Someone help!?

[allkreatures]

I have a freshwater tank that I have had for well over 3 yrs now, In It I have a red tailed shark an angelfish and a pleco as well as one misfit little glassfish and and 2 apple snails all have done beautifully and only the apple snails are/were under a yr old, all others are going on 3 and 4 yrs old, even the glasfish!....I set up a similar 10 gallon tank with another apple snail, a few cardinal tetras, and 3 fancy goldfish, all died within days!!!! I was heartbroken to lose the apple snail (moved from the other tank)as she was a yr old. :ssad: when I took the water to be tested everything was fine!! what could have happened?? all cycling etc...was done, none of the fish seemed unhealthy, and all went one after another, 2 the very day they were put in! as well as the snail. my male apple snail is doing beuatifully in the other tank, what could have happened?

[ChurchofAdam]

my first guess would be that you added too many fish at once to a new tank. cycled doesn't mean ready to support any fish load, it just means that a large enough amount of bacteria has established that the culture can grow to handle a greater load in a reasonable amount of time. (days rather than weeks, imo) keep in mind goldfish also produce a lot of waste.

also, I'm not sure why you'd have goldfish and cardinal tetras in the same tank. goldfish are coldwater, while tetras are tropical.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

Sorry that it didn't work.
I would have to agree with ChurchOfAdam, I think too many fish went in at once. It's a rule that I don't like, but it has to be followed - a couple of fish at a time over a few weeks until tank is fully stocked.

[tropfish]

Totally agree with curch and nick, your tanks bacteria can't take the amount of ammonia thats suddenly added so ammonia spikes. Like they said the best thing to do is gradually add fish. I'm sorry that you lost your fish and snail, but we learn from our mistakes. Bet you'll never make that mistake ever again

[allkreatures]

well that would be all good IF I had done that but...I put the snail first. 2 weeks later 3 goldfish, about 3 weeks after that the tetras now I'm really confused!!!!!

[troy]

How many tetras did you get, and what did you have the temperature set at.

[allkreatures]

I added 4 tetras and my temp was at about 69 I found in the past altho people say it, goldfish don't do well in cold water. mine have always developed ick so now I heat even with them altho not high, the snails don't need it very warm at all, but for ALL to go doesn't seem like it would be a temp thing either? I am completely stunned by this one

[RobbieG]

Was the tank brand new or did you get it used?

[allkreatures]

it was an old tank of mine but washed out of course.....I was going to do a complete water change etc... I still have 1 goldfish but no one thinks thats a good idea either

[Rocky06fx4]

Maybe they were stressed from the tank change?

[RobbieG]

10 Gallons is probably too small for a goldfish.

69 Degrees is too cold for Tetras - I wouldn't expect them to be killed by it though.

It seems like you had three types of fish die in the tank in a very short period of time. The tank may not have been ideal for any of them (too small for the goldfish - too cold for the cardinals) but the things that were wrong don't seem to account for the results.

The tank being too small for the goldfish/not cycled for the bioload would have resulted in a spike in ammonia or nitrites/nitrates (which would have been detectable) and also would have probably caused your water to get very hazy very quickly. I would expect the tank size to injure or kill 3 goldfish eventually but not as quickly or in the way that it did.

The cardinals would likely ony be killed by the temperature if you dumped them in without any acclimation. (They also could be killed by PH in the same way)

I would doublecheck all of the water parameters Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate/PH just in case.

You also may have gotten something nasty in the tank while it was being stored.

[dev]

I pretty much agree with the others, tho i'm wondering;

How did you wash the tank?
Did you use the same kind of substrate as the other tanks?

[ChurchofAdam]

yeah, I was wondering how you washed the tank. There was somebody recently in this forum who used soap or detergent or something... logical thing to do, I know, but it's really difficult to get it all rinsed out. anyhow they had multiple fish deaths in a short amount of time.



then again, you said you had the tank running for a couple weeks with no problems... is it possible that the cardinals brought in something from the fish store?

[gm72]

RobbieG said: 10 Gallons is probably too small for a goldfish.

That is the understatement of the year. They need at least 20 gallons per, and a lot of filtration as they are relatively dirty fish.

[RobbieG]

Just being diplomatic:ezpi_wink1:

[gm72]

Understood, no problems here! :ezpi_wink1: