My Fish are dieing, Help!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi, I have a 4ft Tropical Fish tank, about 270l water.

I had this tank now for two months, no severe casualties, only about 2 guppies, 2 black ghost knife, but that was that, every 10 days I do a water change, every 5 weak I do a complete tank clean.

On Sunday 21st of Nov 2010, I did my water change, added anti-chlorene into the new water I added. Monday I lost 1*Long nose Elephant, Tuesday I lost my 1*Long nose Elephant,1*Bumble bee catfish,1*Eal,2*Guppies,
Wednesday/Today I lost another 2*Long nose Elephant, My Ram is looking poor, and all the other fish are in-active,except my to Black Ghost Knife fish are playing like nothing has happend!

I tested the water for HP/CO2/CO3/CO4.... Nothing wrong:evil:

I added the folowing medicine

Anti-ich blue and green bottle!!!!!

Any sugestions please help,:sick:

I have over R2000.00 worth of fish still alive, R1000.00 is dead, I fear that at the end of the weak my tank will be cleared out......................
:amazed:

 

Hi there, please explain what you mean by a complete tank clean?

 

Full tank clean

When I remove all the water from the tank to clean the sand, rocks, tank glass, after the complete clean, I refill the tank, add anti chlorene, add some heal all, then let the tank stand for an hour or 2, do the test for PH/Ho2/CO2/CO3/CO4, after that I add the fish to the temp of 27"C...

I basicaly clean everything in the tank, except the Filters, because it keeps the good bacteria...

 

@Jonnyoli4
get back to basics
Stop all meds- and do daily water changes.
Stop washing your tank and "cleaning everything" - just weekly gravel vacs are fine -get some Seachem stability (ASAP)and use it as instructed.
Please test for Nitrite, nitrate and not "Ho2/CO2/CO3/CO4"
All the best - hope the fish survive.

 

Will do ty

I'll try to find Seachem stability today, but Bloemfontein sucks, nothing you need or want and everything is over priced!!!

Thanks for your help, I'll keep you posted!

:idea:

 

Try find a product that will establish the aquarium biofilter
The problem is probably the Nitrite is too high.
Remember the sand, rocks, all contribute to the nitrite to nitrate conversion

check with the sponsors - overnight delivery

 

Like Khalid said, do daily water changes for now and also add some activated carbon
to remove the meds and some other bad things there might be in there now.
Never ever mix meds unless it says so so on the bottle.

 

Also as far as i know, Not the best idea to clean yout tank like you do every 5 weeks... Just do a Gravel vac and clean the glass, maybe do a 50% waterchange every 5 weeks... But definitly not neccessary, or good for the fish, to keep changing all their water like that... unless there is a problem with the water... you got to remember the tank should stabilise into a good environment for the fish, it cant do that if you keep destroying the entire environment...

 

As everyone has said.... NEVER EVER clean your sand like that. There is beneficial bacteria in the sand as well which you are killing off with every major clean. Your major clean should only consist of a 50% water change. (The idea of cleaning the gravel is an old method due to people needing to clean the muck under the undergravel filters.

Put some carbon in your filter to remove the medication. NEVER MIX MEDICATIONS. And because you don't know what is actually killing them, the meds might just be stressing them out more.

Do 10-15% water change every day for the next 2 weeks.

Test ammonia and nitrites.... I think one of these 2 may have spiked, (and / or climbing,) both of which will kill your fish very fast.

 

hi there jonnyo, i think its important to remember that what you have happening in your fish tank is a little eco system, its generally balanced in terms of bacteria and PH etc, cleaning everything out like that might be causing huge disturbances (even tho you keeping your bio-media/filter media) to the bacteria build up and you basically letting tank go thru the whole cycling process on a regular basis.

and with the amount of fish that you have, you are immediately placing a very big bio-load on your tank all at once, every so often.

this will put your fish into severe distress, remember that even the water that you remove from the tank contains the good bacteria that is so vital to your fish's well-being. so its best not to replace all the water, but only a small amount to remove nitrates.

as khalid has said, bacteria reside even in the substrate, in fact it is known that the bacteria in the substrate can take months to build up properly and its important to try to disturb this as little as possible.

remember, the good bacteria breaks down poisonous ammonia from fish poo to nitrites (also poisonous), the bacteria then breaks down or converts nitrites to the less harmfull nitrates, which you remove with regular small water changes.

a good water change routine could be 15%-20% weekly

you might find some good info on the bacteria contained in gravel and how we clean it impacts on the well being of your tank here: http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/s...L-TRAP-tips-for-choosing-gravel-for-your-tank

best of luck with your tank dude, keep us posted on how things are going

 

+ 1 for this - best thing I ever learnt was let the tank become a "natural" habitat ....