richardhero
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- Aug 11, 2018
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Background - I was given a Juwel Trigon 190 corner tank by my friend who had it sitting in his garage for a few years. After thoroughly washing it with water and white vinegar, leaving it to sit for 3 days to test for leaks and then draining it, I brought it into my home where I started a fishless cycle.
The cycle just went like any other fishless cycle, I dosed 4ppm household ammonia, and gradually was met with a nitrite spike and then a nitrate spike. A large water change was done (75%) and that completed the cycle, it took about 5 - 6 weeks. I was not adding fish right away so continued to add 2ppm ammonia every day and it was gone by the next day.
Heres where my problems started, I went out to buy fish to add to my new dream tank, picking up 2 pearl gouramis, 15 small harlequin rasbora and 5 zebra loaches. This was a very large amount of fish to add but I was under the impression that this was okay for such a large tank after a fishless cycle, evidently I was wrong because the next morning everything apart from the harlequin rasbora were dead. Prior to adding the fish my readings were perfect - 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, <20ppm nitrate, PH of 6.4 and a temperature of 25c. After taking out all of the dead fish the morning after I was reading 1 - 2 ppm of ammonia which I brought down with a 30 - 40 % water change.
The harlequins were gasping at the surface which would suggest lack of oxygen, however I have more than enough surface agitation coming from a 600l/h internal filter and a 600l/h powerhead pointed at the surface.
The harlequins died within the next few days suggesting that the damage had already done. I took to facebook and this subreddit asking why the fish had all died and received mixed messages of either too many at once, improper acclimation (I just followed the way that most online resources say) or too much chlorine. (I tested my tap water and it wasnt anything in the extremes, plus I was adding nearly double the dose of prime.)
Fast forward 3 weeks till now, I have been testing the water daily and it has still retained its cycle, processing ammonia in a day, listening to the advice given to me in my posts on facebook groups and reddit, I've added 10 small cherry barbs (which I heard are hardy and should do completely fine), I took longer acclimating them and had the lights off. I've been adding seachem stability for the past week and a bit and added a triple dose of prime prior to adding them. The only other thing I've been using is seachem flourish, following the dosage on the bottle.
They seemed alright for the first hour or so, but to my dismay half of them have died within 6 hours and the other half i've moved to a breeding net in my 70l but I don't suspect they will survive.
Everything was reading fine, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, KH, GH, Chlorine - and my tap water is used in my other tanks and they are fine. What could kill fish this fast? Is the only solution to completely restart this tank?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY TANK?
The cycle just went like any other fishless cycle, I dosed 4ppm household ammonia, and gradually was met with a nitrite spike and then a nitrate spike. A large water change was done (75%) and that completed the cycle, it took about 5 - 6 weeks. I was not adding fish right away so continued to add 2ppm ammonia every day and it was gone by the next day.
Heres where my problems started, I went out to buy fish to add to my new dream tank, picking up 2 pearl gouramis, 15 small harlequin rasbora and 5 zebra loaches. This was a very large amount of fish to add but I was under the impression that this was okay for such a large tank after a fishless cycle, evidently I was wrong because the next morning everything apart from the harlequin rasbora were dead. Prior to adding the fish my readings were perfect - 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, <20ppm nitrate, PH of 6.4 and a temperature of 25c. After taking out all of the dead fish the morning after I was reading 1 - 2 ppm of ammonia which I brought down with a 30 - 40 % water change.
The harlequins were gasping at the surface which would suggest lack of oxygen, however I have more than enough surface agitation coming from a 600l/h internal filter and a 600l/h powerhead pointed at the surface.
The harlequins died within the next few days suggesting that the damage had already done. I took to facebook and this subreddit asking why the fish had all died and received mixed messages of either too many at once, improper acclimation (I just followed the way that most online resources say) or too much chlorine. (I tested my tap water and it wasnt anything in the extremes, plus I was adding nearly double the dose of prime.)
Fast forward 3 weeks till now, I have been testing the water daily and it has still retained its cycle, processing ammonia in a day, listening to the advice given to me in my posts on facebook groups and reddit, I've added 10 small cherry barbs (which I heard are hardy and should do completely fine), I took longer acclimating them and had the lights off. I've been adding seachem stability for the past week and a bit and added a triple dose of prime prior to adding them. The only other thing I've been using is seachem flourish, following the dosage on the bottle.
They seemed alright for the first hour or so, but to my dismay half of them have died within 6 hours and the other half i've moved to a breeding net in my 70l but I don't suspect they will survive.
Everything was reading fine, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, KH, GH, Chlorine - and my tap water is used in my other tanks and they are fine. What could kill fish this fast? Is the only solution to completely restart this tank?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY TANK?