I bought a fish tank and 9 out of 11 died in less than 24 hours, used proper water treatment, help?

Question

Used water treatment, waited 24 hours, temp was right and 9 died

Ok, first thanks for your answers, I find them helpful, but also let me say I live in germany, so the water is quite different, i bought 10 fish they are school fish, I did let hte bags sit for 45 minutes in teh tank, i had plants there too, live ones, we let the tank sit for 24 hours with a water and ph treatment, and by about hour 14, 9 were floating and we had one little one, and a plochostamus (sorry botched spelling) that lived, I cant give the name of the fish because it was in german, they are a white color with tiny black stripes and the fish are about an inch long. But these 2 are doing great so i assume the water may be better, any more thoughts so as to avoid this again would be great, thanks again!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

You needed to let the water cycle for a few weeks.

Answer 2

When I start a new tank, I typically set it up, treat the water, start the filtration, and let it run for at least 7 days before putting any fish in the water. This gives the tank an opportunity to settle and filter out anything that is likely to kill the fish. Also, you might consider adding a bacteria starter and some plants to get a bacteria shield working in the tank.

OK, let's say you did all that. When you put the fish in the tank, you should first float the plastic bags holding the fish on the top of the tank for 20-30 minutes. This gives the fish a chance to adapt to the water temperature of the tank. After 20-30 minutes, open the bags and let the fish swim out, into the tank.

Finally, one of the most common causes of new fish dying is overfeeding. Nearly every new fish owner wants to feed the fish to watch the increased activity in the tank or "the fish look hungry". You should feed your fish as much food as they can completely finish in less than 5 minutes. It's really not much food at all. Also, you shouldn't feed them more than 2 times a day.

If all of this looks familiar to you, you may have another problem. Take a water sample to the pet store and have them test the sample. You should have the water balanced correctly before you put any more fish in there. Good luck!

EDIT:
I can see that you tried to do the right thing with your tank. The two fish that lived probably adapt more easily to changing conditions than others. I would recommend that you allow the tank to circulate water for another 5 days or so and see how your 2 fish are doing. Check your PH, amonia, and chlorine levels using a test kit. You may even want to take some water to the pet store to be analyzed. Wait to buy more fish until you have the water right, and then, only buy a few fish at a time. This will save you money and give your fish a chance to adjust to the new environment.

Answer 3

If you used proper water treatment and the fish were healthy and had plenty of room in the tank with no excessive feed the question can't be answered.
Do you want an answer ? Give information on all test and treatment you used on the water. Read the bottles and identify the chemicals. How did you clean the tank? what size is the tank? What fish did you put in the tank.? I may not be able to answer your question but this information will help someone give you an answer.
Get a pH test kit and read the pH of the water. Use the recommended chemical to raise or lower the pH to the desired level. Testing after treatment is very important. Water is not that different in Germany. The drinking water treatment in the Carolinias is different than it is in Florida or Utah. The standards they reach is very much the same. some cities use chlorine and Ammonia to kill micro organisms to avoid high THMs. If you did not test for Ammonia I would think that is what killed the fish. If you do not know what the pH was after the treatment then that is what killed the fish. Some of you suggested running the fish tank for days before putting your fish in the tank. Guess what they are right the carbon filter will take out the chlorine If you give it time. For Ammonia try the links below. Good luck.

Answer 4

You need to let your tank cycle. This means that it needs to start growing beneficial bacteria to process the ammonia and other nitrogenous wastes from excess food and fish.

This can take a month or two to complete. Some people prefer a fishless cycle, and some people like to add one or two fish every 7-10 days.

You will need to get a test kit and test ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and pH. All should be 0, except for the pH, which should be around 7.

As your tank matures, you will get a spike in the ammonia, this is normal. Your nitrites and nitrates will remain at zero. If you have a few fish in your tank, keep close tabs on the ammonia, and do a 25% water change if it stays in the dangerous range for over 24 hours. Water changes will increase the time for your tank to complete the cycle, but will save your fish.

After a few days, your ammonia will start to decrease and the nitrites will increase, the nitrates will stay at 0. Your goal is to have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and nitrates below 20.

The only way to get those numbers down is to allow the bacteria to multiply. Don't use a water conditioner that removes ammonia, you need that ammonia to feed the bacteria.

It can take many weeks to get an ammonia reading of 0, so patience is needed. Stock your tank slowly, and you will be rewarded with fewer fish deaths.

Answer 5

Let your tank run for a few more days before you add anymore fish. Check your filtration and make sure it is running properly. If after a couple more days, more fish die, take the tank completely down and clean aquarium. Do not use soap or any chemicals to clean the glass.

You may also want to buy a water tester kit that gives you the levels of nitrates, pH, hardness, etc. I have had several tanks and when I set up my first tank at my current location, I had a couple of fish die. I checked and rechecked....everything was right. Turns out the metal content of the tap water here....is terrible! Even treating it was not enough.

Since I started using Gallon Bottled Water to fill tank and treat that water....I have had no fish kills. So it could also be heavy metal content in your tap. Ask your local pet store (in same city or area) about the tap water.

Its a bit more expensive than tap water, but spring water in the gallon bottles for .62 cents a gallon has solved my problem. Maybe this will give you a few leads to check into.

Good Luck.

Answer 6

First off you might have shocked your fish too greatly because the water conditions were to drastic from that of the store. By this I mean your PH and temp were drastically different. You added a large number to the tank at once which also causes stress.

Most fish like water temps of around 75 to 79 degrees. You will need to check to see what your fish like. As for the PH most stores are about 7.0 or nutral. A lot of available water is around 7.6 so unless you treated your water this will add alot of stress.

Check your Amonia levels and do water changes if the level is too high. You don't need to bring it to 0 but it is good to keep it around .50 or less. Once your amonia drops you can then start looking at the Nitrites. continue to do water changes to keep that level below 1.0. When you notice the nitrites have droped then check the nitrates. Again keep doing water changes to keep them below 40. In time your tank will cycle(several weeks).

I recomment that you research what fish you have and are interested in to make sure that they are compatible.

Add Acquarium salt or stress coat to your tank. This will help the fish to adjust.

Good luck

Answer 7

You should let a tank and filter "mature" for anything from 7 days to 3 weeks before adding ONE fish.

You have made the classic mistake of rushing into it and the poor fish have paid the price for your excitement.

You should buy a 5 in one testing kit or take along a sample of the aquarium water to a REPUTABLE fish shop where they will test the water to test for ammonia and nitrate which are fatal to fish in high levels.

When adding fish you need to know the capacity of your tank in litres or gallons so that you can work out how many fish to stock in your tank and add them gradually, buy 1 if all goes well add another after 2 weeks and so on

DO NOT OVERSTOCK a tank no matter how tempting, remember fish will grow so take into account their adult size when calculation stocking levels.

Fish keeping is a very rewarding hobby but you must remember YOU are completely responsible for maintining your fish's environment water temperature is just one of the factors you need to be monitoring regularly.

Go to your local library and get a book on aquarium set up and fish keeping

good luck

Answer 8

You should have let your tank cycled a bit. How big is your tank? Usually cycling is the process where you leave your filter on and let everything run as if there were fish in there.
This should go on for a couple of days. Then you add your fish. If they still die then you are obviously doing something wrong like when I began my fish keeping, I just took a small (not even half a gallon) tank and threw 3 feeder goldfish in it just by pouring in water right out of the tap, not even thinking about letting it sit. Well good luck! ;)

Answer 9

we had the same problem-treated the water with a stress treatment & pond salt, something I thought was only to be used with salt water aquariums. We now use it in our outdoor pond & the indoor aquariums. Our fish lost over the last three years has been a total of 4 out of maybe 50 fish. Since using pond salt our KOI have started breeding

Answer 10

there's a therapy that i exploit in my tanks called "stress coat" it type of feels to assist. i might think of that in case you're taking a pattern of your tank water to quite plenty any puppy save, they'll try your water, freed from fee. maximum puppy shops that i know of do. additionally, with any luck you didnt flush those 3 ineffective fish, good probability the area you bought them from will replace them. I even have danios (glofish) and that they are 6 years old! Kinda finding puny because of old age, yet nevertheless very healthful. they're a hearty fish.