New Plants Help!

[pdavis41]

OK so I just added plants to my 30 gal established tank for the first time. Using all low light plants and no CO2 at this point. The plants were acquired from AquariamPlants.com. Some of them were crap or dead but most of them were ok.

During planting I did a 50% water change and added fertilizer and cycle.

Everything was looking good last night after planting when I went to bed. When I woke up this morning I found one of my neon tetras dead and all of the other fish were up at the top gasping. I did another water change this morning when I saw this. Things looked good when I left for work. Again when I got home from work they were all gasping at the top again.

I originally had the spray bar underwater (it was this way before the plants were in the tank) and moved it to create surface agitation to see if it is a lack of O2 but with all the plants I would think that wouldn't be a issue.

My substrate is gravel so I don't think I would have released gasses when I planted the tanks and before the plants, once a week I did water changes with a gravel vac.

Does anyone have any ideas on what might be going on in my tank? I've spent much of the evening searching this site and gotten no where.

 

[vonnie06]

hi pdavis41 have you checked your water for nitrite and anomia?did you put the right amount of fertilizer in?what do you mean by cycle?

 

[Truck]

there could be a number of causes:

an uncycled tank:
A lack of bacteria that process ammonia and nitrite (the lethal ones) which will affect the fish, ammonia burns the gills and causes permanent damage, which means fish cannot use oxygen very well. cycle is a product which is supposed to contain these bacteria, but it doesnt, so therefore your fish could have ammonia poisoning, i would test your water and post the results back here.

Over dose:
which fertiliser are you dosing? and how much did you dose? there is a chance you could have overdosed to an extent which it may have harmed your fish by i guess its unlikely unless your dosing easy carbo.

Hydrogen sulphide gas:
Hydrogen sulphide pockets can appear in the aquarium substrate, when disturbed a chemical reaction takes place where the hydrogen and sulphide separate- 2 hydrogen molecules will take on an oxygen molecule, and the sulphur molecule takes on 2 oxygen molecules...this can happen to an extent to where the water is depleted of oxygen.

excess chlorine/chloramine:
your local water board could possibly have flushed the pipes using more chlorine or chloramine than usual, elevated chlorine or chloramine levels will not be removed if you dose as per the bottle of dechlorinator...some companies use other chemicals also.

 

[pdavis41]

Thanks for the ideas.

an uncycled tank:
A lack of bacteria that process ammonia and nitrite (the lethal ones) which will affect the fish, ammonia burns the gills and causes permanent damage, which means fish cannot use oxygen very well. cycle is a product which is supposed to contain these bacteria, but it doesnt, so therefore your fish could have ammonia poisoning, i would test your water and post the results back here.

It is a cycled tank. At my current location it has been up and running for a month and in the move the filter material and 50% of the water came with me. Previous to that the take had been running for 8 or so months.

Over dose:
which fertiliser are you dosing? and how much did you dose? there is a chance you could have overdosed to an extent which it may have harmed your fish by i guess its unlikely unless your dosing easy carbo.

I'm using Flourish. I don't think I overdosed but that is a possibility.

Hydrogen sulphide gas:
Hydrogen sulphide pockets can appear in the aquarium substrate, when disturbed a chemical reaction takes place where the hydrogen and sulphide separate- 2 hydrogen molecules will take on an oxygen molecule, and the sulphur molecule takes on 2 oxygen molecules...this can happen to an extent to where the water is depleted of oxygen.

Does this happen with mid range gravel? I don't think it did, I did disrupt the substrate a bit but in the water change before planting I used the gravel vac to clean the tank.

excess chlorine/chloramine:
your local water board could possibly have flushed the pipes using more chlorine or chloramine than usual, elevated chlorine or chloramine levels will not be removed if you dose as per the bottle of dechlorinator...some companies use other chemicals also.

I live just outside of Chicago, IL and we are on Great Lakes water here. The water quality is very good. I think I will check with the Village though to see what they add to to the water.

I did water tests this morning and the results were as follows.

PH: 7.3
Nitrate: 10ppm
Nitrite: 1ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm

Nothing looks that out of normal to me. This was after running the spray bar at the surface all night. The fish look normal this morning and are not hovering at the top anymore.

Thanks for the help and I will be keeping a close eye on the tank the next few weeks to see what is going on.

 

[tropic_john]

Its cycled

How come there are nitrites and ammonia readings

 

[pdavis41]

I'm just wondering if it was a spike from stress on the fish during planting and if I had slightly overdosed on Flourish.

 

[baron von bubba]

I did water tests this morning and the results were as follows.

PH: 7.3
Nitrate: 10ppm
Nitrite: 1ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm

Nothing looks that out of normal to me. This was after running the spray bar at the surface all night. The fish look normal this morning and are not hovering at the top anymore.

Thanks for the help and I will be keeping a close eye on the tank the next few weeks to see what is going on.

"Nothing looks that out of normal to me."
the ammo and nitrite reading are certainly not normal in a cycled tank!

i would think just diturbing the substrate a lot could have possibly caused the little spike. keep up on daily water changes for a few days.

as for the surface agitation, its pretty much required in a low tech tank, no need to worry about gassing off co2 and it gets oxygen into the tank, which is obviously good for the fish and the bacteria.

remove any dead and rotting parts of the plants you have put in, as they will cause problems too.

 

[pdavis41]

Ok. Thanks for all the info and help everyone.