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Help With Setup!


beauc

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Hey guys, Just having a few problems with my tank/fish, I've kept Bristlenose before without any worries but i have recently started a new tank which is 2 ft with black gravel, a piece of drift wood, and the stuff you need like eheim filter and heater etc.

Anyways, the fish were doing fine by themselves for about a week until my girlfriend bought 10 neon tetra's to put into the tank, every day after that one tetra would die and be either at the top of the tank or in the filter, When there was about 3 left i noticed a thin layer of slime around EVERYTHING in the tank, the fish had it growing on their backs also, I got the two bristles out ( 1 x albino 3cm + 1 x normal 5 cm ) and boiled the rocks, scrubbed the tank etc, i put them back in later on and they were doing fine for about 2 days and then the slime came back and i found my albino dead yesterday at the top of the tank and air bubble forming on the top :cryblow:

The only thing i can think of what i've done differently from last time is the piece of drift wood, Could it be contaminated or something?

I'm about to re do my setup tonight but i have some Pellia ( seagrass type plant ) to go into the tank aswell?

Any ideas?

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o it doesnt sound good. before anyone attempts to guess what it might be. maybe you should post some answers to the following questions first to help us with our thought process.

1. how long was the tank set up before you added the fish?

2. where did you get the gravel? did you wash it?

3. where did you get the bristlenose from?

4. do you test and measure your water parameters? if yes what are/were they?

5. what do the rest of the neons in the shop look like? you may need to go and have a look.

6. ask the shop if they have had any troubles.

7. everything was working correctly? heater filter etc...

8. did you pour the water from the bag the fish came in into your tank?

9. how are do the brislte nose look?

10. when u cleaned everything out did you clean out the filter? if yes how did you clean it?

unfortuantly neon tetras have been breed in huge quantities and commercial breeding does not always keep the fishes best intrests in mind. diseases like "neon tetra disease" affect a large preportion of the fish these days. it may be what has happened but the slime over everything and foaming leeds me to think otherwise. with you answers maybe someone will figure it out.

without any answers my first thought was massive ammonia spike and the tank was still cycling..... what do you guys think?

Cheers

LuNGz

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Thankyou for the quick response mate,

1. The tank was setup for about a week, getting filtered etc.

2. Just the aquarium shop, i think it comes in about a 5kg bag, i'll see if i still have the brand name at home.

3. Majestic Aquariums in Caringbah, He had quite a few albino's there and was selling them for around $15 a pop at about 2-3cm, His setups looked okay, but he did have alot of tanks with dead fish, a rather large oscar for example was dead in another tank.

4. I was trying to keep them the same as i used to have but it was a long time ago when i kept them and probably need to re-learn what sort of levels they should be at.

5. Haven't been to the shop my g/f went and bought them from a little shop down the road, and she put them in the tank correctly, but as i said everything was fine until they were put in.

6. Can do.

7. Yeah everything seemed fine to me, the filter is flowing fine and was spotless when i put it in.

8. Yeah i let them sit in the bag in the water for a while then tipped the water and the fish into my tank.

9. They looked fine to me up until the last day before the albino died it started to get the same slime that the tetra's had..

10. I cleaned it out using clean tap water, rung out the sponge then put all of it in boiling water let it sit for a while then rinsed again.

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New tank = ammonia spike, especially with the jump in bioload from the neons dieing & rotting.

At a guess I'd say the slime could have been a combination of a bacteria bloom from the ammonia & the fish's own slime coat coming off cause they were dieing.

Read up on the nitrogen cycle & start again.

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New tank = ammonia spike, especially with the jump in bioload from the neons dieing & rotting.

At a guess I'd say the slime could have been a combination of a bacteria bloom from the ammonia & the fish's own slime coat coming off cause they were dieing.

Read up on the nitrogen cycle & start again.

Thanks mate, will have another shot :B

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I boiled the rocks and scrubbed them yesterday a few times and they still smell like ammonia, I then boiled them again and left them outside in the water in the sun, any suggestions?

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where did you get your rocks ,and what sort , take your rocks out of the water , just let them sit in the sun a couple days , give them a good rinse before putting back in , take a water sample to a, lfs , they should check the sample for free , and they might be able to give you some advice , Dnot get, discouraged we all have had , set backs , the fun of keeping fish ..

cheers kelvin

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Definantly want to keep going with this as i kept BN before for around a year until my mother threw them out (they were at her house after i moved and never got a chance to take them with me), I got the rocks from Majestic in Caringbah in one of those 5kg packs, they are out in the sun at the moment i will do a test on the water they are in when i get home, the tank is running at the moment minus the rocks and seems to be doing fine so i guess they were certainly a problem!

Thanks for the advice!

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I have a feeling ash may have hit it right on the head... A nitrogen spike in a 2ft tank is not hard to get because of the small amount of water its east to pollute. Next time round i suggest using Nutrafin Cycle and Prime. This stuff was the difference between me going into breeding or stopping at a 2ft setup... Just read the instructions off the bottles the prime will solve any ammonia problems current and cycle will help to stop it being a problem in the future.

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Thanks for the replies, Still having issues, using ammo kill, have ammonia test kits, doing partial water changes and the ammonia is still high as ever, Currently the tank has the rocks that were boiled and left to dry for a few days, the drift wood, heater and the eheim filter!!

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have you tried testing the water directly out of your tap?

Another things is sometimes test kits are out of date as they are not a fast seller and may have been on the shelf for a long time and could be giving a false reading.

If you feel it is one of your ornaments take them out, test it without until you get a clean reading once you have slowly add them back and see if one of the ornaments sets off the Ammonia.

I wouldnt use ammo lock atm as you dont know whats causing the problem. I would think go back to absolute basics and find a reading of zero ammonia before trying again.

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Its normal for new driftwood to get a white growth on it when its added to a tank for the first time. Well it always seems to happen to me.

neon tetras are prone to death. I always buy 10-20 at a time and usually end up with about half what I buy.

What other fish were in the tank other then the neons and what size filter is it?

Josh

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Whilst new decor does take time to gather bacteria I have difficulty understanding how a few rocks or a piece of driftwood could produce significant enough levels of ammonia that a filter that is at least partially established could not deal with. I assume your filter is adequate and you have given the tank at least one decent water change since the fish deaths? If it were me i would simply let it run its course, leave the tank operating without fish until the ammonia begins to disappear and then very gradually introduce fish. A couple of hardy ones to start with. Checking your test kit for accuracy as suggested is also a good idea.

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