# Have I poisoned my tank??? Please help



## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

Hi

I'm hoping someone on this forum might be able to help me. I have a community tank, mainly cichlids with a few others (clown loaches, cuckoo catfish, sharks etc) that have been happily living together for about 2 years. The tank is 4x1x2 feet and I had 22 healthy fish on average about 8-10 cm long.

About two months ago my friend convinced me to buy a bag of food from a friend of his who is apparently setting up an aquarium supply business. I normally buy Wardleys or other known brands but I thought I would help out my friend's friend with some business. Ever since then my fish have been dieing off, losing their bright colours and becoming either very listless or overly aggressive. I had two beautiful Electric Yellows, both over two years old and very calm fish. Both of them are vrtually white or light grey in colour now and their flesh is looking almost transparent. They used to be very active in the tank but now they hide in the bottom of the tank under rocks. Most of the fish in the tank that were nice, bright colours are faded versions of what they used to be. The only thing that is different is the change in food.

I went to the local pet shop today but the only person available was a very junior staff member who said that the new food is probably not good enough to maintain the health of the cichlids and that most likely I will lose the whole tank from malnutrition or some kind of poisoning from the food.

I tried to speak to my friend's friend about the food but he doesn't want to know about the problem.

Is it possible that a change in diet to poorer quality food, could actually end up poisoning my entire tank?

I've changed back to my original brand of food and added some Melafix to the water as recommended by the pet shop, but they think it may be too late to save any of them.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm down to 10 survivors from about 22.

Thanks.

Brad


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Hi Brad,

not knowing what's in the new food makes it difficult to say if that's the problem. I don't think that the new food merely being nutritionally deficient would kill your fish so fast--they can go for quite sometime _without food period_--but if there was actually something toxic in the food then of course that would do it.

Too much unknown about the new food to make any conclusions about it and since you're no longer feeding it there's no point in dwelling on it. Let's try and focus on the fish you have left and the symptoms they are showing now. Even if it was the food whatever is going on with your fish today is no longer the food and we should be able to do something to save them.

Some of the symptoms you describe are indicative of aggression. While the fish may have gotten along great for the past two years with cichlids that can change literally overnight.

Another good possibility here is bloat. The fish that died: can you describe the symptoms that led up to their deaths and the timeline of those symptoms? Were they eating normally the day before they died or had they stopped coming out for food for a few days--a week? Did they get extremely thin in the days/weeks before they died?

Please list the species of the remaining fish and if you know if they are male or female, post that too.

I assume you've checked your water parameters. Ammonia and nitrite both 0 and nitrate below 20? And your filter(s) are all in good working order with a strong flow coming out of the filter return? Check the media and make sure that there isn't a build up of waste. 
What are you using for a declorinator? How often do you do partial water changes and siphon the gravel?

In the absence of any more information I would advise you to do a 40% partial water change using a good quality declorinator and siphon the gravel. And then you should probably treat them for bloat. It's not going to hurt them to treat them for bloat if they don't have bloat and where bloat is so common it's a good bet that's what you're dealing with. (Melafix is used to speed up healing of injuries and minor bacterial infections so it's really not going to do anything in this situation. )

Robin


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

Thanks for your reply. I did a regular 1/3water change on the weekend, but the whole community is still very listless.

One of my Electric Yellows died over nite. Interestingly, the other fish were not interested in the carcass. Normally when a fish has died in my tank they pick the eyes out and make a real mess of the remains, but they didn't touch it.

As for the surviving fish I have

2 x red tail black shark Sex?
1 x electric yellow F
2 x cuckoo catfish 1xM, 1xF
1 x silver dollar ?
2 x parallelus 1xM, 1xF
1 x cobalt blue zebra M
2 x clown loach ?

As far as filtration goes I have an in-tank sponge filter with 3 sponge cannisters and an Eheim out of tank filter. I normally do a 1/3 water change every 3 weeks. Chemicals wise, I normally add Chlorine Neutraliser, Cichlid Geoliquid and Cichlid Salts all from my local aquarium store - the same as I've done for the last 5 years.

I would say that the entire tank has become generally less active in the last 6 weeks.

The fish that have died, generally lose their colour first, become really listless and spend most of their time on the bottom of the tank, hiding under rocks or in caves. The only time they become really active is when I feed them. They all come to the surface and do their normal carry on but then go and hang out around the bottom of the tank.

I took a water sample down to the aquarium two weeks ago and everything was fine.

I don't know what else to do and have pretty much accepted that I am going to lose the whole community. It would be nice to know what's happened though.

So far the casualties include

2 x orange bumblebee
1 x electric yellow
2 x electric blue
1 x frontosa
1 x golden pleco
3 x mono
2 x albino peacock

Thanks again for your help.


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## Malawidolphin (Dec 15, 2006)

I am thinking that the 1/3 water change every three weeks has contributed to the nitrates slowly climbing. What are your readings for Amonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. That is not very much water to be pulling out. That would probably be the minimum WEEKLY that should be done. I do a 50% weekly no matter what my stocking level and my Nitrate reading is still around 10ish. I would take your readings and adjust your water quality as a starting point to rule that out. (I never take the water to the LFS, as I have seen so many employees working the sample that really don't have enough knowledge to make an informed guess on what is going on in your tank.) You know your tank and your fish, it is better for you to be testng your water, that way you can do it daily if the circumstances require it.


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

Thanks for your reply.

I've always done a 1/3 water change every 3 weeks because that's what I was told to do from the aquarium shop that I purchased my tank, fish and chemicals from. I've been going to them ever since I started with cichlids - about 5 years ago. It just seems strange that all of a sudden so many of them are dieing when I'm doing what I've always done for the last 5 years. Initially I went through quite a number of fish while I found the right fish combinations for the community, but for the last 2 years or so everything has been great. No deaths, no sicknesses. I even had some babies without any intervention from me at all. Now all of a sudden even though I'm doing everything exactly the same, my fish are dieing. I've been hunting around on the net ever since the local shop told me they could be suffering from some kind of food poisoning from the different food and there's a few articles about foods causing damage to the fish's internal organs and they die slow painfull deaths.

I also do a half yearly "clean out" of the tank as recommended by the local shop, where I remove all the rocks, plants, hiding places and give them a thorough clean with a mild bleach solution to remove any algae. I leave everything in the sun for a few days to kill off the bleach and then saok it all in siphoned tank water for a few days before it goes back in the tank. The last one was at Christmas. Is this also a bad practice?

Thanks again for your help.


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

Just a further update.

When I got home from work this afternoon my other Electric Yellow was dead. I took it into the local aquarium, with another water sample and one of the senior staff members I know and trust, who has been there ever since I started keeping cichlids checked it out for me. He said that water levels were fine.

He seemed to think that given the poor colouration and nature of the fish's body (patchy skin and almost transparent in some spots) that it was suffering from some kind of bacterial infection or maybe even a parasite problem. He said there were no obvious signs of bloat or any other easily recognisable problem, allthough he did say without seeing the fish alive it's harder to diagnose. He seemed to think it might even be a gradual build up of toxins or mild poisoning due to the cheap food I used. He said that quality brand name fish food has to meet certain standards, whereas the bulk, no-name, cheaper products don't. It could've been contaminated in the production by something and over time my fish have gradually built up enough of the contaminate in their system to start killing them. He gave me some tablets to crush up and add to the water and said to hope for the best. I think the tablets were antibiotics or a parasite type thing.

Thanks for all your help.


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Sounds like fairly sound advice. You really can't tell a whole lot from a dead fish. Much of the diagnosing comes from not just the symptoms the fish had before it died but how long it had the symptoms and the order in which they appeared.

Was it Metronidazole tablets that he gave you?

Try to fit in as many partial water changes as possible working around your dosing schedule. If it's a bacterial infection then 1-2 tablespoons salt per five gallons will help prevent the spread of the bacteria. Increasing water movement in the tank will work towards the same goal.

Let us know how it goes.

Robin


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## webgirl74 (Jan 30, 2009)

Agree 100% with what others have said. You probably did just enough water changes to stave off any issues until the concentrations became critical. Years of less-than-ideal water conditions probably weakened your fish's immune systems and now they are suffering. First course of action, you should invest in a regent test kit (the liquid test, not a strip test kit) and let us know what your parameters are. Not too many LFS will test all the parameters, and a lot of staff don't have a clue waht ammonia/nitrates/nitrites are and what the numbers mean. Plus, the tests they run for you could have remnants of someone else's water in the test tubes, etc. At least with your own kit, you can test the water when you want and maintain the kit so that there are no contaminants to alter the results. Definitely do more water changes, as other have suggested. 30-40% weekly is generally recommended. Hopefully the measures you are taking can save your remaining fish. Let us know how it goes so we can offer any advice if need be.


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

I did another 1/3 water change last nite and then added the crushed up tablets from the LFS. It made a yellowish cloud that all the surviving fish were happy enough to check out and swim around in until the filtration dissipated it. They seemed a little more energetic last nite at feeding time.

Good news is - no more dead fish this morning and I would say at least half of them are swimming quite energetically. One of the clown loaches hasn't moved since last I think, but that's not unusual for them.

I'll buy a test kit this afternoon and test the water tonite.

Thanks for all your help.


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

Great news. Got home from work tonite and was greeted by a tank full of energetically swimming fish. When I walked into the room they all swam up to the top corner for feeding like they used to and no more casualties.

I had to work late tonite so didn't have a chance to get to the LFS for a test kit before they closed but I'll get one at lunch tomorrow.

I did another 1/3 water change tonite and added a little more lake salt than usual as suggested. That was about 2 hours ago and they're all still swimming around quite happily. I'm hoping in the morning everything will be the same.

On a different topic, what does everyone recomend to combat the problem of water temperature when you do a water change in winter. I used to mix in a few buckets of warm tap water as I filled the tank so that it wasn't such a shock for the fish, but have since read on the net that hot water systems can harbour bacteria that kill fish. It's starting to cool down here now and was wondering what a good way to combat the temperature is now that I'll be doing more fequent water changes.

Thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions.

Cheers

Brad


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## webgirl74 (Jan 30, 2009)

I've never had any issues with warm water vs cold water. I match my tap water temp to the tank's temp when refilling and have never had any issues. Worse comes to worse, you could always keep a few of those big plastic camping jugs filled with treated water and let them warm up to room temperature. I used to do that for a tank I had years ago in an area of the house when I had no easy access to a tap. Just kept the water on hand for changes. That being said, if you have a really big tank, that might not be a viable option as I don't know too many people that would want to keep a half dozen of those somewhere in their house at any given time. I guess if you had to, you could partially fill a bucket with cold water and then boil some water to mix in the bucket to warm it up to tank temperature.


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

What is the 'lake salt' that you refer to? The salt I recommended is plain ol sodium chloride which is table salt without any additives. Is it something you bought packaged as 'Lake Salt' or something you put together your self? Please post the ingredients if you can.

As far as the bacteria in the hot water systems. . . If it's a situation where the water has been sitting for a long period of time then maybe there would be a concern but I'm sure its not a widespread or even common problem. I use warmed water from my tap all winter without any issues as do most people who keep aquariums.

If you were at all concerned that there was a problem with your hot tap water then I would make sure you run it--wash dishes, take showers, etc before you use it in the fish tank and if you're still concerned then start off with smaller water changes of maybe 10-20% a week. But if you want healthy fish then you really need to eventually be doing weekly water changes of 30%. Healthy fish can withstand most bacteria and the truth is most bacterias that effect our fish are already present in the tank and only become a problem when the fish's immune system is compromised via stress.

Glad the fish are doing better. 

Robin


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## luvmygeetars (Apr 26, 2009)

The Lake Salt is a pre-mix that my LFS makes up. It comes in two bags. One looks like normal old kitchen salt, only the crystals are larger and the other is a fine white powder which I believe are buffers and minerals. They use it in all their cichlid tanks and it's what I've been using the entire time I've had cichlids. When I took the dead electric yellow in for them to look at, they suggested that I "up" the amount of salt for the next few water changes or until the fish start behaving normally again.

I wasn't worried about the warm water issue until I found an article about it on the net. I've never had issues before using the hot water from the kitchen tap but was just a bit concerned given that we are coming into winter and my fish have allready dealt with a fair amount of stress lately.

All up I lost about half of my tank unfortunately, but I've got some good advice for the future. We're expecting our first child at the end of June and money is pretty tight right now, so unfortunately that means I can't restock the tank for a while.

Thanks again for everyone's help.


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## webgirl74 (Jan 30, 2009)

It's probably not a bad thing that you can't restock right now anyways. Will give your fish some time to recover and get their systems back into good health. Sounds like you're on the right track though


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