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Fish Crisis!! Please Help, why are my Fish dying??

7K views 45 replies 9 participants last post by  iamntbatman 
#1 ·
Hi, I have had 4 of my fish die today, 2 gold dust mollies, 1 neon tetra, and 1 swordtail. There are several others that dont look good at all. They were happy and swimming and healthy just a day ago. The only symptom I can report right now is that the water is getting, sort of greyish, not really green but its definatly cloudy. Please Help! I would like the rest of my fish to live!
 
#2 ·
First what are your take parameters? Ammonia? NitrItes? NitrAtes? Once you answer those someone may be able to answer your question.
How long has the tank been established? Hurry and answer these so someone can get you some help
 
#4 ·
It will be tough to offer solid advice without knowing your water parameters :dunno:.

Another question then: how often to you feed, what do you feed, and most importantly, how often do you perform water changes (and how much water do you change when you do them)? What kind of filter do you run for the tank, what kind of media is in it, and how often do you rinse and/or change the filter media?
 
#5 ·
I feed my fish 2 small feedings a day, to make sure every fish gets food. I feed them tropical fish flakes, nothing fancy. I dont do water changes that often but when I do, I do more than 50% of the water. I'm not sure what filter I have, but it has been working great in the past and as far as i know, there is nothing wrong with it. I have old, fake plants in the tank. I just did a water change and I'm leaving the plants out. I dont wrinse them too often. I'm not sure what filter media is. I've been putting alot of heath medications and aquarium salt to the tank and the fish are not looking as bad as they were. I hope that helps anyone for giving me advice..
 
#6 ·
hi
sorry to see you're having problems.
the filter.....is it an internal one(sits inside the tank) a HOB,
a canister ?
do you know what is inside the filter.
have you had any fish die that you did not notice.
the water test kit is a must.
what have you been adding exactly and for what reasons ?
 
#7 ·
cool, well a loose guess would be that the nitrates are creeping up in your tank, and causing an algae bloom in the water (the cloudiness that you see)... also likely that nitrates get too high and that causes the death of some of your fish. Again, this is just a guess though, hopefully someone else will chime in and support or refute my suggestion here.

I would guess that a combination of infrequent water changes, and (it sounds like) never rinsing or changing your filter media is causing water quality problems. Regular water changes (at LEAST once a month, maybe every two weeks, every week would be better.. the more frequently you do it, the less you have to do per change) would be much better for the long-term success of the tank.

Also, its very important that you rinse your filter media, and replace it every so often. If you run carbon, it should be changed monthly, and if you have a mechanical sponge, that should be rinsed every water change in the water that you just removed (not under the tap), and replaced every three or so months. If you don't do this, then it gets stuffed full of gunk from the tank, and turns into a nitrate factory.

And lastly, like willow wisely stated, a water test kit is crucial, that way you can monitor your water pararmeters and much more quickly recognize and handle problems before they turn into fish deaths ;-). Good luck!
 
#8 ·
Willow, My filter is accually a Carbon filter, if that makes any sense. I have 2 of them, one at each end of the tank. It is external. I do not know what is inside the filter. I have had fish die that I didnt notice. I found one today that I havent seen. I have been adding Rid-Ich, a few fish have really bad ich and I thought it couldnt hurt to add some. I'm adding a double dose because it also treats other fish sicknesses in the tank as well. I have also been adding medi-booster, a follow-up on the Ich treatment. Lastly, I am adding a thing called Algee Destroyer. Says it clears water but it is very old, by a few years so I ddnt give a full doseage of that.


cool, well a loose guess would be that the nitrates are creeping up in your tank, and causing an algae bloom in the water (the cloudiness that you see)... also likely that nitrates get too high and that causes the death of some of your fish. Again, this is just a guess though, hopefully someone else will chime in and support or refute my suggestion here.

I would guess that a combination of infrequent water changes, and (it sounds like) never rinsing or changing your filter media is causing water quality problems. Regular water changes (at LEAST once a month, maybe every two weeks, every week would be better.. the more frequently you do it, the less you have to do per change) would be much better for the long-term success of the tank.

Also, its very important that you rinse your filter media, and replace it every so often. If you run carbon, it should be changed monthly, and if you have a mechanical sponge, that should be rinsed every water change in the water that you just removed (not under the tap), and replaced every three or so months. If you don't do this, then it gets stuffed full of gunk from the tank, and turns into a nitrate factory.

And lastly, like willow wisely stated, a water test kit is crucial, that way you can monitor your water pararmeters and much more quickly recognize and handle problems before they turn into fish deaths ;-). Good luck!
Thanks, I will do my best to get a test kit within the next few days. As for water changes, I really tried to do them frequently from a few months ago, but I have just started doing more than 50% every 2 weeks. I have carbon filters, I do wrinse them but we change them not long after we do water changes. Another note, When the fish die, they still have most of their color. If that helps to identify whatever is going on in my tank. Also there is alot of fish in my tank and so they produce alot of waste. I have heard that the waste produces ammonia with can kill fish. I didnt want to dig into the rocks today with my syphon becasue there are fry in the tank currently and I didnt want to suck any of them up. One last thing. The death of the fish species is consistant. 2 Tetras have been lost and 4 mollies have been lost. Thanks for the advice guys. I'm kinda thinking that this is some kind of poisening from what i have read on the site.
 
#9 ·
It is possible that such a large water change in addition to a filter media change could have left your tank lacking in the bacteria needed to handle the waste of your fish. The bacteria doesn't live in the water column, but it does live in your filter media and doing such a large water change could have disrupted and possibly taken out the much needed bacteria from the habitat. I would recommend doing smaller water change more frequently and test your parameters asap.
 
#11 ·
hi
i really don'r know what a carbon filter is :( sorry maybe someone else does.
usually inside a filter you get some sponge/ceramic rings/filter floss.
to change all the insides of a filter is bad.when you replace the cartridges you begin
a new tank each time from the begining,stressing the fish,in an unstable situation.
would it be possible for you to buy a new filter with the aformentioned ceramic rings
and stuff. ?
all the stuff you are adding is not going to help very much either.
i need other members to help you with the filter situation.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I think we're all talking about the same thing. I think by "carbon filter" they mean the filter media is carbon. MollyPlatySwordtailfish: "filter media" is just a term that refers to what stuff you have in your filter... e.g. a bag of carbon, a sponge, ceramic rings, etc. What the water runs through as it is pumped through your filter.

If you only have a bag of carbon in your filter, you might consider adding at least a sponge/floss too, to remove some particulate matter before going through your carbon. Ceramic rings provide a large surface area for bacteria to grow on, if you want to add that as well (I personally do not, but I have loads of rocks in my tanks and those provide more than enough surface area for bacteria... plus not having a bag of rings in my filter is one less thing to rinse and change every so often). Do you think you could look and see what exact filter you have (make/model)? If you use all three, the typical order is sponge first, then carbon, then ceramic rings. The sponge provides mechanical filtration, to remove chunks of stuff from the water, the carbon provides chemical filtration, by trapping unwanted chemicals in the tiny pores of the carbon nuggets, and the ceramic rings provide biological filtration be allowing bacteria to grow on the large surface area and consume ammonia and nitrites. And like willow said, never change them all at the same time, as that could disrupt the bacteria population of the tank and re-start a cycle.

I also agree with willow, that adding lots of medications to the tank isn't a great idea. I personally don't like to do that (just a personal preference, not saying they don't work), as I prefer to keep the water/tank environment as natural as possible. I feel like at some point the water will be so full of chemicals and other stuff, that it will turn into a bad thing :dunno:.
 
#13 ·
speaking of carbon and chemical filtration, if you are putting all of these medications in your tank, but leaving the carbon in your filter, then the carbon is probably removing the medication before it can really work (and the carbon is getting "full" more quickly as well, reducing the effectiveness or lifespan of the carbon). I bet if you check out some of the fine print on the bottle/box of the medication, it will tell you to remove the carbon from your filter while medicating!
 
#14 ·
Thanks for the help. I did take the carbon filters out(I am not totally uneducated:-D) Now the sponge. There is this blue meshy stuff on the filter and there are little nuggets(im guess that is the carbon) inside the meshy stuff. Is that meshy stuff the sponge that you guys are talking about? Also what are ceramic rings? I have these spinning cylinder things that get really gross after a while. I'm not sure what those are. I'm not sure of the filter make/model but I can find out. As for the current fish situation, 2 losses already today and a few more on their way out. The fish are dying fast. I'm getting the water test kit today to see what is wrong.
 
#15 ·
ok cool, yeah I would imagine the blue meshy stuff you mentioned probably is the sponge, though it's a bit weird that the carbon is packed inside the sponge (not un-heard of though). In most filter's I've seen (which isn't that many, mind you :-D), they are separate entities. The sponge is usually just a block of meshy/spongy material, and the carbon just resides inside of a thin mesh bag (the carbon itself is a black, course gravel). The bag of carbon is then placed on top of the sponge block, assuming the water flows from the bottom of the filter up through the top.

Ceramic rings are just that, little white or almost-white cylindrical rings almost like small donuts. They're placed in a bag similar to the carbon (probably 50-100 or more rings, depending on the size of your filter). I'm not sure what you are seeing when you say "spinning cylinder things", the ceramic rings are cylinder things but they don't spin! :-D They just sit in a bag and let water flow through them. It's very possible that you don't have the ceramic rings in your filter, they certainlty aren't standard stuff in every filter, and some people (myself included) don't use them. But knowing the filter make/model would help, I could look it up online and see exactly what kind of media it takes and such.

I'm really sorry to hear that your fish are still having a rough go of it! Once you get the test kit, hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of it quickly. I hope our discussions on here are helping!
 
#17 ·
ok cool, yeah I would imagine the blue meshy stuff you mentioned probably is the sponge, though it's a bit weird that the carbon is packed inside the sponge (not un-heard of though). In most filter's I've seen (which isn't that many, mind you :-D), they are separate entities. The sponge is usually just a block of meshy/spongy material, and the carbon just resides inside of a thin mesh bag (the carbon itself is a black, course gravel). The bag of carbon is then placed on top of the sponge block, assuming the water flows from the bottom of the filter up through the top.

Ceramic rings are just that, little white or almost-white cylindrical rings almost like small donuts. They're placed in a bag similar to the carbon (probably 50-100 or more rings, depending on the size of your filter). I'm not sure what you are seeing when you say "spinning cylinder things", the ceramic rings are cylinder things but they don't spin! :-D They just sit in a bag and let water flow through them. It's very possible that you don't have the ceramic rings in your filter, they certainlty aren't standard stuff in every filter, and some people (myself included) don't use them. But knowing the filter make/model would help, I could look it up online and see exactly what kind of media it takes and such.

I'm really sorry to hear that your fish are still having a rough go of it! Once you get the test kit, hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of it quickly. I hope our discussions on here are helping!
Thanks, the discussions are helping alot. I appreciate it.

hi
would there be any chance of a picture of your set up, ?
the tank and then the filter ?
I could do that. Its no pretty site though. I took out all of the plants and such. I'll have them up for you in a few minutes.
 
#18 · (Edited)
My fish tank currently:

You cant really tell from this angle, but it is quite cloudy.


You can see how cloudy it is from this angle. Can't even see to the other end. Wouldn't It be a shame to lose all those nice fish?


My one of my 4 fliter things I use:


Spinning Cyndrical things(Maybe somebody knows what they are


:oops:Dont Judge Me! Very dirty filter setup. One on each end. Its not as bad as it seems. The flash from the camera makes the stuff more vibrant. I know what your thinking, that all of that crap is making the fish sick and dying. But its been there for a long time


Food that I feed them


Medications for the fish


More medications
 
#19 ·
awesome, good pics there that helps :) The spinning cylinders are called bio-wheels. Those will basically take the place of the ceramic rings we talked about earlier. Those wheels basically allow water to run over them as the water returns to the tank, and provides surface area for the bacteria to grow on. I've never used biowheel filters myself, but I am pretty sure from hearing other's discuss them that you shouldn't ever change the bio wheels themselves (someone else who knows better please correct me if I'm wrong!). If they SHOULD be replaced every so often, I'm sure it's not often, and when you do, only change one at a time (not all of the cylinders at once).

It looks like the blue mesh bags you show are indeed a combination of mechanical filtration (sponge) and carbon, if the carbon is inside of it, and its probably fine. Different filters use sponges/carbons of different shapes, yours just happens to use that one. I don't know if that type is any better or worse than the block sponge/carbon bag style I described earlier, its probably equivalent. Try to replace them every month or so, to keep the carbon fresh and working. Simply swirling it around in the water you just removed during water changes should be good for rinsing it out in between replacements (one mans' opinion, others speak up if you think they should be rinsed more often or differently).

So it looks like you've got a good filter setup, and as long as you've been keeping up with the maintenance of it then that's probably not the problem. Once we know the results of your water tests, we'll be on a roll!
 
#23 ·
kymmie is right, go ahead and do another water change. A fully-cycled tank will have ammonia and nitrite readings of 0, with some level of nitrates (in general 40 ppm is getting to a dangerous level, ideally below 30 ppm, 20 or below is even better). Since you've got some nitrites in there, do a water change to dilute them down.

You must have done something recently that hurt or destroyed your bacteria population, since you mentioned the tank has been up and running for a couple of years. If the bacteria die off (or you put a bunch of fish in all at once, and the bacteria population is no longer large enough to support the bio-load), the tank will go through another cycle, meaning the ammonia will spike then the nitrites will spike until enough bacteria grow to consume them and keep them at a constant level of 0.

Now what happened to kill the bacteria, I don't know (or maybe you added a bunch of fish recently?). I imagine the medications you added wouldn't do that, but I suppose its a possibility. But, I bet that's why your fish are having a rough go of it, the tank is cycling right now, and the toxic ammonia and nitrites are claiming victims. Just watch the levels and do water changes as needed to keep the levels down, until they stay at 0 by themselves. Then following the advice of others in the thread, frequent and small water changes along with proper filter maintenance should prevent it from happening in the future! Keep us posted on the other test results if you like :p
 
#26 · (Edited)
Oh No! I just did a water change yesterday! Ok i'll do another one. We did add a whole bunch of fish a like the weekend before this last one. Maybe thats it. The water change shall be done though. One small problem, when I do the change, I like to dig in the rocks with my syphon to get some of the waste out that may be spiking the ammonia levels. But, There are fry in the tank currently(I dont know how, but they live down there and when I was doing the change yesterday I scared a few out and they were eaten. Would it just be fine to not dig in the rocks?
 
#27 ·
Well, if it was my tank I'd do the gravel too. I'd be more concerned with my fish than the fry. The fish will reproduce anyway. Harsh, I know....
I had a similar situation with a mini cycle and it seemed like I was doing a water change every other day, sometimes two days in a row. You have to do what you need to do in order to keep the levels in check and get your tank back on track. If you're siphoning off into a bucket you may be able to net out the fry??
 
#28 ·
its really good that you got the test kit, now we can see that the tank is cycling and the nitrate level is getting a bit high. And the addition of a bunch of fish recently is probably the culprit :).

Just a suggestion for frequency of testing, I'd recommend testing fairly often (every day or two) while this mini-cycle is going on, until you see the ammonia and nitrites at 0, and the nitrates down to a safe level. This will allow you to closely monitor the really toxic stuff (ammonia, nitrite) and know when you need to do another water change to dilute them, which like kymmie stated may be every day or two.

Once you get to that point, you can probably back off testing to once a week... and also can probably cut out testing for ammonia or nitrite, and just do a nitrate and pH test each weekend. If at any point you have reason to believe the ammonia or nitrites might be rising, at that point you can perform those tests to find out. If you set aside half an hour to an hour each weekend to test the water then do a small water change and filter media rinse, you'll probably find the tank will stay sparkling clean and your fish will stay very happy and healthy!
 
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