New Fish Always killing off the tank.

Tedd Jacobs · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 10

"Timothy E. Raborn" wrote...
> I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
> typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).
>
> All the water levels are fine, temp is fine, etc. (ph is actually a little
> high at 7.6, but that doesn't seem to be a problem). My tank can go for
> months with no problems. The fish will be healthy, the tank is kept clean
> through water changes, etc.
>
> THEN
>
> I can introduce a couple of fish to the tank (from either of two pet
> stores in my area -- one a very large national chain -- the other a local
> mom & pop outfit). I always end up with a diseased tank with many fish
> dying off in the process.
>
> This happened about 8 or 10 months ago and I lost all of my fish except
> about 6 or 7 baby guppies and one neon tetra. I was so frustrated that I
> didn't add any new fish. Felt sorry for the lonely tetra, but he seemed
> to be OK even without some buddies to school with - in fact he got pretty
> darn big. The guppies eventually grew to full adult size and were quite
> nice.
>
> I finally decided to give the tetra some playmates and added new ones to
> the tank. Within a few days, my entire tank except one pleco was dead.
> There were no signs of disease and no warning of any kind. The fish would
> look fine before going to bed and by morning, I'd find 2 or 3 floaters. I
> did not add the water from the pet store to the tank. After properly
> acclimating the fish to the new water (by adding small amounts of water
> from my tank to their bag over a period of about 30 minutes), I netted
> them into the tank rather than just pouring them in.
>
> Actually, in the 3 or 4 years I've had my tank, this has been a chronic
> problem -- usually I'd lose a few fish -- but this time it was really
> severe and I'm royally pissed about it.
>
> Is there some preventative measure I should take when adding fish? I'm
> thinking of treating the tank for disease when I add new fish just as a
> preventative measure, but until I know what causes such a quick death with
> no warning signs, I really don't know what to treat it for.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Tim

use a quarentine tank(*) and quarentine the fish for about two weeks before
introducing them to the main tank.

*usually a ten gallon works fine and is cheap, easy to set up and clean, and
stows away farily easily. you can in most cases get away with setting it up
the day before with a handfull of substrate (or better yet, filter material)
and water from your main tank.

Archived from group: rec>aquaria>freshwater>misc

Timothy E. Raborn · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).

All the water levels are fine, temp is fine, etc. (ph is actually a little
high at 7.6, but that doesn't seem to be a problem). My tank can go for
months with no problems. The fish will be healthy, the tank is kept clean
through water changes, etc.

THEN

I can introduce a couple of fish to the tank (from either of two pet stores
in my area -- one a very large national chain -- the other a local mom & pop
outfit). I always end up with a diseased tank with many fish dying off in
the process.

This happened about 8 or 10 months ago and I lost all of my fish except
about 6 or 7 baby guppies and one neon tetra. I was so frustrated that I
didn't add any new fish. Felt sorry for the lonely tetra, but he seemed to
be OK even without some buddies to school with - in fact he got pretty darn
big. The guppies eventually grew to full adult size and were quite nice.

I finally decided to give the tetra some playmates and added new ones to the
tank. Within a few days, my entire tank except one pleco was dead. There
were no signs of disease and no warning of any kind. The fish would look
fine before going to bed and by morning, I'd find 2 or 3 floaters. I did
not add the water from the pet store to the tank. After properly
acclimating the fish to the new water (by adding small amounts of water from
my tank to their bag over a period of about 30 minutes), I netted them into
the tank rather than just pouring them in.

Actually, in the 3 or 4 years I've had my tank, this has been a chronic
problem -- usually I'd lose a few fish -- but this time it was really severe
and I'm royally pissed about it.

Is there some preventative measure I should take when adding fish? I'm
thinking of treating the tank for disease when I add new fish just as a
preventative measure, but until I know what causes such a quick death with
no warning signs, I really don't know what to treat it for.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

-Tim

Mike Johnston · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

and what is your ammonia level?

Margolis · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 72

what kind of filtration are you using? what is the temp of the water? ph is
fine, not high at all. How often do you do water changes? What do you use
to dechlorinate? how much water is changed each time? Do you vacuum the
gravel thoroughly?

One thing is that you will need to introduce a small amount of fish at a
time and give it a week or two to balance out again in a situation like
that. With only a couple of guppies and 1 neon your bacteria colonies will
not be very large. So a significant fish load increase can cause a tempory
ammonia and/or nitrite spike which is not healthy for the fish.

--

Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/20030215212142/http://www.agqx.org/faqs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

Gill Passman · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 76

"Tedd Jacobs" wrote in message@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> "Timothy E. Raborn" wrote...
> > I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
> > typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).
> >
> > All the water levels are fine, temp is fine, etc. (ph is actually a
little
> > high at 7.6, but that doesn't seem to be a problem). My tank can go for
> > months with no problems. The fish will be healthy, the tank is kept
clean
> > through water changes, etc.
> >
> > THEN
> >
> > I can introduce a couple of fish to the tank (from either of two pet
> > stores in my area -- one a very large national chain -- the other a
local
> > mom & pop outfit). I always end up with a diseased tank with many fish
> > dying off in the process.
> >
> > This happened about 8 or 10 months ago and I lost all of my fish except
> > about 6 or 7 baby guppies and one neon tetra. I was so frustrated that
I
> > didn't add any new fish. Felt sorry for the lonely tetra, but he seemed
> > to be OK even without some buddies to school with - in fact he got
pretty
> > darn big. The guppies eventually grew to full adult size and were quite
> > nice.
> >
> > I finally decided to give the tetra some playmates and added new ones to
> > the tank. Within a few days, my entire tank except one pleco was dead.
> > There were no signs of disease and no warning of any kind. The fish
would
> > look fine before going to bed and by morning, I'd find 2 or 3 floaters.
I
> > did not add the water from the pet store to the tank. After properly
> > acclimating the fish to the new water (by adding small amounts of water
> > from my tank to their bag over a period of about 30 minutes), I netted
> > them into the tank rather than just pouring them in.
> >
> > Actually, in the 3 or 4 years I've had my tank, this has been a chronic
> > problem -- usually I'd lose a few fish -- but this time it was really
> > severe and I'm royally pissed about it.
> >
> > Is there some preventative measure I should take when adding fish? I'm
> > thinking of treating the tank for disease when I add new fish just as a
> > preventative measure, but until I know what causes such a quick death
with
> > no warning signs, I really don't know what to treat it for.
> >
> > Any help is appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > -Tim
>
> use a quarentine tank(*) and quarentine the fish for about two weeks
before
> introducing them to the main tank.
>
> *usually a ten gallon works fine and is cheap, easy to set up and clean,
and
> stows away farily easily. you can in most cases get away with setting it
up
> the day before with a handfull of substrate (or better yet, filter
material)
> and water from your main tank.
>
>
I totally agree with Ted here about getting a quarentine tank if it is
physically possible. I'd also check out what quarentine regime they use at
your LFS with new stock - in the ones I use you will often see whole tanks
of fish marked as "aclimitizing" and they will not sell these for a couple
of weeks. Also would be worth checking out what water maintenance regime
they use and try and get them to tell you the PH etc. - a good LFS should
tell you this. I heard a story recently of a local "national chain" that
used the same water/filtration system for all of their fish and ended up
with the majority having to be taken off sale because of disease. So I would
advise checking out the general health of all the stock that they carry not
just the ones that you are interested in.

Another option, of course, is to look elsewhere for your fish.....

Sorry to hear about your losses Sad

Hope this helps some
Gill

winddancir · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

Tedd Jacobs Wrote:
>
> use a quarentine tank(*) and quarentine the fish for about two weeks
> before
> introducing them to the main tank.
>
> *usually a ten gallon works fine and is cheap, easy to set up and
> clean, and
> stows away farily easily. you can in most cases get away with setting
> it up
> the day before with a handfull of substrate (or better yet, filter
> material)
> and water from your main tank.

I have a smaller quarentine that is 2 1/2 gal. And to set it up, I take
a handful of gravel that I keep in the main 10 gal tank (just for this
purpose) and a fake plant and fill it up with water from the main tank.
That way, it is almost exactly the same, with a lot of the bacteria and
goodies to sustain one or two fish with very minimal cycling. I'll
leave the fish in that tank for a week or two, and then net the fish
into the main tank. Nothing's died yet.

--
winddancir

Timothy E. Raborn · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

> I totally agree with Ted here about getting a quarentine tank if it is
> physically possible.

I'll check into doing this.

> I'd also check out what quarentine regime they use at
> your LFS with new stock - in the ones I use you will often see whole tanks
> of fish marked as "aclimitizing" and they will not sell these for a couple
> of weeks. Also would be worth checking out what water maintenance regime
> they use and try and get them to tell you the PH etc. - a good LFS should
> tell you this. I heard a story recently of a local "national chain" that
> used the same water/filtration system for all of their fish and ended up
> with the majority having to be taken off sale because of disease. So I
> would
> advise checking out the general health of all the stock that they carry
> not
> just the ones that you are interested in.

Ha!! At the local national chain, I see them pulling the fish right out of
the shipment boxes and dumping them into the tank.

> Another option, of course, is to look elsewhere for your fish.....

My sources are limited -- I've considered mail order, but shipping is really
cost prohibitive, so to make it worthwhile, I'd need to order enough fish to
fully stock the tank, which you can't really do.

Thanks!

-Tim

Timothy E. Raborn · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

"Margolis" wrote in message %nRd.4514$2%3.531@fe03.lga...

> what kind of filtration are you using?

The filter is a Penguin bio-wheel 170 (the 170 is for up to a 50 gallon
tank -- mine is 29).

> what is the temp of the water?

My temp is maintained in the upper 70's -- around 78.

> ph is fine, not high at all.

Good to know -- this has consistently been my ph (from tap). I really don't
want to have to deal with treating it to adjust this.

> How often do you do water changes?

About every two weeks.

> What do you use to dechlorinate?

Stress Coat.

> how much water is changed each time?

No more than 20%

> Do you vacuum the gravel thoroughly?

yes.

Timothy E. Raborn · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

"Mike Johnston" wrote in message @c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> and what is your ammonia level?
>

Zero.

Margolis · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 72

"Timothy E. Raborn" wrote in message @corp.supernews.com...
>
> The filter is a Penguin bio-wheel 170 (the 170 is for up to a 50 gallon
> tank -- mine is 29).

In my opinion it is good for up to ~ 29 max, just barely good enough for
your tank ;o0

>
> My temp is maintained in the upper 70's -- around 78.
>

good

>
>> How often do you do water changes?
>
> About every two weeks.
>

that should work fine.

>
>> how much water is changed each time?
>
> No more than 20%

that's bad. With you doing water changes every 2 weeks I would recommend
more like 40% each time or 25-30% weekly. Keep your water a little fresher
and the fishes benefit greatly.

--

Margolis
http://web.archive.org/web/20030215212142/http://www.agqx.org/faqs/AGQ2FAQ.htm
http://www.unrealtower.org/faq

NetMax · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 614

"Timothy E. Raborn" wrote in message @corp.supernews.com...
> I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
> typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).
>
> All the water levels are fine, temp is fine, etc. (ph is actually a
> little high at 7.6, but that doesn't seem to be a problem). My tank
> can go for months with no problems. The fish will be healthy, the tank
> is kept clean through water changes, etc.
>
> THEN
>
> I can introduce a couple of fish to the tank (from either of two pet
> stores in my area -- one a very large national chain -- the other a
> local mom & pop outfit). I always end up with a diseased tank with
> many fish dying off in the process.
>
> This happened about 8 or 10 months ago and I lost all of my fish except
> about 6 or 7 baby guppies and one neon tetra. I was so frustrated that
> I didn't add any new fish. Felt sorry for the lonely tetra, but he
> seemed to be OK even without some buddies to school with - in fact he
> got pretty darn big. The guppies eventually grew to full adult size
> and were quite nice.
>
> I finally decided to give the tetra some playmates and added new ones
> to the tank. Within a few days, my entire tank except one pleco was
> dead. There were no signs of disease and no warning of any kind. The
> fish would look fine before going to bed and by morning, I'd find 2 or
> 3 floaters. I did not add the water from the pet store to the tank.
> After properly acclimating the fish to the new water (by adding small
> amounts of water from my tank to their bag over a period of about 30
> minutes), I netted them into the tank rather than just pouring them in.
>
> Actually, in the 3 or 4 years I've had my tank, this has been a chronic
> problem -- usually I'd lose a few fish -- but this time it was really
> severe and I'm royally pissed about it.
>
> Is there some preventative measure I should take when adding fish?
> I'm thinking of treating the tank for disease when I add new fish just
> as a preventative measure, but until I know what causes such a quick
> death with no warning signs, I really don't know what to treat it for.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Tim

Assuming your water parameters are fine, your filtration adequate, the
fish being purchased relatively healthy and you have no ability/desire to
do a proper quarantine, then:

Let your stock go low, clean your filter, start feeding your fish very
well, then after a week or two, add all the fish (plants etc) you want,
as juveniles, in a very brief period (ie: 3 days). Do a water change
prior to adding the new fish, to approximately match the level of NO3 in
your tank to the NO3 in the fish bags, and to approximately match the
water hardness. Effectively, this has now made your tank into a
quarantine tank. The chances of your original fish surviving is not very
good, so expect losses. They have lived disease-free sheltered lives,
and the combination of fresh new diseases on their sleepy immune systems
is often fatal, especially with smaller fish. The extra feeding for the
2 weeks between filter cleaning and adding new fish has improved your
fish's health and boosted your good bacteria count (to process waste).
Now, feed sparingly while checking ammonia levels. You should not be
cleaning the filter at this point, or until you have gone a couple of
weeks with no NH3/4 or NO2, only with NO3. Don't be afraid to do lots of
water changes at any time, but in reasonable quantities, with water of
similar characteristics to your tank water. After a month, the survivors
will be your new stock.

Probably not the ideal way to do it, but a good way to do a non-ideal
way. ymmv
--
www.NetMax.tk

Tedd Jacobs · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 10

"Timothy E. Raborn" wrote...
>> I totally agree with Ted here about getting a quarentine tank if it is
>> physically possible.
>
> I'll check into doing this.
>
>> I'd also check out what quarentine regime they use at
>> your LFS with new stock - in the ones I use you will often see whole
>> tanks
>> of fish marked as "aclimitizing" and they will not sell these for a
>> couple
>> of weeks. Also would be worth checking out what water maintenance regime
>> they use and try and get them to tell you the PH etc. - a good LFS should
>> tell you this. I heard a story recently of a local "national chain" that
>> used the same water/filtration system for all of their fish and ended up
>> with the majority having to be taken off sale because of disease. So I
>> would
>> advise checking out the general health of all the stock that they carry
>> not
>> just the ones that you are interested in.
>
> Ha!! At the local national chain, I see them pulling the fish right out
> of the shipment boxes and dumping them into the tank.
>
>> Another option, of course, is to look elsewhere for your fish.....
>
> My sources are limited -- I've considered mail order, but shipping is
> really cost prohibitive, so to make it worthwhile, I'd need to order
> enough fish to fully stock the tank, which you can't really do.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Tim

open your own store. then you can show your wife how it would make your
hobby a great tax write off. Wink

tedd. (ducking the incoming rebuttal from N*tM*x re: hobby vs. job)

NetMax · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 614

"Tedd Jacobs" wrote in message @enews2.newsguy.com...
>
> "Timothy E. Raborn" wrote...
>>> I totally agree with Ted here about getting a quarentine tank if it
>>> is
>>> physically possible.
>>
>> I'll check into doing this.
>>
>>> I'd also check out what quarentine regime they use at
>>> your LFS with new stock - in the ones I use you will often see whole
>>> tanks
>>> of fish marked as "aclimitizing" and they will not sell these for a
>>> couple
>>> of weeks. Also would be worth checking out what water maintenance
>>> regime
>>> they use and try and get them to tell you the PH etc. - a good LFS
>>> should
>>> tell you this. I heard a story recently of a local "national chain"
>>> that
>>> used the same water/filtration system for all of their fish and ended
>>> up
>>> with the majority having to be taken off sale because of disease. So
>>> I would
>>> advise checking out the general health of all the stock that they
>>> carry not
>>> just the ones that you are interested in.
>>
>> Ha!! At the local national chain, I see them pulling the fish right
>> out of the shipment boxes and dumping them into the tank.
>>
>>> Another option, of course, is to look elsewhere for your fish.....
>>
>> My sources are limited -- I've considered mail order, but shipping is
>> really cost prohibitive, so to make it worthwhile, I'd need to order
>> enough fish to fully stock the tank, which you can't really do.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -Tim
>
> open your own store. then you can show your wife how it would make
> your hobby a great tax write off. Wink

>
> tedd. (ducking the incoming rebuttal from N*tM*x re: hobby vs. job)

Hey, as long as you didn't have to make money out of it, it would be
great. A few hundred tanks and hire students to gravel vac every day.
Then you could have great fun decorating them all and shopping the
corners of the world for particular fish, plants and other stuff.
Occasionally you could even sell a few fish (that got too big or you had
too many of ;~).

and putting * in my name didn't work :p
I can read pleco ;~)
--
www.NetMax.tk

Dr Engelbert Buxbaum · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 47

Timothy E. Raborn wrote:

> I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
> typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).

Guppies need hard, tetras soft water, so this combination is not very
good. Depending on your water params, you should decide on a matching
set of fishes.

> I can introduce a couple of fish to the tank (from either of two pet stores
> in my area -- one a very large national chain -- the other a local mom & pop
> outfit). I always end up with a diseased tank with many fish dying off in
> the process.

That is not untypical, each tank has its on bacteria population to which
the inhabitants are accustomed. New fish are often stressed from
transport, resulting in a weakend immune system. When exposed to new
conditions, they may easily get opportunistic infections, rising the
bacteria concentration to levels that also infect the residents.
Additionally they introduce foreign bacteria, that can affect the
residents.

In my experience feeding medicated food like TetraMedica (with
tetracyclin) during the first 10 days after introduction of new fishes
can significantly reduce losses.

In addition, the tank should be in good condition to start with. In a
situation like yours, where at least one of the resident species is kept
under suboptimal conditions, problems are likely to be worse.

If you have not already done so, add life (not plastic!) plants to your
tank, this will not only look good, but provide a healthier environment
for your critters.

Of course any new fishes need to be slowly adapted to the water
conditions in your tank: Let the closed bag swim in your tank for 15 min
to equilibrate the temperature, than open it and slowly add tank water
to the bag over a periode of an hour or so, until 2/3 of the water in
the bag is from your tank. Then discard most of the water in the bag (to
prevent contammination of your tank) and introduce the fishes to your
tank.

Timothy E. Raborn · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

"Dr Engelbert Buxbaum" wrote in message $min$04$1@news.t-online.com...
> Timothy E. Raborn wrote:
>
>> I'm having problems adding new fish to my 30 gallon freshwater tank. (I
>> typically keep guppies and neon tetras in my tank with a pleco or two).
>
> Guppies need hard, tetras soft water, so this combination is not very
> good. Depending on your water params, you should decide on a matching
> set of fishes.

You're the first person I've ever heard say that guppies and neons were not
compatible.

> In my experience feeding medicated food like TetraMedica (with
> tetracyclin) during the first 10 days after introduction of new fishes
> can significantly reduce losses.

In this recent disaster, I realized I didn't have anything on hand to treat
the tank with! I hadn't had a problem in so long, I found myself
unprepared. I've now stocked up on a few things to be prepared for the
future. I'm not familiar with the medicated food -- I'll have to check it
out next time I'm at the LFS.

>
> If you have not already done so, add life (not plastic!) plants to your
> tank, this will not only look good, but provide a healthier environment
> for your critters.

Oh brother... Plants would be an entire other topic for me to post on. I
have had terrible luck with plants. They look good for about two months,
then slowly wither away. The only plant that would grow was Cobomba(sp?).
But I swear it must have grown about an inch a day and the more it grew the
more "stretched out" the limbs got and it wasn't very pretty. For the first
two years of tank ownership, I spent a small fortune buying new plants every
couple of months and did quite a bit of research on how to be successful
with it. I tried all kinds of techniques to be successful and nothing
worked. I had even added two Nutrafin CO2 tanks to the tank and that helped
a little, but not enough. In the end, I decided that I may not have enough
light. The hood that came with the tank will only take up to a 22W, but I
can only find 15W lights (fluorescent) to fit it. A calculation I found
somewhere on the internet indicated that I need about a 60W (was based on
the depth of the aquarium). It wasn't feasible for me to change out the
hood, so that was the point I gave up and stocked up on the fake ones. They
look ok, but regardless of what the real plants do for the fish -- I wanted
them for aesthetic reasons. They look so much nicer.

>
> Of course any new fishes need to be slowly adapted to the water
> conditions in your tank: Let the closed bag swim in your tank for 15 min
> to equilibrate the temperature, than open it and slowly add tank water
> to the bag over a periode of an hour or so, until 2/3 of the water in
> the bag is from your tank. Then discard most of the water in the bag (to
> prevent contammination of your tank) and introduce the fishes to your
> tank.
>

That's exactly how I do it.

I have started slowly restocking the tank. I decided to start off with Zebra
Danios. They seem to be good little critters to start with. So far, after
two trips to the store about five days apart, I have a really small plec
and five zebras and all are very healthy so far. In another few days, I'll
add two or three more zebras, then figure out what I want to match with them
after they settle in for a couple of weeks.

Thanks for the input.

-Tim