# New Tank Setup - CRASH!!!



## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

My new tank setup has crashed, I lost both my beloved Oscars 10"

I am trying to figure out what happened exactly, I hope i can learn so this this won't happen again... At least if it's in my power it won't.

I had 110 gallons cycled for about 1 month, with some what looked like healthy gold fish through out the entire month.

Then i add my 2 oscars and 3 Jewel cichlids, My Oscars are very mellow, ( they don't attack the jewel's, and actually they jewel's actually laid eggs)..sorry i digress

after about 2 weeks, 6 weeks into the tanks life, one of the jewel's had a white spot on both eye, the following day it died, and the Oscars were what looked like sprinkled with with shredded coconut, and then the next day there skin started to peel, it was ugly.

This was during the 2 day heat wave, the temperature was at the high end ~29.5.. i think.
The pH was 6.0-6.5 , and Nitrate was ~70 ppm.
So i turned the heater down a bit to bring it closer to 27-28.

I added some Medicine but it was too late the Oscars were to far gone.

-I will never use gold fish to cycle a tank again, and have more medicine on hand,

*How should i Restart this setup*. in terms of do i need to do a 100% water change or do a few 50% or add more medicine to kill any remaining diseases?


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## hgi (Jun 13, 2010)

So,

Ph was 6 to 6.5
Ammonia ?
Nitrite ?
Nitrate was 70?

How often were you doing water changes?

It's a 110g tank? What are you using for filtration?

Nitrate is high, but most fish can handle up to the 80's before it really becomes a huge problem especially Oscars. Though Ideally you want to keep your Nitrate below 20 by doing water changes and good gravel vacs.

Don't do a 100% water change or you'll run the risk of killing your Bacteria and you'll have to recycle. If it were me I'd 1st get a good test kit (liquid drip one) test the water and go from there. Post up your test results and we can help you.

Also if you had any photos of what the fish looked like before/while they were dieing post them and we can most likely tell you what it was that killed them.

What it sounds like to me is there was no diseases, seems more like ammonia burns and nitrite burns.


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## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

hgi said:


> So,
> 
> Ph was 6 to 6.5
> Ammonia ?
> ...


Ammonia Not included In test strip
Nitrite *ZERO*

Filters: AC110 and Fluvial 105

One thing i should have mentioned. i changed the stand and to do that, i had to emtpy out the tank 100%. I saved of the water 30% plus ice cold hose water... that was too cold, i had the oscars in a tote over night with a small heater and a topfin 30 while the water was heating up.... that probably killed the bacteria in the filter.. I think..

The flesh did look like it was sheading and not really like ick or fungus


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## TCR (Jul 13, 2010)

I had the same problem when I went from my 55gal tank to a 150gal tank. I didn't have a very good filter for one (fluval 303) hence I kept the water level low (but still more then the filter could handle). I lost a lot of fish getting white bulgy eyes and fin rot. I poured melafix (tea tree oil) in there and used some aquarium salt and it all went away. Remaining fish got better and seem happy. I have a good filter now rated for a 265gal tank, never want that to happen again


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## swordtail (Apr 24, 2010)

I agree; refilling the tank with ice cold water probably did kill all the bacteria resulting in an ammonia spike after adding the fish.


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## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

My Jewel ciclids are still in there, i retested the water the Nitrate has come down to 40 ppm, Nitrite is also zero again.

feeding is minimal, 3-4 flakes until i can get the bacteria to grow again.

Water is blue b/c of the medicine, probally should do water changes in small batches, for a good month before i start re stock


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## snow (Apr 21, 2010)

Fish Whisper said:


> the Oscars were what looked like sprinkled with with shredded coconut, and then the next day there skin started to peel, it was ugly.
> 
> The pH was 6.0-6.5


Sounds like you oscars died of ick. Also your PH was to low. It should be 7.0-7.5 for these fish.

The fish could have been okay with that high temp so that did not kil them. Also as you mentioned your jewel got a white cloudy eye, sounds like a bacterial infection. My nile perch got coudy eye and ick at the same time. I fixed it with aquarium salt, melafix and API ick treatment or it was the fungal treatment, it comes in little pouches (10) Cost around $35 b/c I had to buy two boxes but it worked like a charm. If you were to use something like this it would have fixed the ick and cloudy eye issue, look it up.


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## snow (Apr 21, 2010)

Fish Whisper said:


> Ammonia Not included In test strip
> Nitrite *ZERO*
> 
> Filters: AC110 and Fluvial 105
> ...


That low temp is then what would have caused them to die. Did you take down the tank while the fish had this problem or was this done before? Most likely the fish had some sort of infection when you did this and with the stress of the cold water it just made it worse.



Fish Whisper said:


> My Jewel ciclids are still in there, i retested the water the Nitrate has come down to 40 ppm, Nitrite is also zero again.
> 
> feeding is minimal, 3-4 flakes until i can get the bacteria to grow again.
> 
> Water is blue b/c of the medicine, probally should do water changes in small batches, for a good month before i start re stock


Yes wait a month before you start to re stock the tank. Let the water parms get under control. I'm sure after a month it would be fixed.


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## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

snow said:


> Sounds like you oscars died of ick. Also your PH was to low. It should be 7.0-7.5 for these fish.
> 
> The fish could have been okay with that high temp so that did not kil them. Also as you mentioned your jewel got a white cloudy eye, sounds like a bacterial infection. My nile perch got coudy eye and ick at the same time. I fixed it with aquarium salt, melafix and API ick treatment or it was the fungal treatment, it comes in little pouches (10) Cost around $35 b/c I had to buy two boxes but it worked like a charm. If you were to use something like this it would have fixed the ick and cloudy eye issue, look it up.


i had therapeutic levels (low level) of aquarium salt and used fungal treatment (late)
the burning/dissolving of the fleash was rapid in 12 hours from first appearance they seemed over whelmed. And at 24 hrs i added the meds they were lying on there sides, and when i was about to pull them out the amazingly came back to life, this happened twice and finally they didn't on the 3rd day.

This was horrible to watch, i won't get fish for a little while


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## onefishtwofish (Apr 21, 2010)

sorry to hear this. i agree not to cycle with feeder gold fish for sure.


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## swordtail (Apr 24, 2010)

I might suggest adding a bacteria supplement such as Seachem's Stability when you do your next few water changes. I know it sure sped up the recovery time in my tank when I had a large bio loss. So sorry for your losses. Hope everything is fine going forward.


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## April (Apr 21, 2010)

white on eyes is quite often from ph crash. if filters dont keep up..ph slides and fast in our soft water. it could of been the ph crash and acid that did that to their skin.


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## hgi (Jun 13, 2010)

That's what I'm thinking Aprils, I highly don't believe there were any life threatening disease involved with killing your fish. You should throw out the strips and pick up a fresh water liquid test kit, like API Master kit. 

Don't let this mishaps drive you away from the hobby, everyone, even the vets here made their share of mistakes in this hobby. Heck I killed everything in my gf's 20g cause I thought it'd be a good idea to clean the whole tank with soap and water.....


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## Smiladon (Apr 23, 2010)

I agree with hgi. Get a liquid test kit. Maybe post in classifieds and see if anyone has one that they dont use.

I got almost a brand new one for about $25 (retails at $75 + tax).

dont add any more fish for 1-2 months.


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## ncutler (Apr 26, 2010)

Make sure you've researched the different ways of cycling your tank. a) fish cycled (which you've done), b) fishless cycle - using ammonia to kick start the cycle, c) using products - such as nutrafin cycle or seachem's stability (those are the two that are most commonly known for working). I've tried all three techniques and all three work, but a) is the longest.


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## gimlid (Apr 23, 2010)

I had a similar condition with my large chocolate cichlid this week. It was very tragic. I placed him in a 5 gal bucket for the afternoon while acclimating another fish to his tank and when I went to put him back in he had turned white and was laying on his side with his fins shredding and one eye completely clouded over. Over the next 24 hours he steadily degraded losing his other eye and most of his fins. 
He never recovered and I dispatched him using half frozen water. 
I will never again take temperature lightly when movong fish around. I figure that even though it was warm that day and I had my aircon set to 80 f the water temp must have gone below 70.
His fin shredding reminded me and my wife of frostbight in people. His fins just disintegrated.
My condolences on your loss.
Personally I would start over 100% . I started using 50% weekly water changes also. Apparently according to alot of experienced fishkeepers onthis site it works well. I agree.


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## TCR (Jul 13, 2010)

My tank is great now that I got the a better filter, trust me Mefix is great stuff its for bacteria, its tea tree oil, cleared up all the fin rot and I had the exact same thing that u had happen in my tank when i moved my fish over

All I did was put in a small amount of salt, raised the heat a lil over 80 and added melafix after taking out the carbon


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## Fish Whisper (Apr 22, 2010)

Thank you all for the Great advices and support

Update on bacterial rehabilitation:

I've done 50% water change and added a Carbon pad, the Blue color for the medicine has vanished is crystal clear. I don't think the medicine was helping the bacteria any.

I added a bacterial supplement (cycle-generic) and have been adding it on a consistent basis.

April I think you hit the mark about the pH, as my Nitrate was though it was high it wan't of the charts. And i didn't realize that my pH strips only go from 6.0 to 10. ( my reading was 6.0 but could have been much lower)

I have added some pH stability products to bring the pH back to ~7. 
after adding the recommended 1 teaspoon per 10-20 gallon for my tank, which was 5 to 10 teaspoons, my pH is still *6.0* so i've been adding 2 more teaspoons each day until i can reach 7. i'ts still 6.0 though...

My logic is that the bacterial will grow back as faster at a neutral pH and stable nitrate/nitrite/ammonia

I have kept my 2 jewel cichlids in there who have been oblivious of the all the chaos.


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## tetragirl (Mar 21, 2011)

FYI: J&L sells the API Master freshwater test kit for $23.95 (+12%tax, of course)


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## KevinPR (Aug 6, 2010)

A little late don't you think? I sure hope the problem has been solved in the last 8 months


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## JohnnyAppleSnail (May 30, 2010)

Try adding crushed coral to your substrate and mix it in,I did that to my 125gal tank and the ph is always the same and stable at 7.2,I added about 5lbs to the Tank and it worked out perfect,what you do is add a few lbs at a time till you find the desired level.I personally think your Water ph being so low on the acid side especially 6.0 did not help the health of your Fish. Actually,I have crushed coral in all my tanks but my Planted one,so much easier to accomplish stable ph this way,I never found those additives to work and if they do work it's temporary and almost always the ph falls back down again.


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