To help us troubleshoot what's going on and provide a faster response, please provide the information below. Just copy and past the text below into a new post. If you don't know the answer to something, just put a question mark (?). -Water Test Readings: -Ammonia= -NitrIte= -NitrAte= -pH= -KH= -GH= -Water Temperature: -Tank size= -Filtration (Make, and GPH) -Is there gravel/sand/rocks in the tank? If so how deep? -Tank Inhabitants (How many, how big?): -How long the tank has been set up: -Frequency and amount of routine water changes: -What you feed them, how much, & how often: -City or well water: -Water conditioner used: -any extras (i.e.; air pumps, and air stones?) -New fish or plants added to the tank? What type and when? Were they quarantined?: -Medications used: -Describe the problems you are seeing:
To help us troubleshoot what's going on and provide a faster response, please provide the information below. Just copy and past the text below into a new post. If you don't know the answer to something, just put a question mark (?). -Water Test Readings: -Ammonia= .50 -NitrIte= 1.0 -NitrAte= 20 -pH=6.8 -KH= 300 -GH= 120 -Water Temperature: 75f -Tank size= 125 gals -Filtration (Make, and GPH) rena xp4 400gph marineland emperor 400 90 gph -Is there gravel/sand/rocks in the tank? If so how deep? 2 ins gravel -Tank Inhabitants (How many, how big?): 1 bristle nose pleco (6in), 6 Siamese algae eaters (5-6 in long, thick), 6 neons ( 1 in), 3 yellow snails (3/4 in diameter), too many swordtails (all ages), too many guppies ( all ages), 25 pepper corys (all ages), 2 goldfish ( 3 in) -How long the tank has been set up: 3 yrs -Frequency and amount of routine water changes: 30% every 2-3 weeks -What you feed them, how much, & how often:tetramin tropical crisp - morning and evening, shrimp pellets - morning and evening, algae wafers, morning and evening -City or well water: well water -Water conditioner used: chemipure (3-10 oz bags in xp4 canister filter) -any extras (i.e.; air pumps, and air stones?)2 300 wats heaters, 1 12 airstone -New fish or plants added to the tank? What type and when? Were they quarantined?: no -Medications used: none -Describe the problems you are seeing: both goldfish and all six algae eaters have died along with 50 or so guppies in the last two days. a lot of the guppies hang out at the top the water and congregate in the corners. most of the swords have clamped fins, only a few of the young swords have died. the neons are acting fine, swimming around a lot more than usual and the corys are showing no signs of trouble, in fact some appeared top be mating and I've even got some eggs on the side of the tank. Changed all the filter media and haven't noticed any change. the only thing changed recently was the addition of the emperor 400 hang on filter. got it as a backup to the xp4 canister and to help with the bio-load. Any ideasd would be nice. thanks
JW, I’ve been thinking about your problem, I think you are not doing enough water changes. I think it is very important to do weekly water change, at least 25%. More if you can, but don’t do less. Too many aquarist try to get by with less, they look to chemicals , filters, etc. Chemipure or Activated Carbon is great to clear up water , but when the water is clear remove the Carbon. Before becoming a breeder of livebearers, I bred Discus. Discus hate Carbon! Some breeders believe that carbon used regularly , will remove the slime layer that protect fish from disease. The next thing you must do is quarantine all of your new acquisitions. Never add new fish, even from a friend, to an established tank, always quarantine them for at least a couple of weeks. I would add 1 teaspoon full of salt to each gallon of water .Start making water changes ,for the next week I would make a 25% water change every other day. I would also recommend installing a UV sterilizer to your tank.
Although you have a fairly mature tank, it is acting as if you had a new tank. By changing all of the filter media, you have reset your filter to time zero. We do not really mature a tank, we mature our filters. The bacteria responsible for taking care of nitrites and ammonia are contained mostly in that very filter media that you removed. If you have another tank, steal some filter material from it and place it in the Rena along with the new media. That should give the "new" filter a jump start. For the next several weeks, you will need to do huge water changes to try to keep both ammonia and nitrites below 0.25 ppm while your filter grows a new bacterial colony. Until that happens, you are elected to be the biological filter for your fish.
Not that I'm a pro and long time aquarium keeper however with the little of experience I've had I've seen the difference between low Ammonia, NitrIte and NitrAte levels. My results concur with everything I've read in aquarium guides and books about cycling a tank and so forth. Because that seems to be the case I'll reiterate what I find so important that the guides/books say about surface basics of Aquarium bacteria balance.
Ammonia is lethal to fish. If I were to give you an idea of how lethal it is to fish it is at least 10x as toxic to fish as NitrAte.
NitrIte is also very toxic to fish if I were to give you a estimate off the top of my head I would say it is around 5x as toxic as as NitrAte.
NitrAte is toxic to fish in larger quantities. Some fish are more effected by it then others. For comparison reasons I'd say having less than 3ppm of Nitrate would be more acceptable in your aquarium. At 5ppm your fish are not gunna be living in good conditions doing so well but the hardy ones will continue to live and show small signs to bigger signs until the obvious deaths start to happen.
