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New 'with Fish' Tank Loosing Fish

667 views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  AquaAurora 
#1 ·
Hello,

So ive had my 20G long planted tank running for about 2 months now with lots of plants, and last week bought some fish and shrimp to get it going.
I purchased 5 neon tetras and 2 red crystal shrimp.
I did acclimate them properly and added stability correctly.
I do run DIY co2 within the correct amounts.
The first two days 2 neon's died. They are sensitive fish i am aware but i had no ammonia or nitrites yet.
So i got them replaced.
Next couple days 2 more died.
It has now been a week and one more died yesterday. So i now only have 2 of them.
Mean while my two red crystal shrimp are doing fine...
I tested for ammonia and nitrites again today and still nothing.
Do i not have enough stock to cycle the tank? I haven't seen it cycle yet.
Any ideas on what i should do?
I was going to look at purchasing more less sensitive fish to cycle with.
I'm not gassing them out because they are swimming every where not just at the top and my shrimp are fine.

Thanks for any info!
 
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#2 ·
My bet is you do not have enough fish in the tank to produce enough ammonia to register. Your plants are likely to use it up right away. I would add more fish. But if neons are what you want to stock the tank with, I would stick with them and not get fish that you later don't want anymore. However, glolight tetras are pretty fish and much more hardy. But I would not count on your shrimp to survive for long as almost all of those small fish are capable of taking the shrimp apart piece by piece.
 
#3 ·
Turn of the co2, just in case it's effecting your fish (I don't think this is the case). Let them settle in for a week before turning it on again, stop with the fert too. Just reduce the number of variables.

Your tank may not be cycled, but I would expect ammonia skip right, if that was the case. I would suggest getting a bottle of Tetra Safe Start+ (or Dr. Tim's One and Only) to add to the tank along with new fish. It can't hurt, and if you need to ramp up your bacteria colony quickly, it's the best way.

You could have sick fish from the LFS (I think this is the most likely cause, from what details you have provided us). You may want to look into a more hardy strain of tetras. I like Green Fire Tetras (AKA Red Flank Tetras) myself. Neons and Cardinal have know issues.

Good luck.
 
#4 ·
I'd stay away from tetra brand safe start +, O tried it in a partially cycled tank,it crashed my bacteria colony and started the cycled over anew (luckily i was doing fish-less cycle with ammonia and daily api water tests). And their "money back gaurntee" is bull, they want to you ship the bottle, original receipt, and an unspecified amount of tank water (morons can't be bothered to specify how much they need).. They would not return the receipt even if it has other purchases on it, nor refund shipping costs for the water sample (or pay for a shipping label themselves), and even after all that, no guarantee that you will get your $ back on the bottle which you'll already have spent more than its value on trying to get it back. Its a snake oil product (hyped up but does nothing) and a waste of money and time.
long story short: DON'T BUY TETRA BRAND!

Shrimp are not durable for tank cycling and don't produce enough ammonia to help (much cheaper and more likely to have a feeder fish survive the cycle).
Personally I'd recommend the fish-less cycle:
If you have access to an Ace hardware store I'd take out the fish, and get some Janitor strength ammonia from ace hardware, a needless syringe (cc=ml), api test kit, and use this site for ammonia dosing calculator: http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=51&keywords=cycling (its also got a good write up on the cycling process) to get a starting dose.
Check ammonia level every other day/every 3 days until you start to see it drop, then add the needed ammonia to keep it at 3-4 ppm in the tank and check daily until it hits 0ppm, then you don't have to check ammonia anymore and just dose appropriately from the calculators specifications. Next you check nitrites then check again in a week, they can take a while to go down, once they hit "0" while you still dose ammonia you got a tank of a BB colony.
Do an excessive water change (or do water changes on the scheduled you plan to with fauna in and remember to take the reduced levels of ammonia/nitrite into account form said water changes) to remove the nitrates, test water and repeat until you get it down to acceptable levels. I let my 55 go without a water change until it finished cycling, the nitrates were way off the charts and took a TON of water changing to get to safe levels, also have to carefully clean out the canister filter to remove nitrates (but caused a mini cycle from cleaning to vigorously oops).
If you cannot add your fauna within a day of doing this keep doing and remember to do heavy water changes before adding the fish/shrimp once you get them.

I've not done fish-in cycling so I have no helpful tips for it.
 
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