OzzyFan

Problem: A few fish are swimming on an angle off vertical (rather than vertically). The tank is new, and the affected fish include Neon Tetras, Black Phantom Tetras, Koi Angelfish, and at least one Guppy. I saw one of the neons swim straight up and start to lean backward for a second the other day.

Any idea what the problem is? Here's the background info:

-25 gallons
-Filled about 55% with water on Jan 4th or 5th; filled remainder the next day
-Filter, heater, light installed Jan. 8th
-Replaced approx. 2 gallons with water from a friend's established freshwater tank on Jan. 11th
-A few hours later, went to pet store and bought some equipment and fish:
-Added 4 capfuls of Cycle
-Added 4.5 capfuls of AquaPlus
-Added 22lbs gravel (rinsed first)
-Added granite ornament (rinsed first)
-Added 5 neon tetras, 5 leopard danios, and 5 male guppies:
-Replaced about 1 cup of bag water with tank water, twice over about 60 minutes, then added each fish to the tank via net, being careful not to add bag water to tank.
Jan. 13th: Bought 14 more small fish and 3 plants:
-2 male guppies, 5 female guppies, 1 male lyretail sword, 1 female highfin sword, 3 black phantom tetras, 2 koi angelfish
-1 Amazon sword, 1 Ruffle sword, 1 Windelove? fern
Jan. 15th: One of the first male guppies died, after hovering near bottom with mouth opening/closing rapidly previous evening. Mouth appeared slightly ragged. Another guppy purchased from same tank in the store seems fine.

Lucy

Wow Ozzy, you have been busy. You will find a lot of wonderfully helpful articles and people here.
First, read this:
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

I'm a beginner myself, so I will yield to the other more experienced people on this forum.
Good luck with your tank.

MasterShake2003

From what I know, I would say first off, you tank is most likely not cycled. Do you have a test kit? If not, go out and get one as soon as possible. Make sure it tests for ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels.

Secondly, you have waaaaaaay to many fish for a 25 gallon tank. Odds are, your fish are suffering from ammonia poisioning due to the lack of beneficial bacteria in your tank.

The rule of thumb is one inch of mature fish per gallon of water in your tank. So, if a lyre tail molly at full maturity reaches 5 inches in length, he'll require at least 5 gallons of water. Remember this is a general rule. 25 neon tetras would probably not be really happy in a 25 gallon tank. The rule is meant to be a guide.

Also, when you acclimate fish to your tank, you never ever want to put more than 3 to 4 fish in at a time. If you read in that article, it will explain that more fish mean more fish poo and more fish poo means more ammonia. When you add fish, the bacteria in your tank will become more numerous and be able to handle the waste your new fish are adding to the water and the tank will be stable. However, when you put in 14 fish in one day, the bacteria can't handle the added ammonia levels.

Read that article Lucy posted, it is quite possibly the most important information you need to know and understand before you put any fish into your tank.

What I would recommend is to immediately return your fish to the store you purchased them or if you have a friend, see if they can care for them in their tank. If not, it is possible you will lose all your fish over the next few days.

The guppy you wrote about near the end of your post was exhibiting signs of ammonia poisioning (red, inflammed gills, rapid breathing, gasping for air).

I hope this helps. Go out tonight, if you can, and get even some dip strips that test for 6 parameters in one. They are not the most reliable andyou will eventually want to get a better kit, but they are considerably cheaper and will give you semi-accurate results.

Also, do a 50-70% water change right away, this will get the ammonia levels back down under control. You will need to perform a 50% water change daily until you get the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels down to acceptable levels. Ammonia should be 0ppm, Nitrite should be 0 PPM and Nitrate should be between 5 and 10 ppm.

Hope this helps and good luck!!!

OzzyFan

^ I've read the nitrogen cycle article a few times. I guess my impatience and the fact that the store had deals like "5 neons for 5 dollars" on almost every fish species I looked at, plus another page on FishLore saying that pretty much every species I was considering likes to be in schools of 6 or more...

How do I perform a water change--of any percent---without first treating the new water for chlorine and all the other fish-killers that come with tapwater? What is the standard method for changing water, especially if you have to do it so frequently in the first x number of weeks?

EDIT: I bought a vacuum for the tank as well, so would now be a wise time to vacuum the tank, given (a) the short number of days that the tank has been occupied, (b) the number of fish in the tank, and (c) the rate of feeding?

Also, how often and how much should I be feeding these fish? I have 28, most are less than 2 inches long, the guppies are easily the most ravenous whereas the phantom tetras and the male swordtail hardly ever come to the surface...? I've gone by the "feed as much as they'll eat in 2 minutes, several times a day" rule so far, but it LOOKS like the guppies and danios get the bulk of the food. Is there a sinking food for bottom-dwellers like neons and black phantoms?

MasterShake2003

OK, that gravel vacuum you bought, use that and just remove about 50% of the water from the tank. I assume it's the kind you have to shake up and down to start? Drain that water into a bucket. You'll want to stick the tube into the gravel and you'll see a bunch of brown gunky stuff come up. Keep sticking the hose into the gravel and removing it to let the gravel fall back down. Repeat over as much of the bottom of the tank as possible until you have removed 50% of the water.

You will then take that same bucket and fill it up with tap water (I get mine from the bath tub in a 5 gal. bucket). Treat this water with whatever solution you use (i.e. Prime) to remove the chlorine and chloramine from the water. Then just put this water into your tank.

With 28 fish in your 25 gal tank, you're going to need to take some of those fish back. Try and get it down to about 4 fish if you can. The key with keeping an aquarium, like most hobbies, is patience.

Once your tank is established and stable, you can start adding more fish up to 3 at a time. Now, again, this is a general rule and meant to be a guide. For examble, adding 6 or 7 swordtail at once can be very hard on your tank, where as adding 6-7 neon tetras won't be as hard. You just have to use your better judgement. Most schooling fish are rather small, so if you were to add a school of 6 neons to your tank at one time, you'd probably be fine, AFTER the tank becomes established.

Now, with only a 25 gal tank, you will only really be able to have one type of schooling fish, plus a few others, or two larger schools of two types. A school of 6 neons, 2 swordtails, 3 guppies and a platy would be a beautiful, colorful, active display.

Keep up on those water changes and try to take some of those fish back to your LFS asap, for the sake of you fishes!!! Remember, patience, rome wasn't built in a day and a beautiful aquarium takes time and work. You'll get the hang of it. Ask away if you have any more questions.

EDIT: Sorry, I never really answered your question on feeding. Keep this in mind: A fish's stomach is only as big as it's eyeball!!!! I tend to feed my fish twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening. Occasionally I will skip feeding them one day a week. Fish can actually live up to 2 weeks without feeding. Most livebearers are omnivorus, eating veggies and protein. A high quality flake food will do for most that fall into this group. However, once you get everything running smoothly, you may want to vary their diet a bit. I use TetraColor crisps as my flake food and I supplement that with freeze-dried Tetra bloodworms as well as Tetra Cyclop-eeze Micro Crabs and Frozen bloodworms from time to time. Just remember to keep the protein lower than the vegetables. Bloodworms are a great treat for fish, and you will se they go CRAZY for them, but they need vegetables in their diet more than the meat. I break up my flakes/crisps a little bit because they tend to be too big for most of my fish to handle. All the foods I've listed should be available at most and pet store/fish store. Hikari are also another excellent brand of foods, but they are hard for me to find where I live.

So, feed your fish very lightly for the next few days while you try to get your tank stabilized. I found when I fist started, what I usually fed my fish was way too much, so try to keep it where you think you have given them just a little less than you would think. For the next week or so, maybe try and feed them just every other day just a small pinch to pinch and a half of food.

Keep us posted on how things are going. Lots of great people here will be more than happy to help you out.

COBettaCouple

Welcome to FishLore.

To best get the tank going, I would recommend returning some fish to get your tank population to 1 adult inch of fish per gallon. For your 25g tank, you want a max of 25" (adult size). This applies to fish that only get to 3-5" or less really. Bigger fish, like common Plecos, need much more.

Pick up some Prime to use for tap water conditioner and do 25% water changes every other day. Test the water before the water change to track your progress. You can treat the water before adding it to the tank by putting treatment in jugs or buckets and filling them up with tap water.

We clean our substrate once a week. We feed our fish twice a day, each time feeding half of a daily portion. You could put food in different areas of the tank to give them all more chance to eat. There are sinking wafers, but remove any uneaten portions within 12-24 hours.

OzzyFan

Alright, today, a very pregnant-looking guppy died. Yesterday she was hovering near the top of the aquarium, next to a big plant leaf, and did not swim out to eat when I fed them. Today she was sitting at the bottom, and when I checked back a few times, she'd be face down on the gravel, and eventually she died, so I removed her. Her belly was not smooth on the bottom; it was as if each row of scales had peeled off somewhat, in the same pattern, row after row. I'll draw a picture if anyone's interested.

Anyway, I vaccumed some of the bottom and did a 20% water change today; I didn't have enough AquaPlus to change more. I'll go get some water conditioner tomorrow.

How long does the conditioner have to sit in the bucket of tapwater for it to be conditioned adequately?

COBettaCouple

I'm sorry to hear that you lost her. I'm not sure what her ailment was, but it does sound swim-bladder related or it could be a pregnancy-death, which does happen with livebearers.

Tap water conditioners should make the water ready for use right away.

Blub

capekate

Using 4 cap fulls of both Cycle and Aqua Plus probably was way too much for your 25g tank. Also you added a lot of fish at each time, disrupting your nitrogen cycle, if the tank was cycled. But that short of time, I do not see how it could have been.
Sorry to hear about your loss of your guppy. Is there any way you can return some of those fish for credit that you can use after your tank cycles, and you can start to re introduce your fish, but fewer at a time?
Also I agree, that there is too many different species of fish in your tank and you can probably do better with fewer but more of each species.
Good luck with your tank...
~ kate

OzzyFan

Tonight, when I came home from the Ozzy concert, one of my koi angelfish was dead in the filter intake slots. It wasn't behaving strangely the last time I saw it, but that was a good 8 hours earlier...so I don't know why this one died. Maybe the "not swimming vertically" was a symptom. I assume this will continue day by day until only the strongest survive. So I'm down to 26 fish now.

Regarding the guppy, dropsy does seem to fit.

Regarding Cycle and AquaPlus, the bottles said to use that much.

I don't know if it's worth the effort to try to bring some of them back, to be honest. Call me cruel, a Nazi, or whatever, but I'd just as soon let nature take its course and see how it goes. I guess the justification is that the fish are cheap.

Regarding species diversity in a tank...is it bad to mix a lot of species, provided they're compatible and you have enough space to do it?

Regarding feeding, I only fed them twice today, and less than they could eat in two minutes. I figured if excess food is causing the problem, and if fish really can survive for days without food (and it makes sense that in the wild, they have a lot less food)...then maybe they can afford to have a bit less. My only concern has been that if I don't put enough food in, the more passive fish won't have any food left to eat.