What now? All my fish died.

[Randy]

I have a ten gallon fish tank that has been set up since December and had a beta living healthy and happy in it. Twelve days ago I introduced 5 neon tetras. The beta didn't bother them so I was happy. On the second day one neon died. Now 12 days later all the tetras and the beta have all died.
My water conditions -
ph 8.0
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
nitrates 40 , our tap(well) water is 80 and tetra easy balance(this is all I add to the water) brings it down to 40 for me
I do 20% water change weekly.

I suspect disease because the beta died too. How do I get my tank ready for fish again? How long do I have to wait to restock it?

Randy

 

[MissFishy]

Neon's are very fragile fish, but they may have brought in a disease that infected your betta. You also may have added too many fish to too small of a tank too soon. It's important to keep the bacteria in your tank alive when there is no fish in there, so make sure you are adding a drop or two of ammonia everyday. Other than that, you could raise the temperature of your water to 85-90 for a week, that should kill off any bugs that may be living in your tank. Did the fish look sick at all before they died? Someone else may have some other suggestions, but make sure to keep your tank cycled by adding the ammonia.

 

[SANND]

Sorry to hear about your loss Randy. You might want to start over completely with the tank. Either empty the water and let everything dry out or rinse it out with chlorinated water to get rid of anything living. You can cycle the tank with ammonia while you're deciding what kind of fish to get.

 

[Randy]

Do you mean regular ammonia like is used for cleaning?

The fish did look sick before they died, 4 out of 5 neon tetras were breathing fast and were not swiming with the remaning fish and then looked pale and stopped eating. Between fast breathing and death was about 24 hours. The last tetra died overnight and I didn't see any symptoms. The betta got listless and pale and in about 12 hours died, this was 1 week after I introduced the tetras.

 

[Seleya]

Are you sure your test kit is ok? The timing and symptoms sound right for an ammonia spike from the addition of the 6 tetras.

 

[MissFishy]

Read the sticky post on the beginners forum to learn about fishless cycling. It's a good cheap way to prepare a tank for fish safely. Just make absolutely sure that when you are buying your ammonia that it does not have suds, fragrance, or coloring in it. It has to be pure ammonia. Try a hardware store and read labels carefully!

 

[Randy]

How do I know if my test kit is okay? How do you test a test kit?

 

[Seleya]

Typically you test a test kit with another test kit. i.e., you go to the lfs and have your water checked and compare the two results or you use your test kit to test water with known qualities. What you describe and the timetable suggest a spike, most likely ammonia but possibly nitrites. If your tank tested negative for ammonia and nitrites, it was either something else or your test kit is inaccurate.

 

[Randy]

One more question...

Thank you for all your replies so far. I thought an ammonia and/or nitrite spike would cause the fish to die at the same time? Never did more than one fish die in a day, they died off one by one over the course of 12 days. Still, I will be testing my test kit.
I hope to be able to try again soon with a couple of fancy guppies but I don't want to put them in a diseased tank!

 

[MissFishy]

Like I said, if you don't want to clean out the whole tank, at least raise the temp. That should kill off most nasties that could be in there, you could even add some salt (table salt, not iodized works fine for me, 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons).

 

[Endl98]

same thing hapened to me with 20 neons. all died and my water seemed ok. test kit showed it was good. i took a sample to the lfs. only to find i had a bit of high nitrates. and my test kit was bad. new and bad.
so i bought some german blue rams. and 1 by 1 they have been dieing off, loss of color and heavy breathing with no appetite. still havent found out why.

i would clean and rinse everything with chlorine bleach , soak, rinse , re rinse and let it dry. set it up, use a dechlor and re cycle the tank.

good luck