New Tank - Please Help

[barney30]

Hi there,

I just bought some fish yesterday and put them in a new tank which had been up and running since last Friday with no fish......the temperature is 25oc - the water was treated with what the guy in the shop recommended etc.......I had 6 fish in the tank - 2 died this morning so I took a sample of water to the shop and he tested for nitrate and ammonia - both of which were fine - the fish are swimming near the top of the tank - the guy gave me two more fish - one of which has just also died........can anyone help?

Thank you in advance!

 

[fluttermoth]

I'm afraid I wouldn't trust your shop. Everything you're describing sounds like ammonia poisoning from an uncycled filter. You need to do a huge (80 or 90%) water change every day, making sure the new water is warmed and dechlorinated, until you can get test kits of your own.

I know it sounds awful that most fish shops don't know what they're talking about, but previous experience has, over and over again, shown that that's just not the case

We have a really good 'beginner's resource centre' with some really good articles (the ones on 'fish in cycles' and the 'nitrogen cycle' are the most important for you right now). The link for that is in my sig.

Hope your fish inmprove, and do post again if tou have more questions, or if anything isn't 100% clear to you. There's always someone around here who'll be able to help you