I came in from work and my tank smelled like sewer water so I immediately looked for dead fish, found one. In changing my charcoal, another dead one surfaced. Two of my five Black Neon Tetras croaked in one afternoon. All of the remaining, 5 Guppies, 3 Black Neon Tetras, 2 Swordtails, all look healthy...but so did these two. They just ate heartily with everyone else last night. No one has looked sick. I tested and got pH 8.2 (typical for my tank), Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, and Nitrates 0.
I feed very sparingly, did other fish feed on these? They are probably 1.25" at least, including tail, and they have bulk to them. The Guppies are smaller. The Swordtails bigger. What happened?! I'm going out of town in two days... Do I replace the two Tetras to give them peace and protection in their school again? Or do I wait? I'm at a loss. I really don't want to stand by and watch them die one by one.
I change water 25%, twice a week, I feed sparingly, hardly any ever gets to the bottom, and if it does, the Swordtails will get it, usually. My tank is 78-79 degrees. 28 gallons, heavily planted, with each water change I add NovAqua+, AmQuel+, Bacteria Supplement, Freshwater salt, Plant Gro, FloraPride (for one live plant I have).
Thank you all, I don't know of anyone else to ask!
Zambize
How old is your test kit? Just asking because snowboss had an old test kit that was giving false readings.
As for the water changes I'm no expert (which someone like PK will come in and probably correct me lol) but 25% twice a week seems kind of extreme.
I have a 29 gallon and I do about 15 percent once a week and use r/o water. Just seems like a lot of additives going in your tank for 1 plant.
Edit:
Wait is it heavily planted or do you have 1 plant? Confused.
It's densely planted with artificial plants. I added one live plant just to see how it would do. It does seem like overkill to give it the nutrients, but I figured I would have to to realistically see if a plant would survive my house. My water changes are frequent because 1) I'm still cycling, but near the end, I believe, should have mentioned that, and 2) to *try* and control my pH. My kit is about 3 weeks old.
Ah, I didn't realize you were putting so many chemicals in there. First off stop buying the bacteria supplement - that stuff is just garbage. You will grow your own bacteria just fine. Secondly AmQuel has been known to cause pH problems for people so I am wondering if that accompanied with what I suspect is poor bufferin capacity water is what is leading to your pH swings. I would stop using it. Just buy a normal old dechlorinator. There is no reason to be using anything else. That may also be why your readings are so wierd. I seem to remember that AmQuel claims to reduce nitrates in addition to nitrites and ammonia (not sure how effective it is though).
I seem to recall that tetras are pretty sensitive to pH changes. If you are really having swings of .4-.6 in a day, I can't beleive that more haven't died.
I would just switch to r/o water. Then you really don't have to worry about chlorinated water or worry about crappy tap water.
We get it at our local wal*mart for 33 cents a gallon.
Actually, I forgot - you have a problem with high pH, not low pH. The Amquel problems result in a downward spike in pH if you have poor buffering capacity. Sorry for the error. I still am not one who likes to add alot of stuff to the water. It makes everything more complicated when figuring out how the different compounds are interacting. I just add dechlorinator and use petrified coral to raise the pH. Nothing else is done to the water.
So, to get this stuff out of my water ASAP, and hopefully calm my pH, do I quickly change 25% right now and use only a dechlorinator? It's like my crystal clear water is poison right now, and I can't stand the thought of that.
Do you have any carbon in the tank. I think I read somewhere that it will remove any excess Amquel and such. Put some new carbon in there if you can. When was the last time you did a water change and what is the pH of your tap water right out of the tap? I wouldn't want you stressing the fish out even more by changing the pH again.
I just read the article about feeding freshwater fish, and I'm now thinking that I'm seriously underfeeding. Could the other fish have simply decided that these fish were dinner? There wasn't much left of them, and they were healthy-looking Black Neon Tetras just this morning. I almost didn't find one there was so little left of him.
I'm embarassed to say that I hadn't checked out the "Articles" section here, but it is fantastic. What a resource. I will be reading more!
How much were you feeding them? Fish need suprisingly little food. Their stomachs are about the size of their eyes for most community fish so you can imagine how much food they need.
I am betting your pH swings are doing it. Even swings as low as 0.3 per day can be fatal. I would just start buying water. For a 29 gallon (I think that is what you have), it should not be much money to do water changes with this water. See if that keeps your pH more constant. Once you get it constant, then you can start worrying about dropping it with peat moss or something.
I also think you're at a point where you don't need to change water as often as you are... this will only affect your ph. Try to move to once a week. Your levels are at zero so once a week with your load is more than enough, especially with two filters each of which is rated for your tank size.
I'm wondering why your nitrates are back at zero... maybe you pushed into a mini cycle... did u change a major bacteria colony? this could lead to your fish dying (well the weaker ones atleast).
As for feeding, its rare to underfeed and i think if predation was the cause you would have seen foul play earlier than today. Not to mention you said they ate last night, so that rules starvation out.
I agree with Miami that ph could be it, so for now, less water changes and don't introduce new fish until you find out what caused the loss. Good luck
Ok, that all sounds like a good plan. I'll start with using r/o water to keep my pH constant and then see if it needs dropping, which I'll try with peat moss. I hope my fish can hang in there while I do this.
As for feeding. I feed them once a day. It's about the size of a quarter in my palm, maybe an 1/8" thick. I ease it in slowly so that little falls, but if it falls, the Swordtails nab it along with those top feeders who feel they didn't get enough at the top. I see all of my fish eating off the bottom, even if they aren't bottom feeders, maybe they aren't getting enough? And when I syphon, there is very, very little detritis. I think I see more residue still gathering from my 7 week old substrate than anything else.
ok not sure where to start, stop using chemicals, the less chems you use the better, all of my tanks have cycled naturally i don't believe in using chems in order to cycle your tank anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time, so your issues with the ph spikes are due to one, too frequent of water changes, two not enough charcoal in your filtration, three the chemicals you are adding to the tank, slow down, take a step back and be patient, if you are finding your tap water is too high in the ph scale buy filtered water, secondly clean your filter very well, also because you have added live plants make sure you don't have rotting plant material at the bottom of your tank, if the roots are brown and discolored and look as if the ends are blunt this means the roots are rotting and the plant is in poor health. at this point if i were in the situation you are in, i would do a 50% water change and let the tank sit like that for a week or two, make sure the filter is cleaned and there is fresh charcoal in there, get an ammo carb pad or get a small piece of driftwood/bog wood to put in the tank, this will bring down the ph over time, do not add any more fish, also if you are using a bio wheel filter throw it out, i find they are garbage and don't move enough water through the filter media to really do anything important. aqua clear makes a hang on filter that uses a sponge, a carb bag, and usually has room to add extra filtration, get an ammo carb bag and put that in there, this will move around enough water and get your tank cycling in the right direction it should start reducing the ph, i can't stress enough that when you add chems to your water you may temp cover the problem however it doesn't fix it as your filter filtrates the chems out as well as evaporation, the gas exchange from your tank will eventually expell the chemicals from the water. so there's no point. i hope that this information helps, i don't mean to be so short and forward but this is how i have handled situations similar in the past, i have helped numerous people set up tanks and always use a slow natural cycle, with seeded water from my 125 gal tank, about five gal per 30 gal, i add my water to the tank and within three weeks the tank has cycled and is ready for fish.
Brandon
Your fish are all pretty small and there are not alot of them so this sounds like an adequate amount of food. I would recommend feeding them 2-3 times per day rather than once (just break up how much you normally feed in one sitting and spread it out to multiple feedings). It is better for the health of the fish.
Let us know what happens when you start using r/o water. Good luck and sorry for your losses. It is tough when you don't know what is going wrong.
