Testing Water/ Dying Fish/ Help!

[trumpteezer]

I have always had my water tested at my local lfs. I'm always told my numbers are perfect, yet I can't keep an adult molly alive to save my own life. Fry do great!

It's a 20 gallon, set up for approx. 4 months. Initially had 3 sailfin (1 male, 2 female) all was great! Totally fell in love with the Sailfins and am in the process of upgrading to a 55 gallon. After two weeks with the Sailfins, I had added another trio of marbled mollies, due to my apparent (yet false) sucess with the first 3. Then things have went south. I've lost one adult, one at a time, and now I'm slowing loosing one of my marbled adolescents. Also, lost a bristlenose pleco. Again, small fry are fine.

Their symptoms: Initially starts with clamped rear fin, then tail curves downward. Fish either hang near heater or lay on bottom. Eventually, tail seems to become hard and a paralysis develops. My adolescent seems to come in and out of this and doesn't seem to have developed the paralysis. The past two days, I've reduced the lighting to 6 hours/ day, wondering if its stress. Today I've upped my air stones to increase oxygen and current. Last week added two real plants.

I was adding salt and doing 20% water change/vacuum once per week. LFS said to lay off a little and just enjoy fish more, maybe I was keeping them too clean. Filters was changed two weeks ago. Water temp was at 82, dropped to 78 last week- no apparent changes in fish.

So, any ideas of what may be going on? What is the recommended water testing kit- as I obviously need one for this tank and the 55 gal I'm currently setting up.

Everyone says livebearers are such easy fish- why can't I keep them alive? I'm so hooked on the whole thing- and now I'm terrified to set up this 55.

Thanks,

Trumpy

 

[fish4meplz]

um i had the same prob with my ten gallon tank when i first got it. when u put ur fish in the water after u bought them did u put them in with the water that they came with? because this cause many diseases in my tank such as the one that u r having trouble with now. i had to do a full water change to get rid of the problem and remove or iceolate any comtaminated animals and i do not sugest buying any new fish for a couple of weeks. and what store did u buy these from?

 

[trumpteezer]

All of the fish were purchased from my local LFS. I've been back so many times asking about what may be happening with my fish. I've tried many products as well: Molly Bright, aquarium salts, some type of stress rx, I'm just so frustrated.

 

[fish4meplz]

I was the same way sorry but if uve done all u can do all i can say is give it time and when a fish gets sick either iceolate them or get rid of them from now on just give it time and wait for it to pass and if all of them die off clean the tank as best u can and i do not sugest buying from this store again just in case that might be the poblem.

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

It sounds as if your tank may not be cycled and the fish are dying from ammonia and nitrite posioning. I would suggest getting your own test kits. You can get a API Master kit for about $25 at Petsmart (check their website and print out the page from online and they will match that price which is about $25, plus tax of course). Rather than cutting back on the water changes, you probably need to be doing them more often to keep the ammonia and nitrite down. During a cycle with fish, some people end up doing 2 a day. Are you using any chemicals other than dechlorinator (you are using that I hope)?

Also, you won't get many replies in this section. PM one of the mods (names are blue in the member list at the bottom of the forums page) and have them move this to the Emergency section).

 

[tttnjfttt]

When you add salt, are you adding salt to replace what you took out, or are you re-dosing the entire tank? With salt, you only want to replace for the water you took out (don't replace salt when you add more water because of evaporation). Otherwise, this may be part of the problem.

As for a test kit, my favorite is the aquarium pharmasuticals master test kit. You can get it on Big Als Online for $15. Also, i printed out the page and took it to a LPS and got the test kit for that price.