I can't seem to start a new thread, either. But, I'm having huge problems with my fish. I'm no expert, but I wouldn't call me a beginner either. I currently have several well established, well running tanks in my home. My grammode cichlid is 6 years old now. Most of my other tanks are aged just as much. However, I've been trying to run a community tank in my 75 gallon tank for nearly two years and the only fish I've managed to keep alive in it are a handful of cories and an upside down catfish. Neons, guppies, mollies, platies, they all die within either minutes, days, or a few weeks. All of my typical water parameters are correct, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 - 40 ppm nitrate, depending on when I had the last water change. I have atypically high PH (8.2) and super hard, Michigan well water. So far as I know, at least the livebearers should be able to acclimate to my tank. However, nothing will live. I have no idea why.
Earlier today I decided to try again. I bought 7 neon tetras and 4 longfin danios. The neons all died within 3-4 hours. The longfins are still swimming around, but I'm horribly scared that I will wake up to dead fish in the morning. I'm willing to do or try just about anything. If I cannot get fish to live in this tank, I think I will just give up. Seriously - something has to be able to live in this water!
The forum has a spam problem so we have set it so that new members must have a few replies before be able to start new threads. For you, I have used the split thread function to make your post a new thread.
Now for your question -
According to the information you have provided, your fish died rather quickly.
Sounds to me, they had failed to acclimate (to the new environment).
The first thing comes to my mind is the water temperature shock, and possibly water hardness shock.
I have a few questions for you.
1. How long did you acclimate them for before let them loose?
2. How did you acclimate them?
We usually set new fish in a container and first let the water (came with them) to slowly match the temperature in the fish tank. Then we get rid of some of that water (maybe 20~30%), before refilling the container with the water from the fish tank. Repeat the process every 15~20 minutes until most of the water came with the new fish had been replaced with the tank water. The whole process would take a few hours. The longer the better.
Fish can get used to the new environment if given them time. If acclimated improperly, the most deadly things to the new fish are the sudden change in water temperature and water hardness, followed by PH, and other things such as nitrate concentration.
Michigan water is not a problem. I am in UP. The PH is 8.0 here. A little higher won't be a problem either. The key is to acclimate new fish properly.
Oh. Whew. I did find it. Maybe I was using the wrong link from my email.
To answer your question, no. I didn't do any kind of drip acclimating or the method you mentioned. The pet store guy told me that all of the water in this area is similar enough to just float the bag for temperature and then dump.
I just went out and got a handful of fish. I've floated them for temperature for 30 minutes. I just added a bit of my tank water and set my alarm for 30 minutes. I will continue to do the method you've described. I will let you know how it goes.
Thank you so much for your help. Hopefully these guys live so I don't give up on fish. I had about 11 tanks running for the longest time, but all were cichlids or minnows or turtles - my kids have kept goldfish and guppies for years. It's only this most recent tank that I've had the problem with. However, in between getting my old fish and getting this tank set up about a year and a half ago, the well pump in my park died and they've since put in a new pump and changed some of the system. I'm wondering if it changed my water chemistry enough to make it too harsh on new fish. The old fish would have had slow acclimation to any new changes because of their 25% weekly water changes.
Okay. I just finished the acclimation process you described. It took about 3.5 hours total. I will let you know at the end of the week if any are still alive. Thank you so much for the advice.
Some fish are more sensitive than others. That's why certain fish can survive the same conditions while others die rather quickly.
The tetra you mentioned are one of the weaker fish. Guppy, goldfish are hardy fish. And Goldfish is not tropical, so they are the least sensitive to water temperature change. Also the stock might make a difference too. I used to buy from local fish stores and one of the cheaper online stores. They did not last long and often carry parasites and diseases. When I purchased a large stock from a high-quality online store, the fish were indeed much healthier and disease-free.
By the way, when you do your partial water change, you need to do no more than 30%. It is also the best to have your new water ready at similar temperature as the tank water to avoid temperature shock. I have made one mistake years ago when I was getting rid of meds I used to treat the fish. A 70% partial water change with water too cold. And the fish dropped like flies within the next a few hours. Some fish did survive the ordeal. Like the 5 out of 6 corydoras. They were showing breathing heavily though.
So avoid shocking them is the first thing we need to make sure to keep them alive.
Thankfully, my partial water changes are never more than 25-30%, depending on how dirty the cories leave the substrate. With Cahutta, my grammode, I only do 25%, even though she is messy as heck, she really hates water changes. She cowers in her cave for a day after I do it. She's done this since she was just a tiny little 1.25" baby. Silly cichlid. I also make sure I never temperature shock my fish. Learned that with my goldfish when I was about 8 years old.
I've been keeping fish since I was about 5. I've grown up with my Dad and my Grandpa keeping fish and they taught me a lot as I watched them care for their tanks. Somehow, I never picked up that part about acclimating them with the tank water instead of just floating them. I talked to my Dad about it and he said that he does do that with his fish. I feel like a dumb, evil fish killer now. I research literally everything to death and somehow, I never realized that acclimating in that way applied to fish bought locally and used to similar water conditions.
This morning, the fish I got an acclimated yesterday are still alive. If they are still alive by the end of the week, I'll feel a bit better. I will NEVER be buying neons again. They are so beautiful and I don't want to kill them. I will keep you updated.
In the meantime - I'm used to having to WAY over-filter my tanks - because of the cichlids, goldfish, turtles, etc (not sharing tanks, lol, don't think that). In the 75 gallon I'm working with now, I have 6 cories, 6 emperor tetras, 6 glolight tetras, 4 longfin danios, and a female betta (who may or may not stay - she doesn't appear to like the current, though she's behaving nicely). I'm running a Marineland 350B and 2 large sponge filters. Do I need more than that for a community tank? I've been seriously considering a canister filter, but I'm just not sure it's necessary.
Don't beat yourself over it lol. We all had to learn from the start. Every new knowledge was picked up at some point. It's been said that the water come with the fish should be completely discarded by the time you set the fish free in the tank. The store water not only can be having different chemical makeups, but it might also carry unwanted diseases and parasites. It is also a good idea to have the new fish stay in a quarantine tank for a few weeks before moving them to the main tank.
There is no such thing as over-filtering lol. Except for the water current, of course.
If the combined filtration (of the three filters) rated by the manufacturer is over 75 gallon, then it should be enough as long as you do not too heavily stock your fish tank or overfeed them. The one way to find out is to test your water for ammonia and nitrite. As long as they stay at 0ppm, you are fine.
If you need more filtration,
Sponge filters are the cheapest, and they don't have much of a water current. The downside is they are not very good looking and they take up space inside the fish tank.
Canister filters are the most efficient, quiet, and not taking up space in the tank, but they are expensive. If you decide to go for canister filter, I would recommend EHEIM. Check out our articles under the fish section for more information.
EW. I would never add the store water to my tank! Have you seen some of the store tanks? lol. I always net them out of the bag, into the tank, and then flush the store water.
Learned my lesson about quarantining the hard way - normally do that. Didn't this time, since there was literally no fish really left in the tank except the cories.
Okay - so the sponge filters are rated for up to 40 gallons each. The HOB is for is rated 50-75 gallons. I guess I'm okay for now.
So far, everyone is alive still. That was nice to see.
I'm about to head over to see what some of your articles are about.
