Please Help!!! What Did I Do Wrong???

Good Morning everyone!

my tank is going crazy and 1 fish was dead this morning!
here's my story:
last night I went to the fish store and purchased 7 neon tetras and enough biospira for 90gals. I was using cycle before and the advice that I got here was to do 50% water change and then add biospira.
Last night when I got home I did about 60% water change and I added all the biospira in the tank. I also added 7 neon tetras that I purchased. The water was very cloudy which I thought was because of the water change (and I think I'm right?). This morning when I woke up there was a dead neon tetra!!! and I checked the water chemistry and here are my results (which shocked me!):
ammonia: 8.0
nitrite: 5.0
nitrate: .25
ph: 6.6
**by the way I use the liquid kit to check for water chemistry**

The ammonia is WAY too high and this morning I didn't have time to do a water change which I'm not even sure I'm supposed to do because I heard that you when you add biospira you should not do a water change for 7days but supposely the ammonia should not be higher than .20ppm.
Can somebody tell me what I did wrong??
Was it that I added too many fish in the tank???
Before leaving my house I added ammolock but I'm not sure that's going to be enough.

Please advise!!!
What should I do now??
Did I maybe just checked the water too early for the Biospira to start working?

 

bio spira isn't instant. I think you probably should've waited about a week before bringing home fish. your fish is likely dead from the bad water parameters. good news is that that will get better a lot faster with the bio spira. bad news is that unless you want more fish to die, you're going to have to do lots of water changes until things stabilize. I would suggest 50% immediately, and probably a minimum of 25% daily or at least every other day (but I would base that on the readings...)

neons are pretty sensitive to toxins... you really gotta get those numbers down, despite the bio-spira pkg saying no water changes.

also, something to be aware of is that some ammonia-lock type products are not safe to use with bio spira. they bind the ammonia in such a way that the bacteria in the bio-spira cannot use it. other products still bind it so it's safer for fish, but do it in such a way that the bacteria can still use it. i'm not sure which of those products ammo-lock is, but I wanted you to be aware of that potential problem, as it's possible that it's actually working against you.

 

ohh I think the ammolock is really going to kill the purpose of the biospira then.
anything else I could do???
oh and do I really need to do such a big water change??? I thought maybe a 25% would be enough because of adding the biospira too.

 

Fish are supposed to be added with Bio-spira, according to the directions. Also, you're not supposed to fiddle with the testing of the water for 1 week after using bio-spira you will see spikes and you will get freaked from doing so, but it is normal while the bacteria colonizes. I used Bio-spira, added 9 fish, and all was fine - until 2 weeks later when the tank broke by some unknown manner.

At any rate, using the ammolock probably has negated the bio-spira at this point and you'll likely have to go through the cycle itself now, which truly sucks. I feel bad that this is going on and wish I could offer more advice, but other than regular water changes, I don't know. With water changes, you're messing up bio-spira as well, but since you've already added ammolock, it doesn't really matter at this point, unfortunately. When my tank broke, and I had to relocate, I thought I had enough media that had the proper BB on it to be ok with the fish. I saw nitrite spikes within the first week, and have had to do 30-50% twice daily depending on the readings.

Sorry you're having a tough time!. Stay up on the water changes and hang in there, it WILL get better.

 

I thought there were already fish in the tank, or is this a different one?

 

HI Evelyn
Good advice that FCF offered above. Cant really add anything more to that, but wanted to wish you luck with your tank.Also is there any way that you can purchase more bio spira? If you could, I would do a large water change first.. to get out as much as that ammo lock as you can and try again with the bio spira.

~ kate

 

btw, I suggested the large water change because your ammonia/nitrite levels seemed quite high to me, and i'm concerned for the fish. even with a large water change, there will be some ammonia and nitrite for the bacteria left in there, but hopefully not so much as to hurt the fish. others may disagree... just telling you what I would do.

 

I thought there were already fish in the tank, or is this a different one?

I didn't realize she already had fish. I read it as she just picked some up last night. If there were already fish in the tank and the tank was cycling then, that would explain why one died or some are sick. They may have been subject to those conditions for a while, and when the bio-spira spiked it could have pushed them over the limit? The same thing happened in my daughters 10g, we lost 1 platy because of it. I didn't do any water changes though or add any products because that's what I had been told to do. The rest of the fish pulled through fine and the water parameters are good now.

What were the test results prior to adding fish?

HI Evelyn
Good advice that FCF offered above. Cant really add anything more to that, but wanted to wish you luck with your tank.Also is there any way that you can purchase more bio spira? If you could, I would do a large water change first.. to get out as much as that ammo lock as you can and try again with the bio spira.

~ kate

Excellent idea! I'd net the fish, do a large (read: 80% change, refill water with a non ammonia binding conditioner) then add bio-spira then add the fish back in. A bit costly as you'd need to hit the LFS again for the Bio-Spira, but again, Kate is spot-on I think with the suggestion.

 

Hi, Evelyn...did you add the neons to the 75 gallon tank in your profile?

Had you tested the tank prior to doing the water change and adding bio-spira?

Only one other question. What kind of pleco?

Bio-spira is suppose to be used without water changes for a week or two, but to tell you the truth I don't know if it is enough to protect fish from 8.0 ammonia......

I would suggest 25% water changes each day, and maybe adding some more bio-spira in a week, then maybe the water tests will have calmed down a bit.....and you would be able to let the cycle finish without any more changes...

 

I thought there were already fish in the tank, or is this a different one?

HI Serene,
There is fish in the tank... Your reply was that bio spira is not instant and that she shouldnt have added any fish for a week. With bio spira, you are supposed to add fish right away, waiting a week to add fish is not a good idea, as you may end up loosing the beneficial bacteria when it eats all the ammonia that the bio spira brings to the tank without the added fish to make more ammonia. When using bio spira you also should not do a water change for seven days..

~ kate

 

I said before 'bringing home fish', but I suppose my meaning was unclear, sorry. I was under the assumption she had quite a few fish in there.

 

So, even if your tank is cycled and you have fish in the tank, if you get more fish, you need to add bio-spira? I thought she was saying she used cycle as a conditioner. I've got it all muddled up.


-was the tank finished cycling before you added the new fish?

 

yes before adding the neon tetras I had the fish in there and the tank was already cycled with biospira.
my reading before were amonia: 0, nitrite:0, nitrate:.5 and ph: 6.6

those readings were fine for about 3 weeks and everything was fine until last night.

the thing about getting biospira is that last night I paid twice as much because my LFS didn't really have the big package so I had to get 3 of the little ones so that it would be enough for my 75gal tank so if I go and buy more it's gonna be the same thing.

so should I do 25% water change tonight or 50%?
i'll check the water chemistry before doing it thought.
ohh the ammo lock doesn't take the ammonia away but just makes it into non toxic for the fish and then it becomes nitrates. is that still bad for the biospira???

OH and I had been using the Cycle product every time I did a water change before but then I was reading that unless you plan on using it ALWAYS you are better off not using it so that's why I did such a big water change and added biospira. also because I wanted to add more fish and it would be safer for the fish to go in and put the biospira (or so I had read).

 

yes before adding the neon tetras I had the fish in there and the tank was already cycled with biospira.
my reading before were amonia: 0, nitrite:0, nitrate:.5 and ph: 6.6

those readings were fine for about 3 weeks and everything was fine until last night.

If I read this correct, your readings were fine before you added the bio spira? By the readings above, you had a cycled tank. What happened to the readings before you added the bio spira? Did they change? I'm trying to understand why you had to add the bio spira to a cycled tank?
the thing about getting biospira is that last night I paid twice as much because my LFS didn't really have the big package so I had to get 3 of the little ones so that it would be enough for my 75gal tank so if I go and buy more it's gonna be the same thing.

I understand that! Bio spira is pretty expensive stuff!

so should I do 25% water change tonight or 50%?
I would recommend at least a large water change tonight, it wouldnt hurt to do a 50% if you could...


i'll check the water chemistry before doing it thought.
ohh the ammo lock doesn't take the ammonia away but just makes it into non toxic for the fish and then it becomes nitrates. is that still bad for the biospira???

The ammo lock does not take away the ammonia, it binds it from being used correctly by the bio spira, that is where the problem comes in. Ammo lock can be good in an emergency when for whatever reason you can't do a water change asap. But its always much better to do the water change than add an ammonia blocker.

Hope this helps to clear this up for you.. ;D
~ kate

 

ok so I'll do 50% water change tonight and 25% everyday according to water chemistry.

that should be enought right?

Oh and the reason why I added biospira was because I was reading that the Cycle product is not good and that to remove it from my tank it would be better if I just went and did a big water change and then biospira so that the BB from the biospira would help the fish. Also I was adding biospira so I thought of adding the fish too.

Thanks for all the help!!!

 

From what I understand Cycle is not to be used with Biospira.

But you are treating the water you are adding with Prime or another water conditioner I assume? I use Tetra Aquasafe and that helped me through all of the water changes I did during my 6 week cycle.

The neons are sensitive - they were the first fish I had before learning about the nitrogen cycle and none of them survived. It might be that just bringing them home did your little one in.

Good luck!

 

I think what happened was the bacteria in Cycle is the wrong kind of bacteria, BioSpira is the right kind. They're incompatible and enough Cycle bacteria was probably left to mess up the BioSpira bacteria and cause a crazy chemistry situation.

At this point what I'd do is make the priority to stabilize the tank. I would do daily water changes of 25-40% for a week and treat all water with Prime.
I think at that point, BioSpira could be used safely.

 

hi,
well last night I did a 50% water change using stress coat.
last night there were 5 fish and then this morning I only saw 4 of them because the water is so cloudy I could barely see through. all the other fish look just fine but the neons are not very active. I couldn't find any more dead fish but I didn't see all of them so hopefully they are not dead burried somewhere in the tank.

 

If it's been 12 hours and the tank is still absurdly cloudy after having done a 50% water change just last night, it may be wise to up the water changes to twice a day. The cloudiness should have diluted at least a little. Then again with Cycle and Bio-Spira mixing with each other, as CBC said, something funky could be going on... again though, you'd expect several 50% changes would have helped you out there.

 

so I should keep doing 50% water changes then??? I was going to be doing 25% daily.
also how long should I wait to test the water chemistry after each water change???

I didn't check the water chemistry this morning because I wasn't sure if it would be long enough??

 

I like to wait at least 24 hours after a water change. If doing daily changes, I'd test right before it's time to do the day's change.

 

I like to wait at least 24 hours after a water change. If doing daily changes, I'd test right before it's time to do the day's change.

ok. that's what I'll be doing then.
thanks so much for the advise.