Okay, Sooo... My Fish Are Dying..

[Cherry_Barb]

Alrighty then, the other day I noticed one of my neon tetras looked rather pale, so that got me thinking, I wonder if the water quality is a bit off. SO I took out my trusty Tetratest Kit. i have the EasyStrips (5 in 1 test strips). Anyways I tested that water and it came up as..

Nitrate -- safe
I have hard water (180)
the KH was at 50, a bit low
And the pH was at 6.4ish..

So what the heck killed my fish?

I noticed that most of my fish were hanging out at the bottom of the tank, not really doing much, and my tiger barb was breatheing (If you can say that) rather oddly and fast. It was opening it's mouth really wide as if it couldn't get any oxygen. So naturally I started pondering.. do i need some sort of airation in my 10 galleon tank? Is there not enough oxygen, or is my water messed up?

I get up this morning and my tiger barb was dead, along with the neon tetra.. a rather sad discovery. Now i noticed one of my Cherry barbs looks like it's doing the funny breatheing thing.. Can someone tell me what's going on??

 

[xostrawberryox]

Your P.H looks slightly too low, bit too acidic, you can buy a solution to add to the water to bring your PH up a tad. What about nitrite test?

 

[Cherry_Barb]

The Nitrate (NO3) is at 10 and the Nitrate (NO2) is at 0, which according to my test kit it is safe...

I'm really questioning this oxygen thing. Is an ariation device needed ina ten galleon tank?

For example one of those chest that open up to let out air bubbles...

The pH was a bit too low, but not low enough to kill two fish and injure a third.. I just can't figure it out.

On the other hand I do plan on getting something to rectify the situation.

 

[scubadoo]

Did you test for ammonia too ?

Is the outflow from your filter rippling across the surface of the water to increase oxygen transfer ?

 

[xostrawberryox]

My tank has one built in alongside the filter i believe. have you any live plants? they help with oxgenating the water xx

 

[Cherry_Barb]

Well my 5 in 1 test kit doesn't have the ammonia testing on it, I'm really new to it and the guy at the LFS said that this test kit was good. What does the Ammonia do anyways?


as for my filter I thought of that too, I had it on low because I have some dwarf frogs I got not too long ago about a week or so ago, and they are quite small so I turned it down, but now it is back to normal.

no i don't have any live plants

 

[scubadoo]

Put simply fish pee & poo in the water.

The pee & poo contain ammonia (lots). Ammonia is highly toxic to fish.
If your tank is cycled, then there will be bacteria that break down the ammonia into nitrite.

Nitrite is still toxic to your fish.
Again if your cank is cycled different bacteria break nitrites down into nitrates.

Nitrates are generally not harmful to you fish unless the concentration is high.
You get rid of nitrate by doing regular water changes.

So IMO you should test for pH, ammonia, nitrite & nitrate as a minimum.

Ammonia should be 0ppm
Nitrite should be 0ppm
Nitrate if you can keep it less than 80ppm you're prob OK, but the lower the better.

Also go and get yourself a proper liquid master test kit its much more accurate than those test strips.

 

[Cherry_Barb]

Thanks for the tip, I guess for now I should do a half water change?

 

[scubadoo]

A water change might help, and certainly shudn't make things worse.

You do need to try and check your main water parameters (including ammonia) to see if you can establish what the root cause of the problem is.

BTW have you checked your water temp - is the heater working ok?

 

[Cherry_Barb]

I've just done a half water change, my temperature was fome before between 78ish and 80. Still working okay

 

[scubadoo]

Ok well 80 is a bit high - aim for closer to 75deg. generally, but that shouldn't have caused the problems you've been having.