New Fish Tank - But all fish have died!

lara400

Hello,

bought my first fish tank last week - it is a tropical 60 litre tank. It came with a heater and filter. Anyway, I set it up last week and left it on for a week.

Yesterday I went into my local pet shop and asked the assistance for fishes that were for beginners. Anyway, She gave me a lot of advsie and recommended some basic fish - 6 in total.

I put them in yesterday and she said to feed them today. Well, I would if they were alive! I woke up this morning to find 5 out of the 6 have died! The one that is still alive just sits at the bottom of the tank and occasionally moves.

I have a feeling I will loose that one as well soon. Any idea would be really handy please - feel really bad a the moment, worst feeling in the world when I had to pick out the dead fish's...

I have a feeling it could be the temperature of the water - the fish tank came with a really bad thermometer that I have only found out gave me incorrect reading. I bought another thermometer (I can tell this is better) and it came out with a temperature of 32C! I have been trying to mess around with the heater to get it down to 24-26C (the new thermometer has a green section between those reading).

Also, could it be because of the chlorine in the water? I put some chemicals in that the fish tank gave me but not too sure if that was enough?

Any advise would be really appreciated - I will not buy any moe fish until I am happy with my set up.

Thanks,
lara

sharkeybabe

Hello Lara,

Sorry about your fish. what was the chemicals that you put into the tank? was this before or after the fish were put in?

lara400

Hi - I put it in before I put the fish in. I put it in on the day I got the fish tank. I put the fish in a week later.

kandyfloss

Hi Lara,Sorry to hear that most of your fish have died but I think you haven't allowed enough time for your fish tank to be cycled.You can't just buy the tank one week and put the fish straight into the tank the next week.That is why your fish have died plus the heating was up way too high.

You have to allow time for the filter to be primed with the correct level of bacteria and then can only add one or two fish at a time and then if they survive gradually add more until you have the correct amount of fish for the size of tank.Remember also to allow for the inches of growth that the fish will put on if you by them as smaller versions of the adult fish.

Did you make sure fist that all the substrate material was well washed before adding to the tank last week ?

After you have filled the tank with water and added the plants and ornaments you need to add the correct amount of Prime plus another chemical that I can't think of at the moment and leave the tank to cycle for at least a couple of weeks and then you have to test the water with the kits that you can buy from the fish shop or take a sample of water to the fish shop for them to test if they offer that service which will either be done for free or for a small charge.

Don't add any expensive fish until you have experience or confidence to add nicer fish without losing them.I would start with guppies to test the water so to speak and only add one sex because if you have both male and female guppies or platties you might well become overrun with babies..

Here is a Link to a well known fish forum who might be able to answer your questions and will give advice to help you get the most from your new tank

http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/

Please let us know how you get on...:)

ailuro2

Lots of first time fishkeepers make the mistake of thinking it was really easy to keep a wee fish... so don't beat yourself up about it. I'm going to assume no. 6 isn't going to make it


It's all about the water in the tank- it has to be dechlorinated, and while I agree Prime works well and works out good value for money you might want to just buy a simple dechlorinator that's a bit cheaper since you just shelled out lots of money on a tank. Keep the money for a water testing kit, as these are around £20, (though they will last for years.)

So, now the water has no chlorine you need to grow some bacteria that will deal with the fishes waste, though the first time you google "fishless cycling" you'll probably think it's going to be really difficult it's not.

The water testing kit needs to test for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte, you can buy the bottles separately in most decent fish shops ( and maybe even Pets At Home)

It's going to take 6 weeks or so to fishlessly cycle, but once it's done it converts the fishes wee and poo into less harmful chemicals, and then you just need to do water changes on a weekly basis.

Once it's nearly cycles you can have a look at what to put in it, that's the fun part.:D But make sure you don't overstock such a small tank ( I know you don't think 60 litres is small, but when there are fishkeepers who have 740 litre tanks...;)

lara400

Hi kandyfloss - many many thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it. The pet shop said I should leave it for a week and come back to them next week to get some fishes in - that is why I waited for a week, I guess in hindsight I should have done all the tests as you have outlined, the chemical balance is probably all messed up in the fish tank at the moment. I am pretty sure I added the correct prime plus as I followed the instructions in the bottle - I have not added in other chemical (except yesterday the pet shop sold me some plant food that I have not put in yet).

I guess I will pray that the last fish survives and I have already decreased the temperature but it takes ages to go down. I will definitely buy 1 fish next time and go from there - more harder then my kids these fish's are!

Thanks a lot for the link I will be checking it out.

Lara

lara400

thanks ailuro2 - one question. Once I have got all the chemical balance right - what happens if I add more water (to fill up if the water goes) would that cause a problem?

I am busy googling water testing kit....

Lara

Puzzledbubbles

Hi Lara,

We are begginers too

We bought our first 60 litre tank about 4 weeks ago and are just getting our first 4 fish used to the tank before we get some more

What kind of treatment have you been using? We had 2 bottles that came with the tank, one was for chlorine and one was to cycle the tank. It was a bit tricky working out which ones to use!

Do you still have the bottles? If you can tell us what you put in it might help

Hopefully your new thermometer is working now

We had the tank for 2 days, then popped some plants in, after that we went and asked about fishes

Our first 4 are black phantom tetras and seem to be doing well. What kind of fish were you sold? We are very lucky and our local Pets at home has a resident fish expert who knows soooo much his advice has been invaluable, we originally went and spoke to him about Cat fish becuase that is our end goal (only little ones lol) he did advise that the neon tetras are very over bred and that they can die very quickly if the tank is not stable.

Hopefully you will be able to cycle the tank again and get some more fish in a few weeks

Puzzled

ailuro2

lara400 wrote: »

thanks ailuro2 - one question. Once I have got all the chemical balance right - what happens if I add more water (to fill up if the water goes) would that cause a problem?


Lara

Once your tank is cycled and you are doing your water changes, then you'll change about 30% of the water, which means you'll take about 1/3 of the water out, and replace it with fresh dechlorinated water.

If the "water goes" as you put it, then you can top it up with dechlorinated water no problem... though with the lid on your tank you shouldn't lose a noticeable amount of water in one week.;)

The mistake beginners also tend to make is to clean their tank thoroughly - but the healthy bugs that process the fishes waste live on the walls of the tank, on the surface of the gravel and, most of all, in the surfaces of the filter ( the sponge gives them a large surface area) so NEVER give the tank a really good scrub all at once - only two walls at a time if you've got a bit of algae or diatoms ( dirty looking walls of the tank, common in new tanks)
Getting rid of water doesn't get rid of the healthy bugs, as they live on the walls of the tank, however doing large water changes can cause noticeable changes in ph and nitrate levels, which fish tend not to like - that's why a 30% water change every week is good rather than a big swop once a fortnight, it means the changes are less.;)

One other thing, the water that goes in your tank needs to be about the same temperature as the tank - I use my instant shower to fill my water changing buckets, some people have combi boilers which provides hot water that hasn't been sitting in a hot water tank - the hot water can pick up traces of copper when it's been sitting in the tank for a while, which is highly toxic for the fish.

Hope this isn't too much info all at once for you.

http://www.petsathome.com/shop/api-master-test-kit-25613 is the type of water test kit I've got - it was about £17 for mine though, not from PAH.;)

p.s. be wary of "fish experts" in stores that make profits from selling people new fish when their old ones don't survive the first week in the tank - I've been in a chain pet store before and almost been thrown out for telling their expert he was telling customers a pack of lies ( the leave the water to settle for a week then it'll be ready for fish story;))

Gingham_Ribbon

Sorry about your fish. A temperature that high would kill the fish quickly, especially if they got temperature shock by you adding them to the tank without floating the bag for 20 minutes or so.

But your LFS told you the wrong details unfortunately on how to set up a tank.

In short, the fish produce ammonia which is toxic to fish at any level. So the filter needs to have bacteria in it that eat the ammonia.

The ammonia is converted to nitrite by the bacteria, but this is also toxic to fish, so you need more bacteria that will eat the nitrite.

This is then converted to nitrate. Nothing eats the nitrate. So you need to do regular water changes to get rid of it.

To get this cycle going, you need to add a source of ammonia to your tank, while the filter is going, with no fish in it to be damaged by the build up of toxins.

This is called fishless cycling and details of how to do it can be found here, along with some other basics. http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co...read.php?t=498

Have a read around the subject to get a feel for what you want to do with your tank.

To allow your fish to live long, healthy lives (and many of them can live 20 years or more but often live brief, stressed lives in home aquaria) you'll need to know your water chemistry. This is really not optional for the longterm health of your fish.

If you buy one thing for your fish, this should be it. See it as a similar to getting flea drops for a dog or having a cat spayed.

API test kit. It involves some simple testing - adding drops of the chemicals into test tubes with tank water in to check the levels of:

acid/alkaline (pH)
GH and KH (how hard or soft your water is)
ammonia
nitrite
nitrate

You will need to know how hard your water is and what the pH is for longterm health. This is because some fish thrive in soft, acidic water (like most tetras) and some thrive in very hard, quite alkaline water (like many cichlids).

When you know what sort of tap water you have, you will be able to choose fish that will do well in your tank.

In order to know what kind of fish live well together and won't get too big for your tank etc, read round and post on the forum I linked to earlier. You'll get lots of sound advice there.

For what it's worth, I did all this, spent a few weeks enjoying the research and then setting the tanks up quite slowly, and the upshot is all the fish started breeding. SO much fun!

Gingham_Ribbon

lara400 wrote: »

thanks ailuro2 - one question. Once I have got all the chemical balance right - what happens if I add more water (to fill up if the water goes) would that cause a problem?

I am busy googling water testing kit....

Lara

If you've dechorinated the water, doing a large water change once your tank is cycled won't kill off the bacteria as they live mostly in the filter. One of the reasons chlorine is dangerous to your fish is that they kill the bacteria in the filter, so always make sure it's dechlorinated before it goes in the tank, regardless of whether there are fish in there.

The chemical balance may change though, depending on whether the water in your tank is the same as in your taps.

I have to play with my water chemistry because I have ridiculously soft water so the mineral levels are very low and there is a risk of further complicated problems as a result, so I 'buffer' my water with tuffa rock and crushed oyster shells. As a result I have to be careful during water changes to make sure the water isn't going to cause pH shock to the fish.

It's all quite complicated, but less so the more you read. First thing is probably to find out what sort of water is coming out of your taps. Your local water board should have this info on their website.