our fish are dying...help us please!!!

ualin · 08-19-2009, 09:19 AM

We used to have a small fish bowl I would say less than 1 gallon with 5 Guppies, with no filter, just a plant. They used to live in our friends tank that didn't have a filter either. We had them there for about 3 months and no problem at all.

Now we moved to a new apartment and bought a fish tank which is roughly 2.8 gallons, with a filter and a light and some ornaments including a big rock and some plants. We put 1 cap of "Super Aqua Safe" and 1 cap of "Beneficial Bacteria Booster" and left it there for about 48 hrs before putting the fish inside. We had the guppies living happily there for about 1 week with no problem at all, and since we had them before on a way smaller tank we decided to get some more. We bought 2 cardinal tetras, 2 beautiful male guppies and a sucker, and everything stayed being ok for some days. Later we decided to get some more fish to make our tank more colorful and so we bought another cardinal tetra, 3 neon tetra and 1 female guppy. Every time we bought new fish we sunk the bag inside the tank for a while before releasing the fish so the water was approximately the same temperature. We think it was the next day that the problems started. One of the male guppies we bought started swimming funny, like head up tail down, rolling and died about 12 hours later, then about 24 hrs later the same thing happened to the last female guppy we bought. During the next 48 hours the male guppies we had from the beginning did the same trick of swimming head up tail down and died (one first, later the other), we noticed their bright orange fins started to get darker before they died. We even tried to isolate one of them in the fish bowl we used to have our fish but he died anyway. At some point during this whole process we thought we might be giving them too much food so we reduced the amount, we also noticed that the small sucker was eating a lot of food from the bottom of the tank and thus pooping longer than his body's length (gross). We also though we might have been turning the light on for too much time during the day so we also started doing that less.

So after all of this we noticed that the all the fish started to get sick, because the guppies colors went darker and the neons and cardinals colors started to fade (red almost gone). So we had this “Anti Protozoan & Fungus” our friend told us to get when we first set up the tank. The doze said 1 cap every 20 litres, so we put half a cap every 24 hours at about 7pm, a couple of hours after putting the medicine the fish still look bad but every morning after they look good. This process has been repeated for 4 days so far and we don't know what to do.

Meanwhile, one of the female guppies we had since the beginning and that we though might be pregnant had the babies. We don't know how many they were, but at least 3 of them survived and we didn't noticed them until yesterday.

This morning we saw that they looked good, so we decided to stop the medicine. As we read somewhere before, we replaced a part of the water (about 30%). Everything was ok during the day until we came home at about 8pm and they looked pale and dark again. For some reason we turned on the light and came here to write this and we checked on the fish again they regained their colors! All except for one neon tetra which was hiding in the shade with his colors still faded, so we took him out to the fish bowl and came back here to post.

To sum up we now have 2 female and 1 male guppy, 3 cardinal tetra and 2 neon tetra on the fish tank and 1 pale neon tetra in the bowl that won't even eat.
We are really sorry to be some stupid newbies but we don't know what's going on and what the hell to do. But we love our fish and we don't want them to keep dying, it makes us sad every time we have to take one out of the tank.

There's one other mystery in our fish tank, from day one there were these small white balls that looked like tiny styrofoam balls, which after using the medicine for a couple of times turned light blue. We thought they were nothing but then they started to get on our nerves so we took them out. These things were squishy and when you pop them there's some sort of pus inside of them (yuk), we still have some of them inside the tank but in tight places so we haven't taken them out yet.

tl,;dr: we are stupid newbies with dying fish

louistheloach · 08-19-2009, 11:02 AM

Sorry this has happened, I know it is hard to watch, especially when it all could have been avoided.

Just a guess here, but it sounds like they were poisoned (ammonia, nitrite levels spiked).

Going just off your description,

1. the tank did not properly cycle (takes several weeks)

2. the bacteria booster stuff is really not all that effective. While it may add some, it takes a while for it to multiply to the point of being beneficial

3. You added way too many fish too fast.

4. You added waaaaaaaaayyyy too many fish for the size tank you have. General rule of thumb is 1 inch of fish per 1 gallon of water.

there are a couple of articles you need to take a look at:

the first is "getting help" it will tell you what kind of information you need to give us about your tank for us to better help you.

the second is "fishless cycling"

the fish in cycling process is very hard on the fish. Since you already have the fish the process will take longer. You will need to get some liquid test kits for GH, KH, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates.

In a nutshell, the ammonia has to spike to a certain level to start the production of nitrites, which has to spike to start the production of nitrates. The first two are toxic to your fish, the last is harmless in low numbers.

Do not add any more fish, do frequent small water changes to keep the ammonia (doing the water changes will extend the time needed to get to the nitrite stage and then the nitrate stage, but it will save your fish) and nitrite levels to a survivable level for your fish. If you have a friend with an established aquarium, get some of their substrate covered with their tank water (at least a cup of substrate or their used filter media again keep covered with their tank water and maintain the temp in transit). Maintain the temperature for the transit time and put into your tank, that will help a lot to speed up the process.

check out those two articles and post back.

ltl

Judge · 08-19-2009, 07:35 PM

Excellent LTL you have covered it all. Nothing I can think of to add except, sorry for the troubles you are having, Ualin. We all learn from our mistakes. Just research everything before doing and save some heartache. Sorry it is under such terrible circumstances but we are glad you have joined and hope to hear some good news from you soon.