Need some serious aquarium help....?

Question

so i did it all wrong, got a new tank and stocked it too soon, ive been following all the rescue advice ive been given on previous requests, got a charcoal filter, been performing 1/4 water changes, did a gravel vac, cut right down on the feeding, but 2 of my fish died last week, and yesterday went away for the night and most of the rest were floating on the top dead, upon my return this morning.
where do i go from here??? i now know about the nitrogen cycle and that it wont kick in until after 3 weeks, so do i just leave my tank (ive had it 2 weeks now) and continue doing !/4 changes and restock, slowly, in a couple of weeks time, or due to the deaths of my fish, must i strip everything down and start again....????

all serious advice is welcome...

Answer 1

Cut down to 2-3 fish if they haven't all died off by now. If they are all dead, get 2-3 zebra danios, they are hardy and will fit into a community tank later. How big is this tank, anyway?

Continue doing the 25% water changes, but only do them every 4th day. No, don't strip the tank down, the fish probably died from ammonia spikes which are part of the nitrogen cycle (that is why you are doing the partial water changes now to keep the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates low). If you strip it down now, you will have to start the cycling (nitrogen cycle) all over again!

You do have a heater, don't you. Cold water will kill off tropical fish in short order. Tropicals require 72-78 degrees. Goldfish are coldwater fish, don't mix them with tropicals!

Answer 2

Sounds like you are doing too much to the tank, stop with most of the water changes, don't over clean the tank. After 3 weeks the gravel shouldn't have to be cleaned either. Leave the tank alone for 1 or 2 months, get starter fish, white clouds or swords, let the tank cycle and then add more fish. If you have a good filter, it will do most of the cleaning for you. I only clean my gravel about every 4 months and I have heavily stocked tanks.
After you have cycled and are adding fish get some ghost shrimp, a snail, a cat fish, any type of scavenger to help with the cleaning. They will eat excess food that gets to the bottom and also other cleaning issues. Good luck and enjoy.

Answer 3

1. Get test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (preferably the liquid kind, the test strip one's aren't that accurate). Test for ammonia and nitrite DAILY so you are aware exactly how high those levels are.

2. If ammonia and/or nitrite is greater than 1ppm conduct 25% water changes daily (you'll have to physically remove these toxins until your bacteria colonies are in sufficient numbers to do the job for you). If ammonia is greater than 4ppm or nitrite is greater than 2ppm a 33% or 50% water change may be required. You need to keep these levels as low as possible to prevent further ammonia and nitrite poisoning (which is killing your fish).

3. Test for nitrates once a week (they should be at detectable levels but preferably under 40ppm). Presence of nitrate indicates both 1st and 2nd stage bacteria are present and working at some degree).

4. Feed once every OTHER day (until the tank is completely cycled) to cut down on the amount of waste that's being produced.

5. Do NOT add more fish until ammonia and nitrite read 0ppm and you have detectable nitrate in the tank. The cycle can take 4-6 weeks or longer to complete (this time frame can be significantly abbreviated if you seed the tank with established bio-media).

Answer 4

Ok, you dont need to start ALL over, but going backa few steps wouldnt hurt!
First of all, maybe you should return any non hearty fish to the fish store...if you have any fish left! Keep everything up and running, the filters, heaters etc... you can leave heartier fish in the tank, like barbs and such, do a 10% water change every week, and if the tank looks couldy do 5% every day until its better. Once your tank looks healthy again, and your fish stop dying, you can restock, with hearty fish! And dont add too many too fast!

Answer 5

I would put in new water. Just make sure you know where your aquarium stands. You can't be sure that the fish died because of something you did or something they already had.

Afterwards, I would get some cheap fish to cycle the aquarium for however long your size aquarium requires. You can take a sample of the water to you local fish store to have them test the water to maker sure it has cycled. Or you can buy the kit. Those feeder gold fish are great for cycling it without a huge expense if they don't make it. But the one I used lived and became part of the my babies.

Answer 6

Leave the tank running as it is. Change 25% of the water once a week, and you should be fine to add fish one at a time in about 10 days. You have already started the cycle, and cleaning out your tank again will just destroy it all.
A

Answer 7

Sorry about that!
There's a pretty steep learning curve. Been there... done that.

If all you fish are dead, I'd do a large partial water change and vaccuum well. finish up cycling via a fishless cycle to get your biofilter bacteria in place for when you add new fish. Here's a good article on it:
http://thegab.org/Articles/FishlessCycling.html

Just FYI. ammonia toxicity is a function of water temperature and pH. If your pH is high, more of the ammonia present is in its toxic form so it takes less to be lethal. Here are a set of tables that let you figure out how much ammonia it takes to be toxic with your pH and water temperature.
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html

Here's another good article on cycling that includes info on how to keep the water from getting toxic while your biofilter bacteria are getting up to speed.
http://thegab.org/Articles/WaterQualityCycling.html

Answer 8

Do you have water testing equiptment. Absoluty nessesary if you want to keep a healthy tank. Did you buy a book to learn any thing about setting up a tank and keeping fish? The best way to be successful is to learn first then try again. Next time don't buy any or only a couple of cheap fish till your water is optimal.

Answer 9

Dont count upon understand-how from maximum petshops as maximum easily care about promoting you a fish. Unfortunatley your tank is a procedures too small for fairly some loaches like clown loaches yo yo loaches and so on. yet a good suggestion might want to be kuhli loaches. they're well-known and max out at about 10 cm ( 4inches ) and may want to correctly be perfect for this setup. they could properly be in a position to be really shy even as saved in small numbers so i'd recommend of a collection of in any case 3 preffably extra perfect to seem this desirable fish at its complete skill. extra information can be discovered once you google kuhli loach. you would possibly want to truly have the dwarf chained loach or Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki. those are the smallest loach accessible and max out at about 4-5 cm.even with the indisputable fact that those are not as commnly said and shortage the nature and beauty that makes kuhli loaches such well-known fish. wish this helps :]

Answer 10

stop doing the 1/4 change for two weeks add sera aqutan after an hour add nitrivec to your filter and thats all.