caymansarah

a week or so ago I started using med for a fish with mouth rot, plus my pH was low - I took driftwood out and used an API Triple Sulfa.

Since dosing my water went soft and my cycle was ruined....ammonia levels went up.

The fish died anyway so I stopped doning 2 days ago and have been doing 40% water chage each day and using Amquel to try to lower the toxicity.

nWhen I was changing the water today I notice the tank smells foul. And then this afternoon all the fish are dying - all the fry born yesterday have died, the remaining neon is swimming aorund upside down and the platies are all lying on the bottom. I am going to lose the lot - ammonia level today was 5.

I am currently going to change nearly all the water to try to get the ammonia - out but is this what would be making this happen - and so suddenly and fast? What else can I do - help!!!!!

smells really bad - like eggs

katetnies

i think your best bet is to get an ammonia decreaser from a petstore and do regular water changes (25% a week) as far as dosing goes i suggest melafix. works very well.

as for the smell it could be the dead fish. or do you have any plants in your tank?

caymansarah

yes I have plants and I noticed today that they are looking sick too.

Lucy

Gosh, I'm really sorry you've lost so many fish.
Dead fish will shoot your ammonia levels up. I see that you're using Stress Zyme, I'm not keen on a product that claims to help cycle but you have to keep adding it. That tells me it's not self sustaining and dies off quickly. It may also inhibit the growth of bacteria you need when a tank cycles using a source of ammonia rather than additives.
If the PH dropped or rose quickly, this can also cause a lot of stress to the fish, possibly killing them.

Daily water changes and the use of a conditioner that detox's ammonia rather than removing it (Like Prime) until you get your cycle back.

Adding an airstone might help the fish breathe a little better, but ammonia poisoning is rough on fish.

Good luck.

caymansarah

sorry correction - ammonia level was 0.5, ph5, gh5, ni 0, na 0

before using the meds ph was 6-6.5, GH 12, am0, ni0 and na 5. I am so gutted.

Lucy

0.5 is way different than 5. Whew.
I'd still do daily changes with prime.

katetnies

the smell is most likely from the plants. i find that when plants are dying the smell rotten

lew2000

Also you will get a slight sulfurus (sp) with amquel and prime, but it is not a problem.

caymansarah

OK.....thanks everyone - by the time I had answers I had drained 80% of the water in a panic.....but since changing it now have 0 ammonia, so even if that gives the fish a bit of a respite that should help....ph is still 5 which is odd because the tap water is 7-7.5 and I did such a big change.

Neon didn't survive and I am afraid that I have lost all of the babies that were born yesterday but I won't find all their bodies because they hide themselves in the gravel - I can see a few around the edges - waaah!!!

amquel is supposed to reduce ammonia but I haven't seen any obvious sucessful results...maybe I will pick up melafix......and all this becaue I tried to cure one fish with a case of mouth rot.....

caymansarah

Amazing how the remaining fish have perked up since the mega water change - they are all swimming around with their fins up - unfortunately my female swordtail had developed fungus on her fins which will need treating.

The other good thing was that my guy at the fish shop has told me to bring all of my fish in for him to care for while I get my water straight and he will also test my water for me...he is also mystified why my ph stayed at 5 despite ay 80% waterchange when my tap water is 7.5,,,,very strange.

Mind you he thinks the fish got ill because of the ph - I know better because of their improvement after my panic change.

agabr123

if you have gouramis in the tank make sure you don't use melafix. other than that i would just keep up with the water changes, everyone else has already given great advice

caymansarah

not looking good this morning....the young platies have disappeared and the 3 adults all have fungus - one has fungus on both eyes - poor thing...

so I will do another change today and I am using melafix (no gouramis) and amquel - which I think does the same job as prime. and then I guess cross my fingers but I suspect that I will have 0 fish by tomorrow...

agabr123

i'm really sorry to hear that, you may want to look into using Pimafix as well, it's meant to work with melafix and may be able to treat your fish more specifically.

caymansarah

OK so the 3 platies have gone to the pet store for safe keeping while i get things straight. A couple of observations and questions though....I noticed that through this episode all on my snails died and some of my plants as well.

I have been using melafix for the last 2 days and today I did 25% water change. The readings are

ph 5, gh 2!!!!!, am 0 - 0.25 (better), ni 0, na 0.....

But my main question is how could my PH stay at 5 when I did an 80% change on saturday with 7.5ph water?

And how has my water gone from 14gh to 2? Could ammonia or ph have softened the water that much?

agabr123

do you have driftwood in the tank? what kind of substrate do you have? that's the only thing i can think of that would drop the pH that much. what chemicals do you add to the tank?

cerianthus

What pH test kit are you using to which can tell you such low pH accurately. It may be 6.0 or slightly lower than 6.0?

Even if NH3 is present, at such low pH would not worry too much. Would recommend small daily water change which will lower the NH3 (ammonia) and at same time should automatically bring up the pH (your tap is above neutral)rather than using NH3 detoxifyer. NH3 at such low pH is harmless but as pH is raised higher, NH3 will become more toxic (pH of 7.6 is cuttoff point if memory serves thus do not raise above 7 in presence of NH3).
Thus continue water change and monitor. Once pH is up to desired level and no presence of NH3, NO2, for few days/week then try to stablize the pH using bagful of crushed coral/shells or by adding buffers. Bagful of crushed coral/shell should be removed when not needed.
Hope remining fish are okay!

caymansarah

Thank you - I took the driftwood out about 2 weeks ago and I just have gravel as substrate. The test kit is an API brand that only goes down to 5 so when I say 5 it could well have gone below that.

Nate McFin

My API kit only goes down to 6. ?

cerianthus

I doubt that API test will give that accurate reading that low. Besides, I doubt any fish will be alive at such pH (at 5 or lower) other than fish out of such low pH which i doubt you had. I have used digital (electronic) pH monitor and controller and have verified at least from my experiences that biological activity cease to be active around 5.8 thus increase in NH3 and sometimes NO2.
You may not want to hear what I have to say but i think either driftwood may have caused low pH but also neglecting the tank may have dont this.
If your tap is 7-7.5(?) as you said, then routine weekly or twice/week water changes may have prevented such low pH or either that not testing regularly to catch the problem before casulties took place.
Hopefully this will be learning experience for you which will benefit your future fish down the road.
Dont feel too bad as we all have been there one time or another.

caymansarah

OOps sorry my ph one is Tetratest Laborette....everything else is API.

caymansarah

Wooo hooo - I did it! so current status:

I have 1 surviving female swordtail (healthy) and one mickey mouse at the pet shop (still a bit ill but getting better). The other Mickey mouse was killed because they put her in with aggressive fish - grrrr.

In my tank I have 2 mickey mouse fry and one single solitary surviving baby swordtail( I was so excited to see it because they were born the night before everything started dying and I thought that I had lost the lot)

The plants look rough and I have since been told by the pet shop that I should have removed them before medicating (nice to know now)

but I have no ammonia (well with 3 tiny fry not surprising really) and best of all my PH is 6.5 after I added some crush coral substrate in a bag to my filter that I scammed off the pet shop (I didn't need a huge bag of the stuff!)

So today I plan to get my female swordtail back and might wait a bit for the mickey mouse until she is 100% better. I am so excited!

my tank is back! wooo hooooooo!

I will not be using triple sulpha to medicate again..... can anyone suggest a medication for fungus that will not kill my bacteria?

cerianthus

Glad to hear things are back i order. Hopefully you will monitor water condition well so you dont have to use the med.
I doubt if triple sulfa cause loss of your bio-activities. I would think this may have started due to low pH.
Anyway, if needed, look into Fungus Cure by same Co.