New To Tff, Here To Learn How To Stopping Killing Fish

[DavidYazel]

Hi everyone.  I have been reading forums and talking to fish people a lot in the last year, but I have never joined a fish forum.  I have a long and sad story about my fish attempts, not sure if its worth writing about.  My wife thinks I am obsessed, my daughters think I am basically a sadistic fish killer at this point.  They all want me to give up.  I am starting to feel the same way.
 
Here is the funny thing.  I know so many people with fish tanks.  Friends, relatives, co-workers. They walked into Pet Smart and walked out with tanks and fish. Do their fish die? nope.  Do they know about the nitrogen cycle, water changes, filtration, temperature, Ph, chlorine, disease... nope.  They just throw the fish in the tank and feed it every day and everything is fine.  I admit I am a little jealous and bitter about that.  Seems so unfair.  One co-worker thinks I am insane to go to the very great lengths and work I have gone through with my fish.  He very happily points out he never does anything with his fish except feed them.
 
I have spent a year on this project.  Gone through 2 fish tanks, spent hundreds of dollars trying to host $1 guppies, tetras, mollys and platys. I have probably killed 50 fish in the last 6 months alone. 
 
Anyway.  I signed up because over the last 48 hours all my fish died again (this time to Ich) and I am wondering if I should hang it all up. I mentioned getting a quarantine tank to help with fish disease transmission and my wife basically told me she will leave me if I do that (I'm mostly kidding). 
 
So that is my intro.  I should probably get into specifics in the right sub-forums rather than my introduction post.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Wow, sounds as if you have been going through the wars!
 
Well, welcome to the forum, and surely we can hopefully help you out with your situation regarding your tanks.
 
Right, a couple of questions to ask about your tank set up. How do you set up the tanks, is the tank cycled, do you use dechlorinators, what are the test kit readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, pH and gH (water hardness) readings may be helpful as well, what filter are you using and filter media etc, do you have a water heater.
 
From your post, I think you already know the basics and and have a reasonable amount of knowledge on what happens in a fish tank. All these are basic questions and helps us to build a picture of your usual routine and what could be happening.
 
A few more just popped into mind, did you acclimitise your new fish to your tank?
 
Also the size and dimensions of your tank may also be somewhat helpful.
 
That will do to start off then a few more questions may occur after your answers.

 

[DavidYazel]

Thanks for the warm welcome.  Here are the stats:
 
I have a API water master test kit and also have the strip tests.  My tank is cycled. The ammonia, nitrate and nitrites are all zero. I use tap water which has a Ph on the higher side of 7.8 and my water buffer Kh is 100 which high enough that I haven't considered trying to move it the Ph with chemicals. I use Prime to declorinate my tap water and I try to match tank temperature.  Before my tank cycled was doing a lot of water changes but since it cycled I have been doing 25 percent a week.  When I do a water change I vacuum the gravel  as well.  The tank is 20 gallons with live plants.  The plants are healthy and happy and I use API leaf zone once a week to keep them that way.  I have a heater in the tank and keep the temperature at 76 degrees, except when I was combatting Ich and slowly pushed it to 87 per the instructions here: http/www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php .  I use a FluVal Aqua Clear 30 power filter with layers (bottom to top) of foam, carbon,  biomax and then foam again. I have the output of the filter where the heater is so that the water cycles in the tank.  I have an Aftican Featherfin Catfish that keeps the tank super clean.  He is the only fish that continues to live through it all.
 
When introducing new fish I put the bag in the tank to adjust water temp, I add a little water from tank into bag every 15 min to adjust Ph, then I let the fish in.  I have been concentrating on Platys for a long while now.  As of a week ago I had 1 platy and the catfish.  I added 3 Platys and one was dead within 24 hours (the smallest one), replaced it with 2 Platy's (for a total of 5).  They were super happy for about 5 days then they started hiding.  I noticed the white spots on them 2 days ago and started raising the temperature but they all died.  I will attach a picture of one pre-death.  So the tank is now at 87 with only the catfish in it.  Not sure what next steps should be.
 
 

 

[Mark Z.]

Hi,
 
You sound like me!! I also see a lot of people who seem to do everything wrong but have better luck than me!! I used to be one of them, also.
 
I'm sure you will get a lot of good advice here, I don't consider myself experienced enough to give advice, but I will suggest one thing...maybe start with fish that are really hard to kill to get your confidence going. In my experience, even though platys and guppies seem like basic starter fish, they seem to have more troubles. They don't seem to last very long and often they are stressed or sick from the store. At least, that is my experience. And watch the fish and their tank mates closely before you buy any. I think most of the sickness and problems come from the pet stores, even before you get them home to your tank. I don't buy a fish that is in a tank with sick or dead fish.
 
Good luck, your tank looks great! What state are you in? I am in NJ.
 
Mark

 

[Ch4rlie]

From your response, I see a couple of things that wont help much, first is the strip test, I'd not trust these as they tend to be pretty inaccurate and unreliable, the API master kit whihc is liquid based tests is much better, so stay with that for consistency.
 
You do not say how your tank was cycled, from reading that you have done many water changes may be that you were doign a fish in cycle, this may help explain why you have had many fish deaths as ammonia and nitrite poisoning is likely to have happened.
 
By the way, I would up your water changes to at least 40 - 50% weekly, this helps to remove nitrate and replenish minerals in the water whihc is good for your plants and stocking, of course dechlorinated and temperature matched replaced water.
 
African Featherfin catfish, not sure which specie you speak of here exactly, however thinking may be a synodontis as this is a fairly generic name. But  all catfish do not really keep a tank clean, in fact they actually poop a lot which does the opposite of keeping tanks clean

Keeping the tank clean is down to the fishkeeper, not shrimps, catfishes or snails etc

 
The filter and media sounds good, Fluval have a decent rep for their filters and this is a hang on back type which is fine, so do not think this is the issue.
 
From the photographs you have provided, this looks like you still have ich in the tank

THIS is your most likely cause for your fish deaths and would treat this accordingly and do not add any more fish into your tank until you have followed whichever method of ich treatment you have to the letter and ensure the whole tank is treated completely.

 

[RCA]

When introducing new fish I put the bag in the tank to adjust water temp, I add a little water from tank into bag every 15 min to adjust Ph, then I let the fish in.

Firstly welcome, and good on you for asking the questions.

In respect to you stating ...then I let the fish in...do you tip the fish in with the water they are in or release them catching them in a net? Basically, do the later as you never want to add water from a LFS into your tank, any water from the bag needs to be disposed of.

Will await your update re how you cycled the tank, as this will help us to help you. I agree you have ICH, nasty, so treat accordingly to prevent further issues.

Good luck, things will get better

 

[DavidYazel]

I was afraid that using the net might hurt the fish.. I have been tipping the water from the bag into the tank.  I had even been told that water from fish stores was really good for the tank LOL.
 
Cycling the tank took me 3 months.  I tried everything under the sun and made lots of mistakes.  I tried a fishless cycle using fish food and Seachem Stability.  It never really got "all the way".  My nitrates and nitrites went to zero but my ammonia stopped at 0.5. After 7 weeks I still ahd a tank with no fish int it.   The guy at Pet Smart pretty much told me I was an idiot and told me (in front of my kid) that I should just buy fish already.  Technically this is her fish tank in her bed room and she was thinking I was crazy to actually have no fish in it, so this dude at pet Smart pushed all my buttons.   Now in retrospect I think that the issue was that I had ZeoCarb in my filter with my carbon.  So it was stripping out the ammonia that the bacteria needs to feed on, which stalled my cycle.  
 
Anyway so I added fish (before the tank was fully cycled) and then the ammonia spiked to 8.0 and I ended up doing 50 percent water changes, then 75 percent water changes. I also used AmmoLock so of course that screwed my cycle up.  So I finally swapped out the Zeo Carb, switched to Prime, added lots of water changes and started using SeaChem Stability to boost the bacteria. I didn't know about TSS or I would have gone that route.  Eventually (after many fish deaths) the ammonia dropped to zero and stayed there. 

 

[scandie]

Don't give up, there should be lots of tips from others here.  Some of it will be useful .  The tank looks good.

 

[Munroco]

I can identify with this post. When I started keeping fish about 45 years ago, I did all the stuff that was suggested. At the time it was as simple as letting the water mature for 3 days to release any chemicals. I would buy all sorts of stuff to cure sick fish, stuff to add to the water to make it safe etc. I followed the one inch of fish to the gallon that was nom de guerre in these days. I kept losing fish. As I got more experienced, I stopped dosing my tank with stuff, basically stopped following the rules and kept things simple. I was blessed with a water supply that gave me nice soft water with very little additives. As time went by, i found I could start a new tank simply by adding water, heating it up and adding fish. I rarely lost fish, I bred dozens of species ( most of which I had to feed to other fish as LFS wouldn't take them from me.) In short I didn't fuss over my tanks (I had over 40 by this time) and kept things simple. I feel a lot of problems these days is that we overcomplicate things.

 

[Far_King]

Welcome
 
Can I just ask, do you use a dechlorinator on the water when you do the changes?  And before you add the water in?  Chlorine will kill the bacteria in your filter and cause it to recycle again.

 

[DavidYazel]

Welcome

 
Can I just ask, do you use a dechlorinator on the water when you do the changes?  And before you add the water in?  Chlorine will kill the bacteria in your filter and cause it to recycle again.

 
I do use a dechlorinator in each 2.5 gal bucket of water I use for water changes..

 

[Akasha72]

when I started out I got a little hexagonal tank for £3 from my local charity shop were I volunteered. It had the old style under gravel filter and air stone/pump etc. I'm also blessed with nice soft water like Munroco but even better I'm blessed with a Dad that kept and bred fish when I was a kid and a fantastic lfs too. My lfs in a little independent place run by fish keepers so the advice is great. 
I set the little tank up with some gravel, added a little heater and went to my lfs to buy fish. They asked me how long I'd had the tank, how big it was and what did it contain. Obviously the answers wern't to their liking and they said no to any fish. They sold me a little bottle of Stress Coat and Stress Zhyme and told me to come back in a week with a water sample. 
They tested it and allowed me 3 tiny baby neons and said I couldn't have any more fish for two weeks. Those little neons survived. I didn't do anything special, I just fed them very lightly once a day and after 2 weeks I added 3 more. All was fine until a neighbour was throwing out a bigger tank (50 litre) and silly me thought I could just move everything over and all was fine. Well the tank water looked like I'd tipped half a pint of milk in it within a few days! That was when I discovered this forum and my journey of knowledge began.
 
I still stick to the 'if it ain't broke don't try to fix it' rule. I don't add anything much. I dechlorinate of course and I add plant ferts and liquid co2 but nothing more really. 
 
I think there are two types of fish keeper - those that add all sorts of stuff and those that take a more relaxed approach and add very little. This is supposed to be a relaxing hobby after all!
 
I think what has happened here is you've fallen foul of the lfs - and many have. A good, reputable lfs can be hard to find but if there's one thing I've learnt it's that it's the small independent stores run by fish keepers and fish lovers that will always set you right. The big pet chains are the one's that would sell you your Granny if they could.
 
My advice would be to search out a small lfs ... maybe post your location on here and see if any other members can recommend somewhere. Recommendations for fish stores are worth their weight in gold. 
 
We can give you all the right advice about sorting out your tank and advice on what the best stock is for your water type but we can't tell you where the healthy fish are
 
Ps - the platy in your photo had a very very bad case of white spot (or ich as you guys call it) don't feel bad that she couldn't be saved. She was very ill indeed. As you go along on your journey you'll learn to spot illnesses in the store and learn when to walk away. Good luck!

 

[DavidYazel]

My catfish may live through this.  Heat in my tank has been holding at 88 degrees.  I added more aeration to deal with reduced oxygen levels.  I have not introduced any aquarium salt since half the blogs I read say that is not necessary and it would kill my plants.  I also can't get a definitive answer on whether it will kill my catfish.  Spores are gone from the fish. I will hold temperature for a whole 2 weeks to kill off the spores.  I am also adding a UV filter to help with disease control in the future.  I think I may go ahead and setup a quarantine tank.

 

[Far_King]

A QT tank is one of the most worthwhile things you can do.

 

[ricbea]

Hi and welcome,  
 
I feel for you, this must be torturous. You definitely came to the right place whilst I may offer one little piece of advice the others on here are damned good and will help you get it sorted. The only small piece that I can see right now (and this maybe wrong) is I think the carbon you have in your filter will be removing the meds that you have been adding. I believe that when you are medicating it is necessary to remove the carbon from a filter and replace after you have finished. Like I said I not 100% sure on this but someone else will be able to answer definitively.
 
I really wish you all the best and hope you can get it right.
 
Richard.