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I recently bought a 30 litre tropical fish tank about 3 weeks ago and also bought some of that live bacteria aswell so you can place fish in the tank within about 4-5 days. I waited this long and then bought 5 guppies to brighten up the tank. Within 24 hours 2 fish had died and then the last 3 in the following 24-48 hours.

Why is this as I did a water test and the only toxic found in the tank was Nitrate which was at only 10ppm?

Please help and advise me

Did you test for ammonia and nitrite? These are the most likely culprits. A couple of the "live bacteria" products, namely Cycle and Biospira, are quite good, but the rest are useless AFAIK, and even the good ones don't make it safe to instantly stock a small tank. Five guppies in eight gallons all at once - they're pretty much guaranteed to create an ammonia spike that will kill them all.

Other possibilities:
Did you dechlorinate the water?
Did you acclimate the fish to your water?
What's the temperature?

-Molly
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Hello thanks for the reply back.

The temp is at 80F and yes I did test for Nitrite and Ammonia but all was clear.

Yes I did put some of that AquaSafe in the water when I first set-up the tank and when I bought the first I did make sure they got used to the water before putting the directly into the tank (in the words placing the bag in the water for 20 mins).

I evan did a water test after my first lot of fish died and this was still only 10ppm Nitrate so im still confused?

What is your PH level?
Also what was the PH level that they came out of?
If the your PH is not nearly the same as the PH that they came out of, then they might have died from PH shock.

Im sorry but I dont know what the PH level was when they came out of the fish shop but mine is 7.5 and has been since I first set-up the tank 3 weeks ago?

Leighton

If you can, always find out the PH that the LFS has the fish in, cause if they are in a ph of 6 - 7 and you put them in a ph of 7.5 up, then this could cause a ph shock.

They also may have been sick when you bought them, all it takes is one sick fish to lose them all. Sorry to hear of your luck. The store might at least do a free ph test if you bring them a water sample, then compare to their own.

The Amazon Nut...

Since the cause of the deaths are unknown, and as noted, they may have happened due to pH shock or something else, so the 20 mins floating the bag, may not have been enough.

I am by no means an expert, but when I first started my tank, I read that all you had to do to aclimate your fish, was to float the bag for 15-20 mins, then net them out and dump them in. But, luckily for my fish, I read an article on here (tried to find it, but couldn't), that decribed the process much better.

This is what I did, and it may not be completely right either, but its closer than just floating the bag. I floated the bag for 30 mins, then I opened the bag and dumped in 1 cup of my tank water to the bag water. Then I did this every 15 mins for 2 hours. (Taking out any water from the bag and dumping down the drain if the bag was too full). Then after the 2 hours, then we netted the fish and put them in the tank. I have only done this once so far with dwarf gouramis, and they seemed to do fine. I am sure others will have better aclimation plans, but hopefully this will help as well.

Oh, and others have set up a hospital tank, and kept their new fish in there for 2 wks or more before introducing them to the rest of the tank. Just some ideas, and hopefully others can elaborate better.

Cyndie

Last edited by CyndieL73 at 01-Oct-2004 12:48