Aquarium Help PLZ

[MudBlood]

2 days ago i done the normal 50% water chance..

nothing was done any diferent to normal. i always measure the conditioner and what not so close to exact that it can be considered an obsession..
we have chlorinated water here so it needs to be done

the items i ise for conditioning and ph control are:
aquarium pharmaceuticals tap water conditioner
aqua master ph down and ph up depending, as after each water change it's a different one needed, i try to keep it around 7

i woke up this morning and everything was so cloudy i couldnt see the fish, so i started the tedious task of draining the tank for another full cleanout and i have lost the following:

4 kuhli loaches
2 pakastani loaches
2 pepper cats
1 bristle nose cat
and some kind of top feeding bright yellow fish x4 i bought a few weeks ago

the tank was given a full clean about 2 or 3 weeks ago and the normal 50%water change every 4 days.

i do have live plants and a piece of driftwood wth a plant attached that had a flower on it, but was removed when we realised it was a flower and not a new leaf sprouting... also have 2 of those ball plants, cant remember what they are called

WTF has happened? Any help???
all my favourite fish are dying on me..

i rang the local fish shop and they pretty much snubbed me off saying without me bringing in the tank so they can examine it in total...Water and all....
well how the hell am i going to get a 6" tank full of water into the back of the car????

if my sister didnt borrow the dang camera, i could of grabbed some pics to better show the condition of the tank when i woke...

i always feed norm flake in the morning and a block of brine shrimp and a block of bloodworm in the early evening..

Cheers,

Muddy....

[brycer]

Go for a waterchange asap. Sounds like an algae bloom. Also check your heater to make sure it isnt stuck in the on position. Other thought would be your filter media - if you are using carbon pull it out. Consider putting your fish in another aquarium/container.

[MudBlood]

i done a complete clean out and everythings fine atm

got some melafix and used in the tank this time too,

although i did put more carbon in the filter, why pull it?? i thought that if you had driftwood, you needed it to absorb the chemicals released by the timber...

the fish still dont seem to happy, but are more lively then when i found them this morning..

little off topic, but would a canister filter be better that the airstone and power head i have going at the moment??

thanx brycer..

Muddy..

[Guts]

Originally Posted by MudBlood

i done a complete clean out and everythings fine atm

got some melafix and used in the tank this time too,

although i did put more carbon in the filter, why pull it?? i thought that if you had driftwood, you needed it to absorb the chemicals released by the timber...

the fish still dont seem to happy, but are more lively then when i found them this morning..

little off topic, but would a canister filter be better that the airstone and power head i have going at the moment??

thanx brycer..

Muddy..

If your dosing any medicines TAKE out the carbon, carbon absorbs all meds and none will stay in the water.

The tannins that are released by the driftwood are harmless, it will just change the colour of the water, alot of fish prefer it too.

Yes a canister filter would be better then the internal kind, but the canister is merely a bigger filter, the internal ones still do a very good job.
Canister filters are good when there is a high load of fish, otherwise internal ones are just fine.

Keep the airstone running 24/7 until you are sure the water situation is undercontrol, aeration is important.

[svendenhowser]

I have 2 canisters (aqua one cf1200 + rena xp2) and need more (dang dirty goldfish). I love them I find I dont have to maintain them as often, but even when you do its certainly not hard.

I had a similar thing happen to me last year, I did a water change as normal (as I had been doing for years!) and the next day my tank was really cloudy and my fish were looking much worse for wear! I think I lost 2 or 3 fish from my 6footer. It was a sad day. I did a 50% water change and everything became hunky doory. I did have to separate all the fish out into 5 x 80L plastic tubs in the lounge room though for a while. But still to this day I dont know what happened. I don't have any ornaments and only a reaaaaally fine layer of gravel (less than 0.5cm, just covers the bottom). At that point I had both the 2 canisters and an internal (1000L/hr) filter, all fully cycled. And I never use carbon.

Sorry I wasn't much help, but just shows your not alone To treat my fish I used salt (0.3%), don't know if that will help with tropicals.

[VippiN]

After using a Canister I wouldn't go back.. I've got a CF1200 on a 160L tank.. Bit of overkill maybe but you can't go too big when you're dealing with live animals.

[brycer]

Carbon is bad stuff - it works for about six weeks absorbing the crud from the water and then it promptly leaches it out in to the water usually with disasterous results. Its only useful to do a quick clean up not as a long term filter media. So get rid of it.

Do some googling on carbon as a filter media.

[spedwards]

Tell me what a "full clean" comprises of? Back in my beginner days I thought it was a good idea to pull everything down regularly to do a good clean and now I know that practise would probably be the the worst thing I could do for my tank. If you are emptying everything out, cleaning tank furniture and equipment in tap water and then reassembling with fresh water before adding the fish back I think you are probably experiencing new tank syndrome.

Also note, if you clean your filter with tap water every week or change or change all, or most, of the media you are essentially putting yourself back to the start again. Tap water is the enemy of everything aquatic, clean everything in tank water only and never use water straight from the tap.

New tank syndrome happens when the nitrogen cycle is first kicking off and causes the water to turn all milky. You can tell if you have problems by testing the ammonia levels and if they are above 0 you need work. SeaChem make a product called Ammonia Alert which sits in your tank and changes colour if there is a change in ammonia levels, it's a great little product that can help prevent problems from escalating to the point where you start losing fish.

Call me a bad boy for hit linking someone elses image, but this is the kind of tank you would be looking at if you have new tank syndrome:


Have you got any test kits? If so provide some information about ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. If not, take a sample to your LFS and let them take a look, or buy some kits as you really should have them...

How large is the tank volume and what kind / how many fish are you keeping in it? 50% water changes every 4 days is very harsh and should only be required if your filter can't keep up (time to buy a better filter) or you have very finnicky fish that required pristine water conditions (from your dead fish list this doesn't seem to apply). In a 6' tank I would say that you would definately require more than a air or power head based filtration setup.

[svendenhowser]

I've heard bad things about that ammonia alert. Sure it works, in that it will show ammonia in the tank, but only once its risen to an already too high level and being in brisbane with hard water and a normal pH of around 8-8.5 I can't have my ammonia rise much at all.

I would just stick to the drop kits..

But he said the tank had a full clean 3-4weeks ago with 50% water changes every 4 days or so, the tank probably is still cycling, but I doubt it crashed. If he then fully cleaned the tank out, after the inintial episode, then put the fish back in that water with basically new filter media then the tank would be cycling again now. But it dosent help with identifying the inititial problem.

Edit: Oh and I dont think 50% water changes every 4 days during a cycle is that bad. But with the cycle nearing it's end he should probably tone them down a bit, unless he's horribly overstocked. With goldfish you need to do more than this during cycling just to keep the ammonia at a safe level, which is why many goldfish enthusiasts encourage fishless cycling. But I've never been able to find pure ammonia around.

[smee69]

I had a similar problem a few months back - part of the issue was the tank was too clean. Ended up with new tank syndrome in a tank that's been running for a couple of years.

You can buy goob from your local fish shop to restock the bacteria. I'd head off and get that as well as some amonia neutraliser. Using the neutraliser will give you dodgy reading from your test kit - the amonia will still register but it's harmless.

Change about 25% of your water then add the new bacteria. Clean your filter regularly (every day for about a week), get rid of the carbon. In about a week do another 25% change. When you vaccume the substrate only ever do one half of the tank to avoid getting rid of all the beneficial bacteria.

Good luck!!

[spedwards]

svendenhowser, I agree that the Ammonia Alert isn't something that should be used on it's own in detection of ammonia, but I prefer to be safe in the knowledge that something will be alerting me to a problem rather than waiting for the fish to show the signs. Even if it doesn't react instantly, it's still better than waiting. I know a lot of highly experienced keepers that use them and reccommended them to me, like you I have high pH and very hard water as I am keeping Tanganyikans (Tropheus). Drop kits are still important and I've got a full suite of them ready to go, but I don't bother about testing everyday or even every week (once the tank is cycled there *shouldn't* be a problem) and this is where the Ammonia Alert comes into play.

I'd be pretty sure that it's still cycling at the moment, and if it's suddenly turned cloudy after a recent complete clean out then it surely points to new tank syndrome. New tank syndrome will occur suddenly overnight and it usually takes a few weeks for the ammonia to build up to a problem level. I'd bet that the initial problem was the complete clean, it's something that should really never need to be done, but if it is done then there are precautions that should be taken.

Obviously there are problem associated with cycling the tank with fish in it, but since this is what's being done and there is nowhere else for the fish to go then adding something like Cycle, Stress Zyme, Aquasonics live Nitrosoma and Nitrobacter cultures and lots of other products that will get things back on track sooner rather than later. I have used Cycle and some JBL dried product with success, though they all seem to do similar things. The live cultures are obviously the best way to go though, but you might have trouble finding a store that stocks the freshwater versions or even get looked at funny when asking for them...

Any water change during the cycling process is bad and only helps to slow down the process rather than speed it up - when you remove the ammonia and nitrites in a water change you are giving the bacteria less to feed from and slowing down the development of the colony. The tank needs to be re-seeded, the products mentioned above should be used and would be highly reccommended after doing a complete clean. Another option would be to grab some filter media from a friend and put it into your tank, instant cycle!

By the way, you don't need to use ammonia to do a fishless cycle, it might be a quicker option but definately not the only one. Adding anything to the tank that will start to decompose and generate ammonia will do the job. I have always used old fish food that I have had lying around, others I know of have used a raw prawn or fish fillet but ended up stinking out the entire house as a result. These processes don't really end up working any quicker than using a fish cycle, but it definately prevents a poor little cycle fish from being stressed out from the high ammonia and nitrite levels.

I have been through all the levels of fish keeping, from beginner (with no idea and doing such things are complete clean outs and cleaning the filter in tap water) through to fenatical (now with a 220L water change drum in the laundry so water can be buffered, salted and brought up to temperature befor adding to the tank, amongst other things). Once you start doing things "properly" you do require a lot more patience and should stick to your routine, but the fish will love you for it. The reason I say "properly" is there isn't one way of doing things and everyone has their own experiences. At this level though, cycling the tank is the same process no matter what you do...

Immediate steps would be:
Get some sort of bio-starter for the tank.
Test the water for ammonia and nitrites, this should confirm the diagnosis.
If you do have high ammonia or nitrites get either Prime or Ammo-Lock, these products bind these products so they are safe for the aquarium.
Look at your filtration, 50% changes every 4 days are not necessary unless your filters aren't coping. N.B. you are just causing more problems by doing this.

[MudBlood]

i never use tap water to clean the aquarium or the contents, always the old tank water...

i have 3 large airstone filters, the ones you put wool into, and also 2 aqua one 500lph powerheads that have the spray bars just above the water line.
1 2" airstone, 3 1" airstones that are under the driftwood to provide asthetics , and also have a dual globe light with a power grow and an aqua glow tube in them, both 25w each.

also in the tank i have 6 angles, 3 bristle nose cats and 2 pepper cats, male fighting fish, and 3 bright yellow/green fishies that i cant remember what they are called,4 silver sharks, 10 - 15 neon tetra and about 20 guppies, also a yabbie that is now totaly bright blue, caught him at the river about 8 - 10 months ago..

have also got 6 various plants in the basket type of pots and a piece of driftwood that is about 2" long woth a broadleaf plant on it, 3 of those ball type floating plants, cant remember what they are called. 3 of the potted plants are broadleaf and the others are kind of like a buffalo grass leaf on them. best description i could think of.

get the camera back on monday and will post pics of the setup as is atm. everything seems to have settled down, just done a 10% change then.. and will see how it goes, have removed the carbon and also redosed with the malafix.

thanx for all the help there peoples..

Muddies...

[poison]

MudBlood

when i setup my tank mid august i had the same proplem as you. after putting all the water conditioner and all the new tank crap.

anyway my tank still went cloudy for about 3 days. the fish 4 red jewels didnt mind and now i have about 64 red jewels..........

i think that since we are in a drought the councils are putting more chemicals into the water treatment plants to treat the dirtier water and the water conditioner chemicals can not cope. it might be worth increasing the dose.

each time i add water etc i always use extra chlorine neutraliser.

[MudBlood]

yeah always add extra to the setups here, mostly due to the fact that the chlorine smell is quite noticible per bucket...

Muddy...

[spedwards]

Originally Posted by MudBlood

i never use tap water to clean the aquarium or the contents, always the old tank water...

My appologies...

It's good to hear that things are looking OK at the moment. I would still reccommend an Ammonia Alert ($15 a year for peace of mind is good in my books) and having a suite of test kits available to make sure everything is OK when this sort of this happens.