Fishes died overnight

[Francis Lee]

I am a brand new beginner. Need some advice from experienced kakis.

Set up a fresh water fish tank last Friday. Bought a 2 feet long fish tank, 6 various types of plants, 3 rocks, filter and 100 neon tetas.

Filled the fish tank with water by adding salt and anti chlorine and kept it overnight before I put in all the fishes the next day.

It was perfectly OK on Friday. Saturday evening, I noticed that most of the fishes were swimming near to the water surface. The next day, 80 fished died overnight. Heartache!

My wife said I over fed the fishes twice a day and I have been tucking in my hand into the tank to adjust the rock and plants too frequently. My friend commented that may be too many fishes and overcrowded.

I changed half the water and added in more salt and anti cholrine. Touched wood, till this morning, the remaining 20 fishes still alive.

Decided not to buy anymore fishes till I am sure this won't happen again.

Where went wrong? Please advice.

Thank you so much.

[bclee]

Nitrogen cycling! All your fishes are poisoned by their own wastes. 100 neon tetra in a newly setup 2-ft tank. This result is inevitable.

Please do a read up on nitrogen cycling before proceeding. You can search this site or do a Google. You should find good information on that.

100 neon tetra is too much for a 2-ft tank.

I also must say that the LFS owner who sold you all those stuff at one go without advicing you the consequences is either totally clueless about fishkeeping or irresponsible.

BC

[kemp]

Francis, one major mistake i guess it's that you didn't cycle your tank long enough. In the past, i took 2 weeks to cycle my tank before i managed to introuduce some cardinals just to test water. For your case, 1 day of cycling is definitely not enough

[cairocks]

There isn't any cycling done at all!!! 1 day from zero fish to 100 fishes!!! There is nothing in there to break down the waste from the fishes.

[tweety bird]

some adv is to intro Fishes/shrimp to the planted tank aft 2wks of set up

out of curiosity--Why is salt added to the planted tank?? What is the purpose of doing it??

[Francis Lee]

Hi everyone, thanks for the valuable advice. So, what should I do now? Change the water, wait for 2 weeks then put the fishes in. Salth added as advised by the LFS owner. what should I do with the remaining fishes now?

[bclee]

Salt will alleviate Nitrite poisoning. Nitrite is a by-product from fish wastes.

Briefly, the nitrogen cycle goes like this:

wastes ---> urea/ammonia ---> nitrite ---> nitrate

Ammonia & nitrite are toxic to fishes (fauna in general). Different group of bacteria will convert wastes to ammonia to nitrite to nitrate (relatively much less toxic). Therefore, you need time to let the bacteria to grow and build up to handle the wastes from the fishes.

BC

[bclee]

Hi everyone, thanks for the valuable advice. So, what should I do now? Change the water, wait for 2 weeks then put the fishes in. Salth added as advised by the LFS owner. what should I do with the remaining fishes now?

Add in a airstone. Salt is good. Do a partial water change (~10 to 20%)everyday.

Conditioners like Seachem Prime or Sera Aqutan supposedly helps to alleviate the problem. You can try those.

BC

[cheetf]

You also didn't mention if your tank had gravel or what kind of filter it was.

100 neon tetras in the tank is really too much.

Anyway what you can do now is do 20-30% water changes every 1-2 days with anti chlorine added.

Make sure that you filter causes some turbulence on the water surface to dissolve oxygen into the tank.

Remove any rotting leaves.

And try to read up on any literature you can find.

Here are some interesting articles to read,

http://www.vectrapoint.com/main/manual/manual.html
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/qa/a/faqs.htm

You don't have to follow exactly but you can read about it.

[juggler]

Francis: Welcome to AQ!

The bioload was too much for a newly setup tank. The recommended bioload is something like "1 inch of fish per gallon". To kick start the nitrogen cycle, you could have added in some beneficial bacteria or get some used tank water from another source.

Right now, just leave the bioload as it is. Do not add any more. They should do fine with the recommendations from other forumers above.

[Francis Lee]

OK. Will do so as advised by all bros here. Thanks once again. Sure to get back to all of you with an update.

Gald that I am a member of this forum.

[oblivion]

Just one very important advice to add for you bro.

My opinion is that you should really think twice before you go patronise that lfs or ask them for fishkeeping advice again.

No offense intended to all merchants out there, and also no insult intended to any particular lfs or shopkeeper.
But no warning or whatsoever for getting 100 fishes and putting into a 2ft immed is seriously irresponsible.

[Francis Lee]

Hi all bros, last evening, did 1/3 water change. removed those dying plants. add in salt and anti-chlorine. this morning, fishes swimming happily in the tank. full of life. me happy too!

3 cheers for all bros here for your help.

[tango907]

Hi, wat type of filter system you are using? This also play an important role in the tank.

[guqin]

Sorry, I still do not understand why do you need to add salt when you are keeping freshwater fishes?

[Francis Lee]

Hi, I am using Resun Brand, Magi-Jet Filter 700.

[stephen chung]

Francis,

What filter are you using?

[Francis Lee]

Well, I was advised by the LFS owner to add salt. Not sure for what purpose. But, according to bclee ; "Salt will alleviate Nitrite poisoning. Nitrite is a by-product from fish wastes."

[bclee]

Sorry, I still do not understand why do you need to add salt when you are keeping freshwater fishes?

Salt is only used specifically for treatment of diseases like ich and alleviate
nitrite poisoning. It is not to be used on regular basis.

In this case, it is use to ease the nitrite poisoning the fishes are facing.

For more information, you can read these links:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/di...ritepoison.htm
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/tr...ltiinfresh.htm

BC

[tweety bird]

nitrite poisoning Symptoms:
Fish gasp for breath at the water surface
Fish hang near water outlets
Fish is listless
Tan or brown gills
Rapid gill movement

Whenever i see my fishes with the abv symptoms, i tot is the filter system too dirty . will change the sponage in the filter system and do a 50% water change.

now i know y is salt added..