Mysterious Deaths

[capper]

Here's what we have in our approx. 17 gallon tank: 12 Cardinal Tetras, 5 Rummy Nose Tetras, 4 Corydoras Catfish, 7 Glowlight Tetras, and 6 African Lampeyes. Mysteriously, the one platy that was in this tank died yesterday very suddenly. The Glowlight that we had quarantined died yesterday as well. Then suddenly today, one of our Lampeyes surprisingly died too. There were no signs of the Lampeyes being sick. The Platy seemed weak in the other tank before we moved him into our bigger community tank recently. He never regained his strength I suppose. We did a 2/3 water change on Sunday.

I checked the water's PH and it is the same it's always been (a week bit higher than 7.5). I checked the Nitrite level and it was optimal (below 0.3). My ammonia test kit has run out of liquid (one of the bottles) so I am unable to test the ammonia level. I do not have a nitrate level kit. The tank has been running since late May or early June of this year.

What kind of complete test kit should I get and can I buy it online and have it shipped to Japan? I couldn't find the full sets here - only individual kits which cost a lot by themselves. Already went through one ammonia kit (big bottle).

 

[bucs_hothead]

Let me be the first to say, b/c you'll hear it a lot: You're way overstocked, by general measures so this may only be the beginnings of your problems.

I use the "Freshwater Master Test Kit" for our tank. It's priced very reasonably and contains, pH, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia, and High pH test.

Hope that helps.

 

[echoofformless]

Nitrite is usually zero in a cycled tank. But yeah, you're way overstocked. That's probably the culprit.

But even if it's not, sometimes fish just die. Living things have a tendency to do that.

 

[geekrockgirl85]

the freshwater master test kits are good to have... they cost about twenty to thirty dollars here in the states.some of them do not include everything you will need though.

the one i have is ammonia, nitrite, general hardness, carbonate hardness, pH, and high range pH. so i had to go and buy a separate nitrate kit (and yes, that one was about half the price of all six in the kit!)

ammonia and nitrite are more dangerous than nitrate though, so that test isn't as necessary. but if you find a kit that includes it, definitely buy it. besides, until your nitrites are down to zero, there will not be any nitrate to test for.

i think aquarium pharmaceuticals manufactures their kits in china... so maybe you will not have to pay to ship it all the way from us/canada/europe.

 

[bandito41]

Repeat after me: "One inch of fish per gallon". This rule is good always use it also it is best to have even less than one 1 inch fish per gallon. That is most likely your problem, try selling some or getting another tank for your other fish. More will die if you don't reduce the amount of fish. Also now you could change the title of this thread to "Not So Mysterious Deaths".

 

[discus4everGrl]

overstocked, overstocked, overstocked -

if you are registering nitrites, which should be 0ppm, you prolly have ammonia in that tank. Tetra species are one of the most sensitive to ammonia and nitrites that there are. They will start to drop like flys real fast if you don't have 0 ammonia and nitrites.