water conditions... fish dyeing?

[misscrosson]

Alright.. I went away for 2days.. and I left my family to care for my 70gallon fish tank... while I way away I picked up myself a master test kit...

When I came home... all my fish were hiding... but as soon as they seen me they started to come out... and I noticed that none are acting like themselves... and two of my white mollies you can physically notice something wrong... one has a red thing all around it's eye... and the other has black forming in either side of it...also one of my platies look like it's loosing it's colour...

Right now I have:

two dwarf gouramis
five mollies
two platies
four rasboras
four danios
one cory cat

Here are the results of the tests... which, I don't believe are ANY good at all.. but, I don't really understand them.. so...

Ammonia - 0
pH - 7.6
Nitrite - 1.6
GH - 200
KH - 150

What should I do??... Buy some meds... my local pet store isn't open on Monday's... so.... I could go there tomorrow and see if they have any meds that I might need... or whatever.. and also my local petstore won't take back any fish... blah... so, please help me!!! :(

[Robnb1]

you should be able to look on the test kit and see what your levels should be. My pet store always tells me to take off about 25% of my water, replace it, and add a PH adjuster. It always seems to work. I'm sorry to hear about your fish dying. Good luck with them and let me know how things turn out. Robin

[misscrosson]

They're not dead... but, seem to be dyeing...

anyways, I did a 75% water change... cleaned out the gravel.. and now the Nitrite is at 0.6-0.8... how do I lower it??

Also... any other type of help with my problem would be great!!

[mr gerbil]

DO NOT put any chemicals in the tank. Have you asked your family what happened? Quite possibly something went wrong.

You could try dosing with salt, just in case. Alternatively, put the fish in an isolation tank until you can figure out what's wrong with them.

[misscrosson]

Well... they all look pretty sick... so, I really don't see any point in taking them out...

I think what happened is I told my brother to feed my fish while I was gone... I said two times a day... so, he did it... and my mom must have got scared that he wouldn't feed them, so she also fed them twice a day... so, they got over fed big time... it's really the only thing that I can find what happened...

[mr gerbil]

Not for 48 hours. If you'd been away for 2 months, maybe.

I'm almost certain something else must have happened. If it is water quality problems, removing the fish to clean water will help.

As I said before...salt can't hurt.

[misscrosson]

Well, is it a good idea to possible do maybe a 50% water change today.. and then do a 25% water change every day after that until my nitrites are down to 0 and stay there.... also, I can't pick up a nitrate kit till Thursday... so, hope my fishies will be ok!

I was told not to feed them at all for about a week... is this a good idea or not?

[Nell]

Any idea what your water readings were before you went away? What have the ammonia and nitrite reading been like for the last couple of weeks?

A nitrite reading of 1.6 is pretty high and will definatly stress your fish and make them appear sick. (Actually, they don't just appear sick, but are sick, since nitrite is a poison.)

DO NOT add any medicines or antibiotics to the tank. Antibiotics kill bacteria. They kill bad bacteria that makes the fish sick, but will also kill the good bacteria that make up your biological filter. This is why when you treat a fish with antiobiotics it should ideally be done in a quarentine tank so it doesn't kill the bio filter in the main tank and cause the tank to re-cycle.
Right now, your problem is due to the high nitrite level, and probably not bacterial infection (though secondary bacterial infections can result due to lowered immunity due to bad water conditions...)

I do agree with Mr Gerbil's suggestion of adding some aquarium salt to the tank. Salt will reduce the toxicity of nitrites. It will also help the fish to resist secondary bacterial infections.

I would still feed the fish everyday, but only a very little bit. Keep doing partial water changes until the nitrites are at 0. I'd stick to 25% water changes unless the readings are particularly high.

I think its possible that overfeeding contributed to the spike in nitrites. It is also possible that your tank is going thru the second step of the cycle, which is characterized by a spike in nitrites. Its hard to know for sure though, unless you've been constantly testing the water and keeping track of the readings.

[misscrosson]

Well... the thing is that I never actually tested the water myself. I use to always take a sample of water and get my local petstore to test it for me because I know the manager there... and she was always good with helping me out.... I havn't been there for over a week now though, and I was in the city so I bought myself a master kit... and when I got home.... my fish were all very ill... and I tested the water right away.... :(

[iraterainbow]

Poor Fishies. I don't know what to tell you except go with the idea of moving them to fresh water unless you have no place to move them to. In that case doing a half water change might be a good idea and then wait and see how they do after a bit.

[Nell]

This is why I stress to people the importance of having your own test kits from the start. I'm glad you went out and got one now, though. Better late than never. Its just so much easier to do the testing yourself and know exactly whats going on rather than relying on someone else to tell you. That, and the water should be tested every day during cycling and bringing a sample into the lfs daily can really be a hassle.
Enough about that though.

I'm afraid that moving the fish to clean water right now is going to do nothing except very temporarily alleviate the problem. If you move them to another tank, you will just have a lot of fish in a smaller area and that tank will start to cycle and the fish will be in the same situation they are now, but worse. If I recall, though, you don't even have a smaller tank.

Just keep up with testing the water and doing partial water changes. More frequent smaller water changes are better than a few very large ones. I expect that within a couple days, your bio filter should be large enough to handle the increase in nitrites. I hope the fish will be able to make it.

[misscrosson]

Well.. I did yet another 25% water change today... and here's the results that I got..

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0.8

Tomorrow I'm going to my petstore to pick up a nitrate test, salt, and more water conditioner... any advice on anything else I should maybe get?

Also, when adding the salt should I just directly add it to the water in the tank... or should I pour it in the filter?

[Nell]

The salt should be disolved in a cup of water before adding it to the tank. If the salt granuals comes into direct contact with the fish, it could burn them. I'd also dose it in several small portions rather than all at once, so the water chemistry doesn't change too drastically.

[misscrosson]

Alright, I did a 25% water change... I also added enough salt for the tank.... and I retested... here's my results:

Ammonia- 0.6
Nitrite- 1.6
Nitrate- 50

What should I do now? I also didn't feed my fish today... and yesterday I just fed them once (I usually feed them twice a day)... and the day before that I didn't feed them either...

[Nell]

It seems rather strange to me that the ammonia levels would be up again after previously being at 0...
Have you changed or cleaned the filter cartridge? (Don't if you haven't). Is the filter running well? Has it been off at all? Have you added any chemicals or medication? Has any water been added that wasn't pretreated for chlorine? Ask your family these questions too since they were the ones taking care of the tank.

It is possible that the problem could be caused by the bio filter not working properly, or a die back of the bacteria....

Your levels are still pretty high. I would do another water change tomorrow morning.

[misscrosson]

ughh...

Well... I did an 80% water change....

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0.3
Nitrate - 20

This any better?... and how do I keep everything low?

Also, I did clean the filter media in the old water today.... hoping that maybe that might be one of the reasons for everything being out of wack... hopefully everything will get better...

I think the ammonia might have rose earlier because I did add the water from the 25% water change and had completely forgot to add the water conditioner... :confused: I add it as soon as I remembered... and that was... like... 10mins after the tank was done... and, I added salt?.. so, dont know if that would affect the ammonia rising alittle... I tested the water after all of that...

[Nell]

Those numbers are much better.

In a cycled aquarium, ammonia and nitrite should always be 0. After the tank cycles, anytime you see the presence of either of these it indicates a problem.
Nitrates are a by-product of the nitrites. Nitrates are far less toxic than the other 2, but can still be harmful if allowed to build up. Doing regular water changes should keep the level down. Anything under 40 is a good number to have for nitrate.

Hopefully, the small amount of chlorine in the water for that short time wasn't enough to do much damage. Chlorine will kill your bio filter, which is why filter media should be rinsed in old tank water and not under the faucet :tu: :) . The filter is going to be where most of your bacteria colony is.
The chlorine wouldn't affect the ammonia levels immediately though. It would take longer than that for the ammonia to build up if some of the bacteria were killed. Salt shouldn't affect it either...

The ammonia and/or nitrite levels are probably going to start to rise again, so keep testing the water everyday and do partial water changes as needed.

[misscrosson]

blah... I so am starting to give up... what should I do?...

I've been doing daily water changes..

here's my test results for today:

Ammonia- 0
Nitrate- 50
Nitrite- 1.6

[Nell]

I can imagine that this is becoming frustrating, especially having to do large water changes in a tank that size, but don't give up just yet.
Keep up with the testing and water changes. If the ammonia stays at 0 then thats a good sign. Remember to add new salt per the amount of new water you add to help lower the toxicity of the nitrites.

If you have an air pump, you could think about using it to make a sponge filter for additional bio filtration. It won't really help the situation you're in now, but it may be helpful in the future.

[Nell]

any new updates?

[misscrosson]

I've been doing daily water changes of 60% a day...

Yesterday my test results were:

Ammonia- 0
Nitrate- 10
Nitrite- 0.3

I'll test the water again today after work after i do another water change...

[Nell]

oh good, it sounds like things are looking much better. :) You may be okay with only 25% water changes now. I'd give it a try and see what your numbers are.

[misscrosson]

I'm curious about something that I noticed...

When my nitrite levels were high, the bubbles that were floating on top of my water looked kind of like a foam... lots of them.... but now that they are back down... there is very few bubbles... so, is the bubbles a sign of high nitrites?

I have an aqauclear filter...

[mr gerbil]

Getting better...

Do you mean air bubbles from the filter?

[misscrosson]

Yeah... with the high nitrite the more bubbles there are... when it was really high the bubbles almost looked like foam...

Also, just did a 50% water change, here are the results:

Ammonia- 0
Nitrate- 5-10
Nitrite- 0.3