Why are my fish dying?

Question

We have recently bought a new tropical fish tank and nothing seems to be going right! Initial tank set up seems to have been fine and we left at least a week before adding the fish, which we did gradually over a couple of weeks and added the neccessary treatments.

Firstly a few of our fish got whitespot, which we have been treating with the correct treatment (but not yet cleared). Also we have two lobsters, who have killed and eaten both of our silver sharks and 1 angelfish! (we are now giving them the correct food so hopefully this won't happen again... or as much!) and now another of our angelfish seems to be dying, he is almost motionless and lies at the bottom of the tank. Does anyone know what is wrong? it doesn't look to me like the filter is working effieciently & there tiny white bits and bits of plants floating everywhere! we are using a Juwel filter system. Please help!

Answer 1

Hi, Poor you. Fish keeping is definitely a learning experience the first time.

a) you added your fish too quickly to the water, the tank should settle for at least six weeks after all the treatments before fish should be added.

b) you didn't choose the right fish to live together (you can't help that)

c) wherever you bought your fish from probably gave you contaminated water with disease. The same thing happens when you mix humans together they share colds etc.

d) you haven't mentioned the water temperature is it OK?

e) the number 1 reason that fish die is that people feed them way too much. If you imagine that your fish tank is a minuter ecosystem. That ecosystem needs to have built up enough bacteria to deal with uneaten food and excreted food. If that bacteria isn't there (which after two weeks it wouldn't be) the excess food and fish excrement turns the water poisonous.

f) I don't know the size of your tank but the fewer fish the better.

g) you should add one or two fishes per week over a time so that the bacteria in the water has time to mature.

To remedy the situation
a) stop feeding them so much (a small amount once a day) is a fine
b) speak to your vet or fish expert who might be able to advise you on medication (you haven't provided enough info for that here.
c) check the temperature
d) leave them alone
e) don't change the water in your tank in one go, you can take out and out in no more than 5% of the water a week or every few days if you have polluted water.

I had very similar experiences to you when I first started, now from experience I've learned that the more I fuss over my fish the more they die when I leave them alone (I don't clean the tank to often, add treatments etc) the more they thrive - but maybe that's just me.

Answer 2

Too many, too soon and the wrong type of fish!
A week is not long enough for the water chemistry to settle down or for enough bacteria to grow in the gravel and filter.You dont say if you used an accelerator like Cycle! The plants also need time to establish. A couple of months not weeks should have been the length of time to add that many fish. If you have put treatment in and not taken the carbon out of the filter (which is probably working badly due to a build up of dirt) then your fish didn't get the correct dosage which is why its still there. Angelfish are very sensitive to 'New Tank Syndrome' (the most likely cause of White Spot (ick)) and should never be put in till the tank has been running well for three months. The lobsters will eat any sick or slow moving fish like angels and are not a good idea in a community tank. You dont say how big the tank is but with those fish it would need to be 48 x 15 x 18 ins at least and larger tanks take longer to mature. Someone didn't do their homework before starting I'd quess!! Always research a species before buying and find out how large they grow. If you buy fish from somewhere like Pets at Home dont bother asking for advice, usually there are only 1 or 2 assistants who know about fish so you have to ask to speak to them! Try searching under 'Tropical fishkeeping' for a list of specialist sites. Most of them have a fish data base and tell you which fish are compatible, the least you should have if its a shoaling fish or which should be kept alone!
The forums are great to. My preference is www.Thinkfish.co.uk
Best thing you can do is 20% or smaller water-changes every day for a week, clean filter in old aquarium water and re-treat the white spot. As a tonic and addition to the medication add aquarium salt to tank and I'd return the lobsters to the shop. Good luck its a great hobby!

Answer 3

Wow, you have a lot of problems here.

First, for cycling a tank. The best time to cycle a tank is actually 6 weeks, in less time then that you really should double the doses of your bacterial enhancer (like Hagan's Cycle) and catalyst (like Hagan's Waste Control). So your tank if is likely still cycling.

I would not put angels or bala's in any tank that has not been stable for at least 3 months.

Ich is very common and normal. Think of it as chicken pox for fish. If you were treating it properly, your crayfish would be dead. (There is no such thing as a fresh water lobster, they are crayfish, or crawdaddies depending on where you live, the name is different.) Also, if you were treating ich properly it would be gone inside 3 days. Remove your crayfish, remove the carbon from your filter, turn off your lights and try Clout. Or any ich/external parasite cure by Hagan, Jungle, Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Tetra, SeaChem or Sera. Follow the directions.

Next it does not matter what you feed your crayfish, and you should only have one in your tank, they will eat your fish, they are also fabulous escape artists too. They will do this because it is their nature. You need to house them in a BIG tank with fast fish, not like an angel, which is such an easy target. The fact that a cray could catch a bala shark (which by the way is a tetra) is VERY unusual. Either it died and the cray ate it, or your tank is WAY too small for these animals or the bala was VERY tiny and they cray VERY big.

Also, expect your crayfish to mow the lawn once in a while, just cut down all your plants and rearrange them.

If your filter is not working properly, go back to the place you bought it and ask them to show you how to get it going properly, or you didn't clean it properly. Have you cleaned the impeller?

White stuff could be plant plant pollenyour description is vague.

Go buy yourself some good books or to the library and do some good research. Don't go back to the store who sold you your fish, they seem like idiots to let you do this. Set yourself up again correctly.

Start with the Aquarium Atlas vol 1. I still use it weekly after 10 years + in the hobby, think of it as the aquarium bible. It'll set you back about 50$ - 75$, but it pays for itself in time..

Answer 4

I dont if this will be helpful, but i was going to get a lobster for my tropical tank and was advised that anything feeding from the bottom of the tank would be eaten by them, such as cat fish and any bottom feeders.

when treating white spot or anything else you have to remove any carbon filters as this will neutrolize the white spot treatment and will not work.

you may also want to do a 10% water change, to keep the water fresh. also do you have any real plants, these help with the cycle of your tank.

you can also take a saple of your water to your local pet fish shop - where you got the fish from, and ask them to test the water.
hope every thing goes well.... good luck

Answer 5

If your lobsters are eating your fish, they won't stop for long. You'll need to either keep lobsters, or keep fish. Not both.

Your tank doesn't need to "settle," it needs to grow a colony of beneficial bacteria that consumes the ammonia produced by your fish's waste. That's called cycling. Without the bacteria, your fishtank is developing fatal amounts of ammonia which is burning your fish's gills, damaging their internal organs, and eventually killing them. Cycling involves some effort on your part; you can't just let the tank sit for x amount of weeks and voila, it's done.

Please visit www.aquahobby.com and read the articles on cycling; ask questions on the forum if you need clarification on it. The people there are pretty friendly and will help you out as much as you need. :)

As for the whitespot, I've never had any luck with the medications. I used a heat treatment that I also found in the aquahobby articles section. My fish recovered fully without a single death. Again, it required some effort -- daily water changes, thermometer/heater monitoring -- but it was worth it.

Good luck with your new tank!

Answer 6

it seems you didn't do any research. Did the fish shop test the water for you to ensure the ammonia and nitrite levels were ok? What on earth posessed you to buy lobsters? Did you do no reading about them? If you had, you would have KNOWn they would kill and eat fish.
Take them back, don't buy from the same shiop since they gave bad advice and sold you sicvk fish with white spot, then go and do lots of reading about how to set up a tank and choose suitable fish.
Go to the link below and ask questions on the forum, you will get proper expert help there.
You are going to lose ALL of your fish either from poisoned water or the lobsters. Poor fish.

Answer 7

you added the fish too quick - needs 3/4 weeks minimum to let the tank environment settle and let the bio filter work ok. You are in a dodgy position now with fish in situ. Did you say lobster ?

You have added fish which are quite sensitive to environment and you were ill-advised or didnt take advice - better with danios or guppies maybe leave the flash fish until you know the tank is safe.

Leave it alone apart from water treatments and tests (did you do these?)
and it will stabilise but you may lose all your fish.

Answer 8

try 25% waterchange every 2 days for a week, make sure to use dechlorinated water.
check nitrite, nitrate and ph and temp.
check for any contamination, you didn't clean the tank with bleach, soap etc?

and by lobsters, i presume you mean freshwater crayfish (sometimes advertised as lobsters and very similar looking)... they should be harmless to your other fish.

check the filter is not blocked too, it should be able to circulate the tankwater 3 - 4 times per hour.

also, you do know how big silver sharks (bala sharks) grow.. i hope you don't have a small 2 ft tank!

90% of fish death in a new tank is due to the water quality bieng poor... could very well be your filter that you say is seeming inefficient.

overfeeding can kill fish to as they do not know when to stop eating. feed only very smal ammounts.

Answer 9

You should get your water tested, take a sample into Petsmart and they will check it for you.

You will probably need to do a significant water change and I would change the filter (the filter not the system).

Also, it may not be white-spot. It could be a fungus or ick. There are treatments out there that will treat a lot of fungi as well as parasites. I would also add some Aquarium salt "Dr Wellfish" I think is the brand. That will help them.

Good luck!

Answer 10

You sound like you might be new to this, and like you've been having a tough time! In my opinion the lobsters are not compatible with your other fish(per them killing them) Number one I would go to this site www.aquariumfish.net
and then click on "search us" in the top left.
you can then type in "angel fish" this site will give you fish compatibility, what kind of temperatures those fish like and so on.
If your temps. and whatnot are good then I would run to a pet store and have them test your water. Of course your angel fish could have been sick to start with (like that's never happened to anybody before) and now it's just dieing. If he does die I would search the previously mentioned site for fish that can live happily with your lobsters