting false readings on my other tanks for months now.

 

[snazy]

What are the nitrates like then? Surely if the cycle is going and converting ammonia and nitrites to nitrates, then they should be high enough?
Make sure you shake bottle two for a minute before that.

 

[trianglekitty]

What are the nitrates like then? Surely if the cycle is going and converting ammonia and nitrites to nitrates, then they should be high enough?
Make sure you shake bottle two for a minute before that.

Nitrates are reading at zero too. I expected that yesterday, as the tank hadn't been previously sent up. I used filter media from the other tank, and planned to test daily and do every other day water changes. But I shouldn't be having zero readings on everything tonight though considering there's been dead fish in there for most of a day, right? I should have either ammonia or nitrates, I would think. I did shake all the bottles and shook the tube for the nitrate test per the directions.

 

[snazy]

It's impossible to have 0 nitrates after all that, unless the tank is heavily planted or you are using nitrate remover substance of any kind.
Did you by any chance test your other tank for nitrates?

If you don't have anything that removes nitrates, then these tests are way faulty, or you do have 0 nitrates, but your ammonia test is faulty and the cycle haven't started yet. Have you ever tested your tap water for nitrates before in order to compare? As far as I know the allowed amount for humans is max 10 for nitrates/

P.S Did you shake bottle 2 well, as it will give you 0 reading otherwise?

 

[trianglekitty]

It's impossible to have 0 nitrates after all that, unless the tank is heavily planted or you are using nitrate remover substance of any kind.
Did you by any chance test your other tank for nitrates?

If you don't have anything that removes nitrates, then these tests are way faulty, or you do have 0 nitrates, but your ammonia test is faulty and the cycle haven't started yet. Have you ever tested your tap water for nitrates before in order to compare? As far as I know the allowed amount for humans is max 10 for nitrates/

P.S Did you shake bottle 2 well, as it will give you 0 reading otherwise?

I think it's the ammonia test. I tested the other two tanks, and they showed 0 ammonia/0 nitrites and between 10-20 ppm Nitrates, which seems correct since they are mature, fully cycled tanks and I did recent water changes. Then I tested my tap water, which I know from previous experience should read .25 on ammonia- and it's reading 0.

So I'm thinking what happened is the ammonia test was wrong/expired. The tap water naturally has .25 ammonia in it, so the new guppies got hit with that as soon as they went in the tank. Is that high enough to kill them within say, 6 hours? I did use Prime as my water conditioner, which is supposed to detoxify ammonia.

I feel so bad for those poor, poor fish.

 

[snazy]

0.25 ammonia probably shouldn't kill them after the first 6 hrs if you used Prime as dechlorinator. It detoxifies ammonia for 24 hrs as far as I know.(unless you forgot to put any dechlorinator at all which will cause slow death like that)
But if exposed for too long on that amount ammonia, it is enough to kill them. Maybe those overcrowded tanks in the fish shop, or in the transportation box prior to that has weaken them too much to survive all this?

 

[trianglekitty]

0.25 ammonia probably shouldn't kill them after the first 6 hrs if you used Prime as dechlorinator. It detoxifies ammonia for 24 hrs as far as I know.(unless you forgot to put any dechlorinator at all which will cause slow death like that)
But if exposed for too long on that amount ammonia, it is enough to kill them. Maybe those overcrowded tanks in the fish shop, or in the transportation box prior to that has weaken them too much to survive all this?

Maybe...it is strange that they started going downhill so quickly though. I ordered a new test kit, and I'll try again next week- if it does happen again, I'll have to assume there's something up with the tank.

 

[snazy]

Alternative is to get the cheapest and smallest fish and see how it goes in the same tank . Regardless of whether the issue came from the tank or the fish, and if it is not because of ammonia/nitrites, then the possibility is that next fish will die pretty quick too as something may have been left in the water.
If they really got sick because of something in your tank, then what type of sickness kills in the space of 6rs unless it's been going on for a while, or there is contamination in the tank..

Let us know how it goes anyway.

 

[trianglekitty]

Alternative is to get the cheapest and smallest fish and see how it goes in the same tank . Regardless of whether the issue came from the tank or the fish, and if it is not because of ammonia/nitrites, then the possibility is that next fish will die pretty quick too as something may have been left in the water.
If they really got sick because of something in your tank, then what type of sickness kills in the space of 6rs unless it's been going on for a while, or there is contamination in the tank..

Let us know how it goes anyway.

I was going to empty the tank again and rinse it out again before adding anything else, just in case it was in the water. More likely, I'll get nervous and neurotic and just throw out the possibly lethal contaminated tank. If I get a new tank and a new test kit and more new fish still die- well, clearly I need to quit fish keeping.

Thanks to everyone for helping me piece together the mystery...I'm still not satisfied that all the pieces added up just right, but I am pretty much 100 percent sure that my test kit has gone bad somehow, so that was very valuable information to discover.

 

[creeker]

I just read over the whole thread. I notice the iso tank had 100% new water and that your water appears to contain chloramines (hence the ammonia reading from the tap.) My water contains chloramines too. I have found out by trial and error that I cannot put fish in 100% new water, no matter what I treat it with, or they might die. I never do more than 50% changes. Even when I do my weekly 20% changes I let the water sit a few days after treating it for chloramines before using it in the tank. Try filling the iso tank from your main tank when you do your next water change. Maybe the new water did them in. It makes the most sense to me.

 

[trianglekitty]

I just read over the whole thread. I notice the iso tank had 100% new water and that your water appears to contain chloramines (hence the ammonia reading from the tap.) My water contains chloramines too. I have found out by trial and error that I cannot put fish in 100% new water, no matter what I treat it with, or they might die. I never do more than 50% changes. Even when I do my weekly 20% changes I let the water sit a few days after treating it for chloramines before using it in the tank. Try filling the iso tank from your main tank when you do your next water change. Maybe the new water did them in. It makes the most sense to me.

That make sense. So I should do a water change on the big tank and use it to fill the small tank. I will absolutely do that going forward.

 

[HayzH]

you said you had a betta in the iso tank...how long had s/he been out before you cleaned it all out and added new water??

Just thinking about ammonia source while the tank was empty?