[absolute Beginner] What Went (or Is Going On) Wrong?

HI all, I'm new to the forum and I registered seeking some help or advice with my new aquarium and what possibly is currently going wrong with it . I must stress again that I'm an absolute beginner and somehow ended up in the whole "owning an aquarium" situation due to complicated events . Everything I've done so far was according to advice from the pet center store (although depending on the worker I've talked to sometimes their advice differed..).

I have a brand new Aquael Leddy 60 (54 liters) aquarium that comes with included filter, heater and a LED lamp. I also have an Aquael 100L air pump.

What I've done so far is, filled the tank with small white stones that I've rinsed beforehand, added a driftwood which I let sit in another bucket for a few days, added tap water, 3 live plants, Dajana Start Plus water preparation agent and 2 JBL Proflora balls into the soil, turn everything on and let it work like that for about a week and a half.

(noticed that a few snails started to appear, most likely introduced through the plants from the pet center store)

After week and a half, bought some additional plants, also got the following fishes which I added after everything was set up (not sure about all the names on English): 10 Cardinal Tetra, 6 Black Molly, 1 Siamese fighting fish (not sure if this is correct name, here we just call it Fighter). A few days after I added 1 Plecostomus (here we call it Cleaner fish?).

I keep the LED light on during the day and turn it off at evening. I feed them in the morning with a finger pinch of Dajana Colour Flakes and everything seemed to be in order for about a week

At this point I got some fishes as a present: 8 Guppy (male/female mix I think), 2 Scalar (not sure about name). Let the fish sit in the original plastic bag for about 30 min or so before releasing them into the aquarium. I do know that this is wrong, a few weeks of quarantine is needed and I just decided to risk it since the fishes come from the same source I was hopeful that it will be okay.

Act 2, problems being

Day after I've noticed one of the Guppies stuck to the filter intake, dead. Day after that another 2 Guppies died. All 3 of them were fairly big, compared to the other Guppies, maybe 3cm or a bit more. Some time during the day I did notice one Guppy constantly swimming at the top of the aquarium, not sure if it was one of the two that died.

I went to the pet center to ask about what to do and went back home with 3 more plants as the place still looked a bit empty, together with Easy-Life Filter-Medium (they said it's good and does 30+ good things to the water..) and Sera Omnipur medicine.

Added the first thing according to instructions and after 4-5 hours added the medicine. No fish dead that day.

Today I noticed on of the Tetras missing an entire tail (the translucent part at least), it struggled during the day but somehow swam around. At evening I noticed it now also misses one of the side fins and it was not able to swim properly or stay upright, it still floated around upside down, breathing (?) and moving one side fin. I decided to remove it and put it in the separate container where I added some medicine as well but I have no big hopes about the recovery, it's barely moving at the moment, doubt it will survive the night.

Apart from obvious initial quarantine mistake, where have I gone wrong? Is there too many of them? Do they not like each other? I didn't get the test kit as they only had pack of 50, all I know the temp is about 26/27C.

I have added the medicine again (they told me to do it for 3 days) and I hope there will be no more causalities .

Wall of text but I do hope someone will be willing to read and provide an advice, thank you!

 

Ammonia poisoning from not cycling your tank.... look up the nitrogen cycle . Get some Seachem Prime and Stability to try to do a fish in cycle....

 

As stated above, it's due to your tank not being cycled when you added fish. Letting the tank sit for a week and a half with no ammonia source doesn't get the cycle going. Now that you have ammonia being put into the tank (fish waste), your tank had began to cycle, causing spikes of ammonia I'm sure. Explains the guppy lingering around the top of the tank.

 

I may be wrong, but I was under impression that Dajana Start Plus did just that, I did write that it was added at start and it was running without any fishes for almost 2 weeks :/.

 

So I looked up Dajana plus. It is a water conditioner that just reduces the chlorine in the water. It has no effect on ammonia and dose not contain beneficial bacteria. You need to get a test kit to measure nitrites nitrates and ammonia. The prime will temporarily make the ammonia non toxic and stability or tetra Safestart will add beneficial bacteria. You will learn and hope your fish will be ok.
Dajana makes a product called Biofilter- that will work to get your tank going

 

without a test kit you don't know if your tank is cycled or not. you need a test kit that will test pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrates.

 

I see, slowly loosing faith in the pet center workers and their knowledge.. as they told me that's all I need for start .

Sadly it doesn't look like I can find Prime or Stability locally, I will look for alternatives tomorrow.
I'm worried I may have multiple overlapping products:
- Dajana Start plus when I change 30% of water
- Easy life filter medium once a month
- Omnipur 2 out of 3 days treatment done

Safe to add Dajana Biofilter on top of that now and hope for the best?
Should I change water more often now than once a week?

Thank you for all your replies and help!

 

HI Wexy, I think we've all been stung by listening to 'experts' in the shops were we buy our fish... and we have all learnt really hard lessons because of it so you're definitely not alone! I'm currently in the middle of an absolute nightmare because I listened to the wrong advise.

If you can't find prime or stability, I would try to get the test kit to keep an eye on your ammonia/nitrite levels and do daily water changes to keep the ammonia diluted.

I also found this thread about Prime alternatives, possibly could help: https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfi...-alternative-that-does-the-same-thing.224671/

I believe fish can withstand 0.25ppm ammonia but not long term and higher then that will start to have ill effect on your fish. So you want to keep it under control to avoid ammonia or nitrite poisoning.

 

Can you clarify.. at one point you had 28 fish in a 11 gal tank (54 litre) with a pleco too?
Uncycled is one problem but your tank is too small for this many fish. Correct me if I read your post wrong and welcome to Fishlore!

10 Tetra
6 Molly
1 Betta
1 Pleco
8 Guppies
2 Scalar Angel Fish

 

Totally agree with Elkwatcher, way too many fish for that size tank. I have a 90L tank with four dalmation Mollies, and they alone are about 50% of the capacity of the tank (and they are dwarf mollies)...

Check out this site for an idea on what your stocking levels can be with your size tank.

Tony.

 

Thank you all!

Unfortunately the Tetra died during the night and this morning also my "Fighting fish", he was pretty lazy last few days mostly hiding and even laying on the plants (something he did even from start so I didn't pay much attention to it), I barely managed to wake him up yesterday.. dad found him dead this morning and says he didn't come for food last 2-3 days which he omitted to tell me though.

Elkwatcher
The fish numbers are correct.
I've used thecalculator now and came up with this:
With manually added the sizes and if I got the species correctly with the current count it should be borderline okay until they grow, depending how many survive the current situation.. but it will be a problem later on definitely.

I kept getting quite different advice from the pet store (ofc they just wanna sell more), ranging from 1L for 1cm of fish size to.. "you can put 50 tetras np", now I know better the hard way..

Found Prime/Stability in a different city but I will try and ask for an alternative so that I don't wait on delivery.. going out to get the test kit at least to know where I stand.

 

Sorry you lost the tetra, I didn't notice your other questions. "Should I change water more often now than once a week?"

Until you know your tank has cycled (which you won't know until you can test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) I would recommend you do at a minimum daily 25% water changes.

When you say you are using omnipur 2 out of three days, what is that? If I search omnipur I get (drinking) water filters...

Danja start plus seems to be a declorinator so you would not need to use it if you use prime.

Dajana Biofilter appears to be bottled beneficial bacteria. I've not seen it before so cannot comment whether it works well or not. I personally have used Fluval Cycle, and Nutrafin Cycle successfully. I think it would definitely be a good idea to add some form of beneficial bacteria to the tank. I've not used tetra safe start before, but have seen it recommended, however it seems to be one of those products that recommends not doing water changes, so I think for fish in cycling I would go with one of the options where you add the bacteria each day, both the fluval and nutrafin are that type, not sure about the Dajana. I've just checked Seachem stability and it is the same sort of product as the fluval and nutrafin cycle, if you can get that, then I would use that in preference to the Dajana, simply because I don't know dajana, but Seachem products have a great reputation.

Tony.

 

I'm back with some data, not sure if I identified it correctly, especially the 3 purple squares for GH so I added the s too (I assume GH falls within OK values if first one or two are green).

NO₃ mg/l: 25 (wasn't able to see clearly but at start I think it might have gone even up to 50, now it faded a bit)
NO₂ mg/l: 0 - 1
GH: >10°d - >16°d
       >10°d - >16°d
       >10°d - >16°d
KH: 6°d
pH: ~7.6
Cl₂ mg/l: 0

Wasn't able to find recommended products in the store so they gave me this to put every 1/7/14 days:
Easy-Life Easystart Filter Starter

wintermute
This is the medicine they gave me, should cover most common diseases. Now they told me they will give me something more specific if I notice more fishes with missing fins/tails:

 

OK the omnipur is medicine. It might be helpful when the fish are stressed and their immune system is weakened, but if everything is good environmentally it shouldn't be necessary.

I'm a bit surprised that your test strips don't have ammonia (NH3) as one of the things that they test for. It would be good to do a test of your tap water as well, to get a comparison of the NO2 and NO3 readings (nitrite and nitrate).

If your tap water is zero for both then it looks positive as far as your cycle is going. If the cycle is complete the N02 reading from the tank water should be zero.

Your GH seems quite hard. I'm colour blind so can't really help with the interpretation of the result. at 10 - 16 it should be fine for the molly's, guppy's and pleco I think but I'm not sure about the tetras and angel fish.

Keep an eye on the nitrites and nitrates, whilst the nitrites are present I would keep doing daily water changes. Lets see what others recommend, but I think 25% should be ok. That will help keep the nitrates low too. You ideally want to keep the nitrates below 40, and if possible aI'm for 20. Water changes are the main thing you will need for keeping nitrates in check (long term), with the stock levels you have I would think you would need at least 50% water changes a week to keep the nitrates under control.

Tony.

 

I just checked the water I use for changing (it's tap water but it stayed about 3 days in the container as we have chlorinated water on tap so I don't use it directly).

Values are somewhat similar except pH is ~7.2, NO₂ is 0 and NO₃ is between 0 and 10.

Meanwhile, one more tetra died :/.

 

OK good that the nitrites are zero and the nitrates low in the source water. I wish we knew what the ammonia levels were. Your nitrates are higher than your source water so that means that your cycle has started.

What were the symptoms of the tetra before it died?

Tony.

 

I did notice one of them lingering in the corner above the filter, but I'm not sure if it was that one. A bit strange fin movements for what I would consider normal like.. 2 swings per second instead of constant swinging if that makes sense . 30 min later I found one at the bottom, tail down/head up, almost lost all of it's orange/blue color and at first I though one of my female guppies died. Nothing else unusual.. maybe a bit puffy eyes? I'm really only guessing at this point.

Curiously the first guppy that died was also lingering in that corner and near the top of the water. The only physical signs I saw was on the first tetra that missed both tail and one side fin.

After guppies died, 2 days ago I did add one dose of that Easy-Life Filter Medium, 2x Omnipur medicine and one dose of Easy-Life Easystart bacteria that I got today, maybe a water change is due after all of that stuff?

 

I think with the unknown situation with ammonia and some nitrites showing, a 25% water change would be a good idea. Some may say 50%, you could perhaps do 25% now and another 25% a few hours later, I'm not sure if your tetras, if already stressed, could handle a 50% water change in one go.

Tony.

 

I see, slowly loosing faith in the pet center workers and their knowledge.. as they told me that's all I need for start .

Sadly it doesn't look like I can find Prime or Stability locally, I will look for alternatives tomorrow.
I'm worried I may have multiple overlapping products:
- Dajana Start plus when I change 30% of water
- Easy life filter medium once a month
- Omnipur 2 out of 3 days treatment done

Safe to add Dajana Biofilter on top of that now and hope for the best?
Should I change water more often now than once a week?

Thank you for all your replies and help!

Now, I'm not sure on how knowledgeable those employees were, but you cannot expect them to give you all the information you need to start your aquarium unless they've got some kind of care sheet available. I work at an LFS, it's not that we're bad and we don't care enough to explain some things to some customers. We just simply don't have the time to explain everything that is going to happen in your brand new tank - because there is a lot that goes on in the cycle. There is information all over the internet if you just google "Setting up and starting a new aquarium." Don't lose faith in the retail workers because they didn't explain the nitrite cycle to you...Half the time when I explain it, I just confuse newbie hobbyists even more.

Grab a test kit, test your water, google the nitrogen cycle, If ammonia or nitrite (its going to be ammonia at this point) test higher than .5, than a water change is in order. Ammonia and nitrite above .5ppm is toxic to fish, you'd remedy it by doing a water change. You'll just want to keep an eye on your water parameters for the next 4-5 weeks until your cycle finishes and everything naturally balances out to zero.

Depending on how many fish are currently in the tank, you may want to remove some or donate some back - this is a regularly occurring newbie mistake. You added too many fish all at once without cycling the tank, so the ammonia is spiking. It's okay though, we all learn. Just know that when you're stocking a tank, it's better to add 2 fish to start, then 3 weeks later, you'd start stocking the tank, 3 fish every week or so until your tank is completely stocked. Even after the tank is cycled, adding 10 fish or so at once could still cause an ammonia spike, less is more with fish keeping.

You should only change the water when your test kit tells you you need to at this point, if you start doing water changes willy nilly without knowing where your cycle is, you'll stall the cycle and it could take months before the cycle actually completes. (See, there is just TOO MUCH info for a retail associate to tell you, you have to do the research). So, Test your water maybe once every 2-3 days, keep an eye on your parameters and if they're reaching around .5ppm, that's when you need to do a water change. If you're noticing you're doing a water change but the reading isn't changing much between changes, you may want to take more water during the change. (I agree with above, I'd start with 25% and see where that gets you, if that's not doing the job, I'd up it to 40 or 50%.)

Last but no least, If you have access to it, a beneficial bacteria supplement should help as well. (things like tetra safestart, marineland biospira, or fluval cycle are all examples). These products add the benefical bacteria (that you're waiting to grow to naturally eat all that excess ammonia and nitrite) immediately. So it gives your cycle a little pre-existing boost (it adds bacteria that'll eat the ammonia and nitrite until the natural bacteria begins to grow and multiply on its own, which is what you're waiting for in the cycle).

If you haven't done a water change yet, then yes, absolutely you should do a water change. First you should test your ammonia but We're all agreeing that your ammonia is probably spiking, Symptoms of an ammonia spike in fish is that they go to the top of the aquarium and start gasping for air at the surface, you may see red or inflamed gills as well.

You said you had a siamese fighting fish? Do you mean a betta? if your other fish are missing fins, it could be the betta nipping at them.

 

Understandable, I was a bit harsh and generalizing .

Today a girl working there said that it was most likely someone from a different department (it's a huge place with sections for various pets) that didn't know much except basics that assisted me at first. The guy who helped me start told me Dajana Start Plus has bacteria and all but it turned out not to be true, so my tank was idling for 2 weeks w/o anything happening in it . I even planned to buy the fish that time but he said no no wait 2 weeks, except, no bacteria source .

I did recently change 30% of water, just after I added the guppies maybe 3-4 days ago. I just looked at all the tetras and I do not see anything unusual on them.

And yes, I did have the fighting fish (died today), just one tetra was missing complete tail and one side fin but I'm not really sure how that happened.. as he was very peaceful, he only occasionally went near pleco and nudged him a bit. Of course I dunno what happened at night .

I guess I will have to get a separate ammonium test kit as well.

 

Yes ammonia is an essential test. If you are seeing hI levels of ammonia or nitrites you need to do a water change as a matter of urgency. Once the aquarium is cycled, they should both stay at zero unless something happens to change the load, or to cause your BB to die off. At first sign of any problems though ph, ammonia and nitrite should be the first suspects. Nitrates are less problematic, but should be tested at least weekly before a water change to ensure that the water changes you are doing are keeping them at reasonable levels.

Tony.

 

Troubles continue, this morning I see one of the guppies floating on top with somewhat bent body and the tail is kinda falling apart.
This specific guppy had an unusual tail to begin with when it came, I didn't think much of it.. It was very active until now.

Today pH dropped a bit 6.8-7.2, rest is kinda same NO₃ is ~25, NO₂ is 0. Can't check ammonia yet.

I think this is a male right? Should I move him out?
I've already added the medicine which should help with fin rot for 3 days now but it's not only for that disease, should I get a specific medicine for that as well, will it even help at this point?

Managed to snap some pictures:

 

Have you done any water changes yet? You need an ammonia test as a matter of priority. Medicine will not do any good if the cause is ammonia. You will be treating symptoms rather than the cause of the problem.

It is odd with your KH being quite high that your ph has dropped. Something is not adding up.

Tony.

 

Didn't change the water yet.
I have added that Easy Life - Easystart bacteria yesterday, could have that affected the pH?

Also noticed one tetra maybe having some damage to the fins, very minute but it's there.

Getting ready to go to the store and get the ammonia test now, will report back .

 

ok that's good. Maybe take some water with you to get tested at the store too.

I doubt that the addition of bacteria could cause the ph to drop. Is the KH still reading 6 degrees? My KH is 4 degrees and my PH is very stable. If the KH is due to additives in the water supply, then perhaps the carbonates have been depleted. Ask at the shop whether they have a small amount of crushed coral chunks, a handful or so added to the filter should ensure your KH doesn't deplete, and your pH doesn't drop.

I really think water changes is what your fish need right now, but the ammonia test should confirm.

Tony.

 

NH4 is ~0.5 mg/l and according to my pH NH3 should be ~0.003 mg/l.

According to provided charts it says it's harmless.

I've shown the pictures of the sick guppy and tetra with some damage to the fins to the store worker and she said it's some bacterial problem and gave me sera baktopur direct to add every 2nd day for 3 days.

I will swap a bit of water now and add it.

 

OK that's good that it is mostly NH4, but it does indicate that the tank is still cycling. Definitely do the water change. The fish will have got the bacterial infection due to stress, likely sources are ammonia and nitrites in the water, but can also be from other factors, such as rehoming, other fish scaring them, etc. Once their immune system is compromised they can deteriorate rapidly.

I bought 10 cardinal tetras on the weekend, and four of them died in the first three days. Water parameters were near perfect. The verdict from some video I posted was that they probably had columnaris. It's present pretty much all the time but if the fish gets stressed it can take hold. This is the first time in 20+ years of fish keeping I've lost a new fish, and to lose four was a bit disheartening. The remaining six seem to be doing fine though touch wood. The fish may already have been sick when I got them, but they also could have succumed to the bacteria because of the stress of being caught at the LFS, transported home in a bag, stuck in a new environment with different fish to what were iused to at the LFS, water chemistry differences, or any number of other things.

But first and foremost is water quality. Get that under (and keep it under) control and you will be in a much better position to provide your fish with a great home. You have the tools you need to monitor the quality of the water now, so whilst the cycle is still progressing I would do daily tests for both the ammonia and the nitrites (if your ammonia stays as mostly ammonium you probably don't need to worry about it) nitrites approaching 1 should be a signal to do a partial water change. Also keep an eye on the nitrates, and if they are approaching 40 then you also want to do a water change.

Also be aware if your pH swings back up again (I still don't understand why it dropped) that some of that ammonium will start converting to ammonia which will start to stress the fish again.

Tony.

 

As well as getting the product to add the beneficial bacteria as people have stated above you can look into getting ammo lock, it will convert your ammonia into a less toxic chemical long enough for your bacteria to turn it into nitrites, it’s not a fix for ammonia but it will help with the toxicity level of it. I had a betta at one point (Siamese fighting fish) when I was first starting the Hoby and I did the same thing not fully understanding the nitrogen cycle and the ammo lock was able to keep his fin rot from getting worse (which was caused by the poor water quality of an un-cycles tank) and allowed time for him to heal. Hope this helps!

 

Well the sick guppy unfortunately died.

As per instructions (for intense treatment) on the medicine I took him out and put in 2L of same tank water with a whole tablet diluted for 30 mins, he was upside down, sometimes moving but mostly lingering on the bottom. Some time before I put him back to the main tank he actually started swimming normally and upright but not for long. Eventually sank to the bottom and died . It was way too late I think. I also have one tablet in the main tank fully diluted by now so I hope rest of the fish will be okay at the end of treatment and that this will finally put the stop to this awful situation.

I did just start with the tank but the fishes were kinda okay from what I could tell for a week or a bit more, the issues started day after I added additional guppies and scalars when one of the guppies turned up dead. I suspect that maybe that's how the disease was introduced into the tank but who knows..

 

I think the crisis has stopped . No dead fishes for the last 4 days, now I've added the last dose of medicine and changed some water as well.
Overall fishes seem more active and they come to the front of the aquarium if I get near it. I hope there won't be any further issues

Took some measurements again before water change, to me this looks OK.

temp: ~25-27 (quite hot here last few days and depending on A/C being on or off it can go up and down)
NO₃ 25 mg/l
NO₂ 0
NH₄ 0
NH₃ 0
GH 10°d - 16°d
KH 6°d
pH 7.2
Cl₂ 0 mg/l

Thank you all for your help and advice in this ordeal!