Proper Worried

[drufly]

I need help.

Woke up this morning and found 2 neons and a minnow trapped in one of my plactic plants, dead. They died during the night. Scooped them out and went to work. 2 hours later im back home and there is a platy lying on the bottom dead.

The only test kits i have are for nitrite, ammoniaand ph. Results As of 10 min ago

PH 7.6
AMMONIA 0
NITRITE 0 ( its actually lighter than the light colour)

Can somebody please help, i dont really want to loose any more.

Cheers Dru

 

[Pleccy]

Could you please fill this in:

Water quality: (* essential)
*Ammonia:
*Nitrite:
Nitrate:
*pH:
KH:
GH:
*Temperature:

Tank details:
Size:
Tank Inhabitants (numbers, sizes ect):
How long the tank has been set up:
Frequency and amount of routine water changes:
What you feed , how much and how often:
Water conditioner used:
New fish or plants added to the tank? Were they quarantined:
Medications used:
Describe the problems you are seeing:

Filtration details:
Type of filter (external, internal, under gravel):
Maintenance details:
Media used:

 

[drufly]

Water quality: (* essential)
*Ammonia: 0
*Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 100 (after leaving the test strip 4 20 min this has dropped to 50)
*pH: 8.0
KH: between 0 3
GH: I am using tetratest strips not sure how to read this test( worked it out reading is 10)
*Temperature: 24 25

Tank details:
Size: 90ltr
Tank Inhabitants (numbers, sizes ect): see sig
How long the tank has been set up: 16 month
Frequency and amount of routine water changes: 25% every week
What you feed , how much and how often: pinch of flake in morning and 2 cubes of meat in evening( tropical quintet)
Water conditioner used: nutrafin aqua plus
New fish or plants added to the tank? Were they quarantined: no
Medications used: myaxzin 2 wks ago
Describe the problems you are seeing: none

Filtration details:
Type of filter (external, internal, under gravel): internal built in & external ehiem 2215 maturing it for the big tank
Maintenance details: 25% water change a wk and gravel vac
Media used: Ehiem media lfs supplied

 

[drufly]

Nobody else want to try helping, seems pleccy has left the building lol.

 

[shellz2008]

firstly test strips im sorry to say are really unreliable, i learnt the hard way. if the results on you nitrates are correct then they are way too high, should try to aim for undrer 20. if was my tank id do a 25% water change then retest in the morning and go from the test as to if i need to do another change.(id also add some kind of stress coat to the water)
Fish feel the impact of nitrates by the time the levels reach 100, particularly if levels remain there. The resulting stress leaves the fish more open to disease.
High nitrate levels are more 0harmful to fry and young fish, and will affect their growth. conditions that cause raised nitrates often cause decreased oxygen levels, which also stress the fish.

sorry i just noticed all my typing errors, anyway hope goes well. i got to go now.good luck

 

[Pleccy]

Sorry I disappeared! I agree with Shellz, strip test kits are somewhat inaccurate so I would retest with a liquid test kit.

Also high levels of nitrates will cause long term problems and will lower the immune system. I would recommend that you carry out several water changes until the nitrate is between 10-15ppm.

 

[rabbut]

The above readings for some will not be possible... For some nitrates out of the tap are at or arround 50ppm, the legal limit in the UK for UK based members. The same applies in some areas of the US. The better rule would be no more than 20ppm above tap water readings

Any chance you can get some liquid drop test based readings? I also do not trust the readings given by strips. I have found that asking a neibour that does not keep fish and does not know what the numbers should be, just comming up with random numbers for the results are often about as accurate

What were you using the Myxazin for two weeks ago? Are you observing any erroded fins, loss of colour, breaking off from a group in the case of shoaling fish or hemoraging on any of your stock?

The stocking in the tank could only realy be considered overstocked TBH for a 90l system. For the caurse, I'd put this foreward as the problem. Considering the stocking mind, and heavy feeding, 100ppm with 25% weekly waterchanges would be in the expected ball park for a nitrate reading

For the time being, get onto daily 20% waterchanges untill you have a caurse of death to remady. I'd advise you to loose some fish to a new home, but not untill you are shure they aren't carrying disease For the time being, don't do anything larger, or you may put the fish into toxic shock by pulling the nitrate down too fast (Yes, toxic shock does work both ways, hence OTS [Old Tank Symdrome] ) Stick to little and often and assume for now that a high nitrate reading is the problem. Obviously look for other issues, but for now, it is the best guess of the problem scenario. Internal bacteria could be on the cards though...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[drufly]

My liquid tests are only in ph, ammonia and nitrite which were all good readings( ammonia 0, nitrite 0 and ph 7.6.


The myaxzin was for a prob i had with fin rot(was advised by a forum member as i didnt have anything else)

I cant do water changes atm because when i tested the tap water there was reading off the scale.

 

[lilfishie]

your tap water reading is off the scale?
what are the tap results exactly?

 

[drufly]

I ment off the scale in nitrites sorry

PH 7.8
AMMONIA 0
NITRITES 5 if not more

The test kit is a liquid 1 and turns purple with nitrites. My tapwater is a really dark purple colour.
My lfs told me that is worrying and to contact the water service, which i did

 

[rabbut]

Hum, it is possible if you have had fin rot that you now have internal bacteria. I have found that the two often crop up together. Contacting the water board is a good idea, as that higher reading is I believe out of legal limits in the UK.

Keep a realy sharp eye out for;

hamoraging
return of finrot
breaking off from the group in shoaling fish
loss of apetite
loss of colour

All the best
Rabbut