new tank fish loss HELP

[ditherfish]

OK- I'm baffled. Can you shed any light?

My fish are dying.

this is a newly set-up re-built 20 gal hex. Fishless cycle for 13 days- ammo and nitrite readings zero. Temp constant at 79-80 F. 80% water change prior to adding fish.

Fish added Aug 25. See post in photos. 4 quarter sized angels, 6 panda cories, 1 clown pleco.

Levels stayed at zero after adding fish. Checked daily. 5 gal water changes every 2nd day.

Lost the first fish - a cory, on day 3. Found corpse.

Lost an angel on day 4.

Lost an angel on day 5.

Cory count reveals only 3 cories. Corpses for missing 2 not found.

Vacuumed gravel on day 6 in case of decomposing cories somewhere.

Lost an angel on day 7 (today).

Ammonia and nitrite levels remain constant zero. I'm getting a more accurate pH kit, and a nitrAte kit to see. pH is about 7.5. Peat filtered water -small bag of peat in an Aquaclear 200.

2 angels that died showed listlessness, floating near the surface, not responding to other fish or food, the day before dying. The 3rd angel didn't show any such signs. Fine this morning, dead this afternoon. No spots, no discoloration, no ragged fins or cloudiness, no distended bellys. Just perfect, but dead, fish. Except the first cory corpse. He appeared to have been supper for someone.

I expect to find the 4th angel dead soon- although it shows no signs of illness at all; its quite normal, aggressively attacking dried red grubs. Remaining 3 cories are similarly active.

Can't see the clown pleco today- but that is to be expected.

So - is it me? Is there something in the tank? Washed natural gravel from Burnco, slate and burgess shale. Some faint mortar residue on the slate - could this be the culprit? These are old old slate bricks- they've been out in the weather for a few years. They don't affect the pH, as far as I can tell. pH is steady I think. No live plants- so I need to check nitrAte levels I think.

I'm going to try to get better stock from another shop- but I want to be sure I'm not condemning them to die!

[Ryan]

U way over stocked a fish less cycle what does that mean u need a amonia source to properly cycle a tank. Second u added way to many fish all at once. If just starting 1 inch per 5 gallons is recomended. Once established 1 inch per gallon is a recomended level but more fish can be added slowly and watch your amonia. Dont add a bunch of fish all at once.

[chloeclose]

Ryan his tank was already cycled by the method known as Fishless Cycling... you can find out what that is here:

http://www.aquamaniacs.net/cyclingsafelyfishless.html

or http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquamag/cycling.html

If you are too lazy to read all that just know that an ammonia source IS used... pure ammonia. So there is no stress to the fish, because there are none.

I personally love this method and have cycled all my tanks this way. My last 2 were done in less than 2 days. Seeding was involved.

What were your nitrates at dither? How much of a wc did you do before putting the fish in? I have seen nitrate levels get freakishly high on me doing this method. Oh never mind I just read that you said 80%... LOL

That would be a fairly heavy load to add all at once though... but everything stayed zero... hmmm... nitrates too?

Sorry I don't know much about rocks and which ones alter pH levels. Maybe your test kits are old?

Anyways, just trying to be helpful... maybe some of my ramblings will help jar something lose for ya...

And I'm sorry about your fish. Angels and cories are 2 of my all- time faves.

CC

[Smokey]

Ditherfish: sorry to hear of the looses. A terrible thing to happen.

What is the condition of your tank now??

first - get the NITRATE TEST KIT. It will tell you everything you need to know. MPO.

Second - this may sound like a dumb [?] question, but did you use a 100% silicone, aquarium friendly. Not the tub and tile stuff.....

third - you mentioned there was some motor on the rocks[??]. Should not a the culpret, but remove them - just to be careful!

To me it sounds like an environmental problem ... aka the water !!!!

What are the NITRATE NUMBERS??

Keep the number under 20 ppm../ W.C'S

Smokey

P.S. - what is the pH of your tap water?? [ before conditioning ].

[RD.]

The PH in Red Deer is fairly constant year round at 8.0 (slight seasonal fluctuations of 7.8 - 8.0)

Had it been PH shock I suspect the fish would have shown distress from the get go, not died several days later.

dither - in the other thread you posted .........

I had cleaned and rebuilt the old broken hex

Please provide some details as to how the tank was cleaned (and rinsed) and what you used to "rebuild" this tank. As far as the mortar, were these rocks (and gravel) all cleaned, scrubbed, soaked in a bleach/water mix, rinsed several times, and soaked in dechlorinated water before adding to the tank? If not, chances are something leached from these rocks causing your fish to be poisoned. Landscaping rocks are fine & dandy (I would pass on those with mortar on them) but they do need to be thoroughly cleaned and rinsed before using in an aquarium.

[ABwildrose]

I think the fishless cycling is not the culprit. With my fishless cycling, I also did an 80% water change and added my full fishload of occupants. I had no trouble. The 80% water change should have gotten rid of most of the nitrates...and at day 4 or 5 the levels shouldn't have been terribly high yet...unless you were way overfeeding. However, once you got the tank cycled and stuff...it is important that you get the nitrate test kits to monitor nitrates...to see if you are doing adequate water changes etc for future maintenance. I tested mine weekly to see what percentage of water change was necessary for maintenance.

I would guess that smokey and RD are on the right track with type of silicone used, type of cleaner or mortar leaching stuff.

[RD.]

dither - another question (although I don't suspect this caused any sudden deaths) but what do you use as a water treatment? Any chance you're using Hagen Aqua Plus?

[Vallisneria]

Everyone seemed ot have covered all the other bases so i jsut thought i woudl ask where you bought your fish. If your water turns out to be ok and everythign else is good then maybe you jsut got a bad batch of fish. Did you buy them from a petstore or a LFS?

[Smokey]

Val has brought up a very good point.

I ''assummeddddddddddduhh'' the fish, Dither added to the hex tank, were from his own collection. AND are ''clean''.

were any fish added to the hex ''NEW'' from an outside source[??]

Smokey

Causes of death: MPO>>>

DISEASE

ENVIRONMENTAL

PHYSICAL

[ditherfish]

Thank you everybody.

No new losses today. 3 cories and one angel still hanging out. Pleco still in presumed hiding (algae tab fragment added after lights out gets eaten- but that could be the cories) Ammonia and nitRITE levels zero. (the kits are fresh).

Fish were from RD Petland. All new.

Tank was scraped, cleaned with vinegar/ammonia. Pure aquarium grade silicon used to rebuild. Tank was throughly (and I mean thoroughly and repeatedly) rinsed with warm water, and flushed. Tank ran for a week with no fish prior to first round of fish (see gallery), then botom cracked, and I started over. Tank then went through more vinegar washing and rinsing, and had the 13 day fishless cycle prior to 80% change and fish additions.

As for the rocks: my bad. Yes, they were scrubbed and soaked and rescrubbed and soaked, but without chlorine. I actually don't keep any in the house - nasty nasty carcinogens created when chlorine encounters organics. Not good for wastewater. Removing the slate is a good idea - the shale should be fine though. I'm leaning towards high nitrates - but I'll err on the side of caution and remove the mortared rocks- very very faint skiff of mortar, not enough to even chisel or scrape off- and should just be cement ingredients, ie pH raise should be main concern, no? Still- it's not worth the risk- I'll get newer clean slate.

As a water conditioner I used something from Petland- their proprietary brand. Aqua Pure perhaps? (sorry- at work right now, can't check) - removes chlorine and chloramine. I confess that I'm supposed to add 2 drops per gallon, but I usually overshoot that a tad. I don't think there is any danger in overdosing - is there?

My pH starts about 8, and with peat I can drop it to about 7.5. It doesn't seem to vary too much- but my pH kit is not accurate at all (spa strips- absolutely horrible "is that orange-red or red-orange? only an exponential difference in pH!"), thus I'm going to get proper pH and nitRATE kits.

Q: would there be enough of a pH 'bounce' from 25% wc to stress out the fish?

As the fish load dwindled, so did my feeding. I've tried to underfeed a bit- so likely am only overfeeding a little!

A nitrATE test kit will tell me more- I hadn't done any nitRATE tests, and this also was my first guess. I had assumed though that the 25% water change every second day would manage the nitrate levels. I did suspect that the nitRATE levels would be high after the cycle - hence the 80% change. And I was worried that the addition of a full tank load of fish would spike the nitrATE levels- so perhaps the 25 % WC every other day didn't handle it?

Thanks again all- your ideas are most helpful.

Today I go to Calgary (road trip!) and I'll get live plants, pH kit, and niTRATE kit. I'll post the results.

Smokey- what's MPO?

[ditherfish]

here's a question: who would be more susceptible to high nitRATEs:

panda cories

marble angels

clown pleco

??

[RD.]

I would think the Angels would be most affected by high nitrates.

When in Calgary, you might want to pick up some Seachem Prime (water conditioner) if you stop in at Gold Aquariums. I believe a 500 ml bottle is $19.99?

With RD water I've tested and found I need to use twice the recommended dosage in order to safely bind all of the remaining ammonia.

Hagen's Aqua Plus is only a problem IF your tap water contains chloramine. Although they state it will remove chloramine, it does not. What it does is break the chlorine/ammonia bond, leaving your bio filter to deal with the sudden ammonia spike, which in some cases, depending on the size of your bio filter, along with the size of the water change, can take 24 hrs or more to be removed.

Red Deer water has chloramine, hence it's not a product I would recommend using here in RD.

More info can be found here:

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/rev-cond.htm

It's impossible to say with any certainty what caused these deaths, but hopefully things are now under control & it won't happen again.

Edited September 3, 2004 by RD.

[ditherfish]

When in Calgary, you might want to pick up some Seachem Prime (water conditioner) if you stop in at Gold Aquariums.  I believe a 500 ml bottle is $19.99?

With RD water I've tested and found I need to use twice the recommended dosage in order to safely bind all of the remaining ammonia. 

Thanks for the tip. Looks like good stuff. And, yes, Golds is where I was heading!

1 vote for angels. The cory was the first to die. I'm just futilely trying to see if it is indeed nitrate. Tonight I should know- or at least I'll know what the levels are now.

[Vallisneria]

I would be sure to get a nitrate test. WHen i fishless cycled my 90g i was left with nitrates in the 200 range. Even by doing a 90% water change they still remained high and i needed to do a few more before i felt comfortable adding my fish. So if you didn't test them when your cycle was completed, maybe they are higher then expected.

[ditherfish]

Curioser and curioser:

My nitrate levels were about 20 ppm. pH was higher than I thought, at about 8.3. Without any plants, I understand there is no realy nitrate remobal process other than water changes, so these levels must be fairly close to what I had when I had the fish losses.

Did the trip to Golds. Bought some Sea Chem Prime. Looks like good stuff.

Acting on my kit level readinhgs and a strong does of intuition, I added 3 very nice black veil angels- twice the size, twice as nice and half the price of the RD store.

They seem to be doing very well, along with my surviving angel, FOUR cories (one reappeared from somewhere) and the presumed plecostomus...?

I also picked up an Ebr Jagr heater to replace my cheapo- and I asked if it was completely immersible. Yes. But when I get it home- I see it has a wter line just like any heater I have owned in the past. I want rto sink this thing behind the rocks- is this a bad idea?