lost fish

mlkpookie

I have a 70 gal aquarium that started off with no problems what so ever (other then a few that were caused by my own errors). At 5 mths we lost fish by adding sick fish in the tank.

All levels were great: AM-.25, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20,PH 7.8. The alkalinity and hardness would sometimes vary and occasionally to PH would shift to 7.2 or 8.4. Sometimes our nitrate would spike to 40. But all changes lasted only a week, and then went back to normal following our regular weekly maintenance.

This was a 6-7 mth span.

About this time we cleaned the filters with hot tap water.

Then our nitrate spiked to 80, and we had to remove our chinese algae eater who had become aggresive.

Our algae growth took off (brown algae) so we added a pleco and live plants, to get rid off algae and nitrates. Our nitrite never spiked and ammonia went up to .5 for 1 week only, otherwise it stayed at .25.

The pleco I believe caused some fish loss and we returned it to the pet store. We added some more fish to replace the ones lost. All but 1 died out of that batch, but I believe that was because they were much smaller then the tank mates. Then everything went back to normal for a month.

We are continuing to add live plants and tried to add a siamese algae eater which was removed within a month. We have since lost 2 more fish.

Our current levels are .25 ammonia, 0 nitrite

40 nitrate ( a little higher but less then 80 on the test strip)

150 hardness, o chlorine, 180 alkalinity, 7.8 PH

The Aquarium setup is a 70 gal with "2 duel wheel" bio-wheel filterS. So we have 4 bio wheels and 4 filter catridges.

Our weekly maintenance consists of a 15-17 gal water change with vacuuming weekly. We also add cycle weekly. We now have 9 goldfish adding up to 22 - 25 inches length inluding finnage.

We also have 15 small to medium sized plants and are in the process of converting entirely to live.

The diet consists of San Francisco Bay Brand Emerald Entree (omnivorous formula) and/or TetraFin goldfish crisps once daily. Sometimes I accidentally overfeed and skip the next day.

I am giving you this information in hopes that you can give me pointers on things I'm doing wrong, as well preventing algae growth, and help with live plants. I don't want to lose anymore fish.


To answer a few more questions listed on the sticky, I'm not sure what GH or KH is, or how to measure it. The tank has been set up for appx. 9 mths. I have 2 bubble cartains against the back wall covering about 3/4 lenght of the tank. I am now down to 3 ryukins, 1 ranchu, 2 black moores, 3 fantails, and 1 oranda. Our tank has been set up for 9 mths. We used to add aquarium salt but havn't in about a month and a half.

Tommy Gun

If I haven't already said so, welcome to the forum mlkpookie!

Wow, where to start? There is a lot of information to browse through...which is great and exactly the sort of info which can help you get some quick, more accurate answers. I think the best place to start would be to direct you towards FTF's article section, in particular the article on cycling a freshwater aquarium. You can find the article section by using the link in the upper left hand corner of this page (and any other forum page) or the links located in my signature. The cycling article can be found in the article section under the freshwater articles section on the left hand side of that page or by clicking HERE. After reading that article, you would better understand what I mean when I say that at 6 or 7 months, you would really want to see 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite levels on a very constant basis.
In fact, this ^^^^^ might be the reason why you are seeing some ammonia and nitrites right now. While the 'good bacteria' in your aquarium is located in other areas of your tank, you may be depleting the population dramatically by cleaning out your filter media too well. The most common advice that I have read/heard and also used myself, is to rinse filter media in some of the water which you recently removed during the water change process. This will help ensure that you can still remove any detrius which might affect water flow through that media while at the same time, reducing the risk of killing the bacteria you need which is living on it. Since the bacteria thrive in an environment which water passes by on a more constant basis...becasue the water is carrying the ammonia and nitrites that the bacteria 'feed' upon or otherwise require for life...filter media is usually teeming with it.



Nitrates are different from ammonia and nitrites in that the most common way in which they are reduced or removed from your tank is via water changes. By most standards, a nitrate level of 40 ppm is not really huge and probably not much of a concern, at least not over a one week span of accumulation. 80 ppm might be more of a concern, but as I said, you can always perform a water change at that point and reduce that level quickly and efficiently. However...



...based upon my understanding of plants, which I admit is not very much at all, your having plants should help with nitrates since your plants will use them.

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Our algae growth took off (brown algae) so we added a pleco and live plants, to get rid off algae and nitrates

While I am sure this is often very common advice, the reality is that not all plecos will eat every and any type of algae you find in your tank...if they even eat algae at all (some eat wood and can even be mostly carnivores). In fact, if your brown algae is actually diatoms, there are even fewer fish in general which will eat them. All in all, algae is more 'a fact of life' and taking great strides to completely rid your tank of the stuff will usually not result in success. However, you can control algae in various ways and to a certain extent.

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The pleco I believe caused some fish loss and we returned it to the pet store

While I agree that you are probably better off not having a pleco, unless you wish to keep one just to keep one and not solely for algae control, your comment here is troubling to some extent. First, plecos are not normally known to be aggressive in that they will attack and/or kill other fish on a regular basis. That said, if you mean that your pleco brought some sort of issue such as an illness or disease to your tank, then removing it will not guarantee that you have rid yourself of that issue completely. IMHO, it is best to look deeply into sudden or unexplained deaths in order to determine the cause the best you can simply because you may then be able to prevent further deaths/illnesses stemming from that same cause.

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I'm not sure what GH or KH is, or how to measure it

Kh is the measure of carbonate hardness the water, or your alkalinity...Gh is general hardness

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150 hardness, o chlorine, 180 alkalinity, 7.8 PH

I am assuming that you already are testing for Kh and Gh based upon you giving numbers for hardness and alkalinity

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We also add cycle weekly

The need for you to add 'cycle', assuming that you mean the bacteria based product, is really sort of mute at this point. While I realize that the bottle or box it comes in states that it will help you out after doing a water change, this is not something you have to do...or in other words, you can definitely free yourself from being a 'slave' to this product and suffer no consequences. (The exception to that would be if your tank is not cycled at all, but even in that case, you can do without it, but since that doesn't seem to be the case, there is no need to get into that) In fact, there may be some evidence that products like cycle can actually harm your tank...for example, if the bottle was not kept at a temperature which is too warm, the bacteria which is supposedly in a coma-like state (can't think of the right term at the moment), it could have become active again. Since the bacteria wouldn't have a constant source of food (ammonia or nitrites), it would then parish. Conversely, if the bottle was exposed to cold temperatures, the bacteria within could also have perished. This means you could be adding nothing more than a few chemicals and gain no benefit from it at all.

For the record, I learned about the problems associated with temp and cycle via an email I sent to the company asking about why some of their product could become 'spoiled' late last year.

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Sometimes I accidentally overfeed and skip the next day.

This may also be another source of ammonia, nitrites, and/or nitrates. Assuming that what you mean by 'overfeeding' is that you add more food than your fish can eat and as a result, it sinks to the substrate and remains uneaten, it is important to know that this food will remain in the tank and add to the 'bio load' of the tank until it is completely decayed or you remove it using some method, usually a gravel vac. If you mean that you feed your fish too much, but they still eat all the food, this can also become an issue not only to your fishes' health, but also because, at least in theory, the more food a fish eats, the more wastes will be produced. So, in the end, both types are bad in their own way, but it all comes out in the wash as adding to nitrate levels. My point here is that being diligent with your feeding routine (amount of food and frequency) will be the best thing, however, if a mistake does happen, which they will, it might be better to try to remove the uneaten food with a net, or in a more extreme case, you might have to perform an unplanned water change.

I am sure that I haven't covered everything, but I am also sure that another member will step in and cover what I forgot. IMHO, you are on the right track in most aspects and should you figure out what might be the root cause of the ammonia and nitrite levels in your established tank, you would most likely see some level of improvement. In fact, I might even purchase or find another test kit which is not made by the same company just so you can verify that your test results are giving you accurate results. Obviously, you would then be able to compare and contrast the two test results so that you would know that if they conflict with each other, one must be wrong, or that you really do have an ammonia and nitrite problem. While I am sure no test you can buy will be impervious to everything, I can say that the 'test strips' can easily be 'spoiled' if not kept properly 100% of the time. For example, I live just off the shore of Lake Michigan and so the resulting humidity nearly make it impossible for me to use test strips and be confident in the result.

mlkpookie

OK I understand more now. I'm kicking myself for not researching before I started my tank and going soley off hearsay.

I now know that I started off on the wrong foot by not allowing enough time to build bacteria colonies to grow before adding more fish. When I first started my aquarium with 2 fish I added new 3 or 4 more fish after 2 or 3 weeks, then proceded to add fish every week or two.

When my fish died I added new fish without understanding what happened. I attributed their deaths to stress caused by aggressive algae eaters or previous high levels of nitrate.

I now understand that because of my nitrate levels being at 80 for a month and being at 40 for several months I have caused irreversable damage that will result in "flipover Problems", by exposing them to nitrate poisoning.Correct?

My nitrate comes from nitrite, which comes from ammonia right? Therefore by decreasing my ammonia it will decrease my nitrites and then my nitrates.

So, what I need to do is grow larger bacteria colonies and continue weekly water changes to correct these problems. Since I have a 70 gallon tank with 22-25 inches of fish(10 fish in total, though another has fallin ill). I need to increase my water changes to 40 or 50 % weekly, I do need to vacume but do not need to add cycle? Correct?

I also heard that there is something you can add to your tank to remove ammonia. I was told not to use it so I never researched it. Is this a chemical or something worth checking out and putting in our established tank?
So my goal should be o ppm ammonia, o ppm nitrite, and 10 - 20 ppm nitrate?

Now I am not sure how to go about growing bacteria. I have several alternatives. Should I try to grow it in our poorely established tank or in another tank. I do have a 30 gallon that is empty. We need to buy a filter system and several other items. I also have a 10 gallon we are currently using to grow plants in. We have 2 algae eaters in it and recently took 2 comets out of it. We havn't been doing much upkeep with water changes because I wanted the nitrates in the tank to fertilize the plants.