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filter rod is harmful to fish?

3K views 19 replies 7 participants last post by  marshallsea 
#1 ·
Hi.. I have 10 gallon tank with 4 fishes in it. 2 panda platy and 2 zebra danios. I bought it 3 days back. While buying fishes i had asked PETCO to check the water and everything was fine so I bought 4 fishes. Till today morning everything was fine, suddenly in the afternoon I noticed my one zebra danio was stuck in filter rod (rod from where filter takes the water). So I stopped the filter and noticed that my danio is dead :cry: .
I want to know does it usually happen? or does it happen with danios in particular? if thats the case then i can change my filter or return the other danio as i dont want it to die.. What can i do to avoid it? Will this affect my other platy's too?
Please help me. I have bought fishes for the ifrst time.
 
#2 ·
I doubt that the filter killed the danio. They are fast, strong fish, that enjoy good filtration.
I'm guessing something else happened to him and he died, the filter just sucked him up afterwards.
:(
 
#4 ·
Yes you definately need to keep the filter running at all times unless you're cleaning it. As for the fish, does it look like it's sprinkled with salt grains?

I also agree that the fish died and was sucked up afterward. A health fish should have no problem swimming past the intake.
 
#5 ·
You will need to research about the aquarium cycle, that is probably the cause of the Danio's death. Basically, your new tank have none of the bacteria necessary to convert ammonia (produced by the fish and other waste) to nitrite (both very bad for fish, it burns their gills) to the not-so-toxic nitrate. It will take 4-6 weeks to have enough beneficial bacteria. In the meantime, there is a few things you want to do.

1. Go buy an API master test kit, or other liquid test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Without this you are blind and won't be able to do much. It's one of the most important piece of kit, and one of the most overlooked.

Whe you have te test values, post them back, we will help you. Since I am guessing you probable want to deal with this right away, you have a few solutions to control ammonia and nitrites. First, you will need to do water changes (50% of tank volume) every other day, or when you see more than 1ppm ammonia or 0,3ppm nitrite. Use a water conditionner that will detoxify ammonia and nitrite, Prime is a good one.

Add fast growing aquarium plants, mostly stem plants or floating plants. Anacharis, Wisteria, Hygrophila, Water Sprite, Brazilian Pennywort. They will use the ammonia to feed themselves.

You said you saw white spots on the Danio. Look on the other fish, do they have white spot too ? If so, report back, we will evaluate the situation. Right now, avoir buying or using any medecine, they are toxic to fish and bacteria.
 
#7 ·
"First, you will need to do water changes (50% of tank volume) every other day, or when you see more than 1ppm ammonia or 0,3ppm nitrite."

The water changes should be done every day regardless of these figures. That level of ammonia will seriously harm the fish, in fact any ammonia is already doing damage to the fish.

Here is the link to A Beginner's Guide to the Freshwater Aquarium Cycle.

Treating ich is going to be stressful to an already stressful situation. Raise the temperature slowly to 84F.

Aquarium salt is one of the best ways to cure ich without adding chemicals. You will need to acquire the salt before we proceed as to what to do with it. Go ahead though and raise the temperature SLOWLY to 84F though.

We are here to help and try and do all we can to save the fish from here on in.
 
#9 ·
I will get the kit tomorrow but till then i can change 50% of the water and add conditioner to the tank. Is that ok? will it help?
3 days back when I had checked the water at PETCO they said all the content is fine. So,do Ammonia and Nitrite level change in 2 days?
 
#11 ·
Prime will detoxify ammonia and nitrite for 36-48 hours, that's why I was saying every other day. Of course, if you can do a 50% water change every day, please do.

You will need to raise temperature gradually, start to raise it with your first water change (use water that is hotter than the tank temperature). Then continue to raise slowly with your heater. Use a good in-tank termomether, a stick-on isn't accurate enough for this.

Change 50% water now. At the beginning of the cycle, ammonia will climb fast, two days is normal. Your water tested fine cause you had nothing in the tank that produced ammonia...
 
#12 ·
They can change in a very small amount of time.

Never believe what a pet store tells you regarding water parameters, what they think is good parameters are nearly always NOT!

What you are suggesting is fine :)
 
#13 ·
Ok great. So, for today I will just change 50% of the water and add the existing conditioner that I have. Increase the temperature a little bit.

Tomorrow I can get Prime water conditioner, API kit and Aquarium salt.

I will test the water level, change another 50% of the water, add prime conditioner to it and some aquarium salt as per the instruction given it.

Is this fine??

One more question: currently i have one zebra danio and 2 panda platy. As per my knowledge they are kept in groups of 2 or more. Then should I buy one more zebra danio or not? and when should I think of buying a new danio? after this one gets cured?

I would also like to thank everyone for helping me and guiding me.
 
#14 ·
DO NOT add anymore fish to the tank until the cycle is complete and you have sorted the ich out. It will pass onto the new fish potentially killing them.

The water parameters need to be stable and ich totally gone before you can add anything else.
 
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#15 ·
Again no problem with what you plan on doing.
 
#17 ·
If you do get the API Mater kit...IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

The Nitrate Test has two bottles, shake bottle #2 for 2 MINUTES prior to adding it to the test tube. The liquid separates and can give a false reading to the result if not shaken very very well before being added.
 
#18 ·
Hi everyone,
I checked the water level.
pH is 7.6
ammonia is 0.5
Nitrite is 0
Nitrate is 0
temperature is 82F
I have also added aquarium salt to it.
I have also changed 50% of the water from the aquarium and add some conditioner to it.
Let me know if this is fine. I will also increase the temperature to 84F slowly.
Thanks
 
#19 ·
Change the water every day, and in this case, I may even suggest the cheater cycle in a bottle since you already have the fish in there.
The tank is just immature, and not cycled. Not an un-common mistake, I did the same thing first go around, and did it a second thinking I could cheater with not enough transferred well cycled rock to cycle a tank kept fed and wet.

As for the ich suspicion, I'm not there, and I can't see the fish, but I know when I messed up and put fish in an immature tank, they kinda looked like they had ich, mainly cuz of discoloration on the fins not being uniform, but it was not, it was just them struggling...I strongly doubt that's your problem.
Like said above, grab a test kit....But in an immature tank, the readings are going to be difficult to detect (even ammonia sometimes at this stage) The second and 3rd stage won't read at all, while somehow the tank is still killing fish in an immature tank.

Like Taz said, for now, change water every day for a while...
I tried a fish cycle in a 36 with little seeding and even though my test kit read all good on all 3 ammonia, Nitrite, and nitrate, it still took them out...Point being in an immature tank, the test does not tell the whole story quick enough in a young tank...At least in my experience.
 
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