Please Help My Doomed Tank - Fish Suffering Badly - Mass Exodus

[pwi]

Hi all my fish are really poorly due to my incompetence/inexperience with setting up the tank (and lack of advice from LFS). I really hope you can help...

I purchased 2nd hand tank (130L with pumps, heater, filters) from a friend about a month ago. I gave it a good clean including the filter media, filled tank with water from the garden hose, treated the water and left the tank running without fish for 2 weeks.

At this point my LFS said it was OK to introduce fish (NO TESTS RUN!!!) so I put a collection of fish in the tank (mollys, guppys, neon tetras) - In total about 30 fish.

You can probably guess hat happened next...

Over the course of a week a couple of the fish died. I did some reading online and decided to invest in a testing kit. My ammonia levels were close to 0, but my nitrite and nitrate levels were off the chart.

I did a 20% temperature matched water change with API declorinator and stresszyme(?) hoping this would help, but it didnt. A few days later the tail on one of my molly's disappeared! I performed another water test and the reading was still the same...no ammonia, but sky high nitrite and nitrate.

This time I did a 50% temp matched water change with declorinator, and waited...

Unfortunately some of my Neons started hanging about near the filter and I came downstairs one morning to find 3 were missing. I checked the filter and it would seem that they got sucked in and had died.

I removed the filters to get them out, but then made another discovery...there was another collection of filters and white stones below the top set! These set of filters had not been cleaned when I set up the tank and when I removed them to release a trapped (dead) neon, the entire fish tank went extremely cloudy and I could see the filter was caked in mud.

Over the following few hours, everything went down hill massively!! One of my Neons got really bloated and died, my pregnant molly started giving birth to mostly dead babies (about 5 living ones), a guppy died and the remaining fish are either gasping for air or barely alive at the bottom of the tank. Furthermore the pregnant molly is now missing almost her entire tail (not just the tail fin!).

So, to summarise....its a *^)%^&%ing mess!! I need to move fast, and I need your advice!! I'm going to outline my ideas in a seperate post below...

Option 1
-----------

- Perform a 90% water change. Get temps matched best I can and add declorinator.

- Also clean the uncleaned filter media in some of the new water just in case the old water is really toxic

- Put the molly with her tail missing out of her misery.

- Add aquarium salts to help the otehr fish as I thik some of the others have the onset of fin rot.


Option 2
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- Move the fish to a temporary residence filled with temperature matched declorinated water. I don't have a spare tank, so this will probably be a baby bath which means I wont be able to keep the temperature steady for very long.

- Completely drain the main tank, wash all of the gravel (stillborns are down there somewhere) and plants.

- Clean both sets of filter media in dechlorinated warm water NOT from the tank as I dont know what kind of poisons are in that water.

- Refill the tank. Get the temperature stable as quickly as possible and declorinate (or maybe even buy some declorinated water from fish shop?)


Option 3
-----------

You tell me?

 

[Livewire88]

Sorry I dont have much time to reply but all I can say is that you need to follow the instructions for a "fish in cycle" which you can find lots of information on in the beginners section.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/224306-fish-in-cycling/

If you want to do this properly prepare yourself for a lot of 90% water changes which may have to be done everyday intill your filter is mature enough to process the waste that is being caused by your fish. You need to keep your Ammonia and NitrIte levels as close to Zero as possible.

Best of luck

 

[pwi]

Thanks. So you think its best to do a 90% rather than a 100% water change?

What about the filter media? Should I wash the one that wasnt cleaned when I set up the tank?


Edit: also the wierd thing is that in all of my tests the ammonia levels have been coming back as zero.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

If you want/need to clean your filter media (the stuff in your filter), you can do so by using old tank water in a container and cleaning it with that (this way you won't kill off any bacteria that has begun to grow in your filter). You can scrub the filter casing (the plastic bits) in regular water when that needs cleaning.

You shouldn't need to clean your filter media that often, maybe monthly at most.

A tip I have to avoid the much blown back in the tank is that I will run my filter in a bucket of old tank water for a minute before putting it back in my tank... if any loosened bits were missed they blow into the bucket rather than your tank.

Are you using test strips or a liquid test kit? The liquid test tends to have more accurate readings.

 

[pwi]

If you want/need to clean your filter media (the stuff in your filter), you can do so by using old tank water in a container and cleaning it with that (this way you won't kill off any bacteria that has begun to grow in your filter). You can scrub the filter casing (the plastic bits) in regular water when that needs cleaning.

You shouldn't need to clean your filter media that often, maybe monthly at most.

A tip I have to avoid the much blown back in the tank is that I will run my filter in a bucket of old tank water for a minute before putting it back in my tank... if any loosened bits were missed they blow into the bucket rather than your tank.

Are you using test strips or a liquid test kit? The liquid test tends to have more accurate readings.

I'm using liquid and have a kit that lets me test fro pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.

The thing that worries me is that the 'rogue' filter I neglected to clean when I purchased the 2nd hand tank may be harboring something bad? The tank has been running for a month now and it seems there are no signs of a cycle beginning as all the levels havent changed at all from when I started testing until now.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

Have you shaken the life out of your ammonia test before using it? Sometimes that is the issue.

If your filter media had time to completely dry out between being used by your friend and when you started it up, anything there would probably have died out (if there was anything there).

How often have you been changing the water? From above it sounded like you are waiting at least a few days in between. You likely need to do those massive water changes daily to get the nitrite levels down to zero.

Do you have any plants in your tank? They can also help to regulate your readings.

You also mentioned your fish seem to be gasping. Are you able to run an airstone in your tank for now?

What brand of filter do you have? Depending on the style you could angle it so create more rippling on the top of the water which will help draw in more oxygen.

 

[pwi]

I havent as it goes. I followed the instructions and it didn't mention shaking the bottle for the Ammonia test (but it does for the Nitrate one). I'll be sure to try it though.

The filter media had definitely dried out (was unused for several months) so I think you are right and hopefulyl any nasties would have died off.

Water changes I've only been doing weekly

I guess this is a big part of the problem and it looks like I need to do massive water changes daily then. Can I ask how is best to warm up 100L of water before introducing it to the tank? I was tempted to use water from our hot water tap but this seems to come out quite cloudy.

I have 3 quite large plants in the tank, but no airstone. I'll have to do some research on those as I've not heard of them before.

The filter is part of the tank (jewel?) and has an outlet at the top. I've angled this upwards so that it breaks the surface and creates ripples (despite the noise it makes).


Is there anything I can do/buy that will repair the damage done to the fish? I mentioned aquarium salts, but I have not read up much abotu this other than seeing it suggested elsewhere. Also, regarding my molly with the missing tail...is it best to put her down?

Thanks for all your help so far

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

After several months of being dry, the filter media would almost certainly contain no appreciable living bacteria colonies.

Can your fiend look after your fish while you "fishless cycle?" Or can they give you ~25% of their in-use filter media to give your filter a much needed boost?

Short term: Turn off the heater, give it time to cool for ~15minutes, turn off the filter. Use a syphon to empty all but the last ~3cm of water, leaving just enough to cover the fish, sucking up as much debris as you can. Check filter for any more dead fish. Refill with similar temp dechlorinated water, turn on filter and heater.

Longer term: You are effectively "fish in cycling" and need to test the water everyday with a liquid ammonia and nitrite kit (not test strips) and react as neccessary. A lot of hard work if done responsibly!
If any nitrite shows up, you should do a 75-95% "emergency water change," you might need to do this everyday for upto 3 months, because you must keep the water safe for your fish above all else (while trying to grow bacteria colonies).
The seriousness of positive ammonia tests will be dependent upon the temperature and pH of your water, a reading of 1mg/l in cool acidic water is far less concerning than 1mg/l in 26C pH 8.5, in the latter you wopuld need to do an emergency water change.

 

[Essjay]

You asked about warming the new water since your hot tapwater is a bit suspect - how do you refil the tank, hose or a bucket? If it's a bucket, you can mix cold water and boiling water from a kettle before adding it to the tank. I'm not sure how you could warm it if you use a hose.

How is your hot water made? If you are in the UK, do you have a combi boiler or a hot water storage tank? It is usually safe to use hot water from a combi boiler. Cloudiness if often just tiny air bubbles.

 

[pwi]

Thanks again. Now I'm going crazy because I'm stuck at work and want to get home to do the water change!

With an emergency water change, how do you get it to the right temperate easily? Also, should I add the declorinator to the buckets as I fill them, or to the tank once it has been refilled?

You asked about warming the new water since your hot tapwater is a bit suspect - how do you refil the tank, hose or a bucket? If it's a bucket, you can mix cold water and boiling water from a kettle before adding it to the tank. I'm not sure how you could warm it if you use a hose.

How is your hot water made? If you are in the UK, do you have a combi boiler or a hot water storage tank? It is usually safe to use hot water from a combi boiler. Cloudiness if often just tiny air bubbles.

Sorry I just saw your reply after my post.

When doing the water changes with the fish in the tank I have been using buckets and boiling water on the hob. This was quite tedious for the 50% change I did, so the thought of 75% changes daily has me concerned!

I am in the UK and my house has a storage tank

 

[Essjay]

The problem with hot water tanks is they are filled from an open topped cold water tank in the attic. Because these are open topped, all sorts of things can get in, there have been instances of dead rats for example. Maybe go and look in your header tank, see if it looks OK. If not, then the only way is boiling water. Do you have an electric kettle, that's faster than on the hob. That's how I heat my water change water.

Dechlorinator - with a 90% water change it would be easier to add it to the tank before you start to refill, but add enough for the volume of the whole tank. Though with a water change that big, there won't be much difference.
Once the filter is cycled and you are doing smaller maintenance water changes, either it to each bucket using the dosage for the volume of the bucket, or add it staright to the tank using the amount for the whole tank's volume, not just the new water

 

[pwi]

Thanks again for the advice. I'll go the kettle route once I've got rid of the limescale in the bottom (we live in a really hard water area).

Regarding what I assume is fin rot, how is it best to treat this? I've heard that there are antibio's you can add to the tank, but this will kill off whatever bacteria i may have grown in my filter.

 

[the_lock_man]

If your filter media had time to completely dry out between being used by your friend and when you started it up, anything there would probably have died out (if there was anything there).

After several months of being dry, the filter media would almost certainly contain no appreciable living bacteria colonies.

There have been a few scientific studies discussed on this forum recently, mainly championed by TwoTankAmin, that seem to show that bacteria left to dry out will not die, they will just become dormant. In fairness, the studies, if I read it correctly, only studied the ammonia-munching bacteria, not the nitrite-munching ones. The study showed that the longer the bacteria had been left dry, the longer it was before the bacteria revitalised.

It may be that the n-bacs react in the same way, and given that they seem to take longer to establish themselves in cycling a brand new tank, it may well be that they take longer to revitalise from dormancy. Alternatively, it could be that they do genuinely die.

Either way, the evidence from this scenario supports the theory that the a-bacs do not die. We are seeing ammonia being processed but not nitrite. (Prairie, with API, it's the nitrate test that needs the beejayzis shaken out of it, not the ammo one!)

Going forward, PWI, the advice you've been given in terms of large daily water changes to keep the nitrite under control is spot on. Good luck.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

That is very interesting, if it's true. When I cycled my second tank, it went really quickly... makes me wonder if that sort of thing had anything to do with it (had a used filter with used but dried media).