I'm sure most, if not all of you know this, but I think it bears saying. I recently set up a 37 gallon aquarium with the goal of making it a barb tank. One of the bags of rocks I purchased for substrate was not washed or more dusty than usual. When I added water, it became quite cloudy. I knew it would settle and the filter would get a lot, but I went to a local pet supply store and purchased a bottle of API AquaClear to help the process along. By the next day, the tank was clear as a bell. I went to a LFS and purchased 3 tiger barbs, 3 green tiger barbs, and an albino pleco. Within a couple of hours, all 6 of the barbs were dead. The pleco is going strong. I did about a 30% water change and rinsed out the filter (it was too late to go replace the cartridge by this time.) My intention for the next day/weeks was about a 30% change and go buy a better filter. Currently it is a Top Fin that came with the aquarium kit from Petsmart. I was going (and still plan to) replace it with the appropriate size Fluval/Aquaclear filter. I took a sample of water to them, they tested and everything was fine. I held off purchasing the better filter for now (just spent a bunch of money as I bought 2 of these kits along with stands). Purchased 3 tiger barbs and 3 albino tiger barbs. It has now been one night and they are all doing fine. My wife's tank (everything is the same except she decorated differently) is doing fine. She never had a problem. After realizing that the Clear tank thing was the only difference, started more research. It did not get good reviews and a lot of people posted that it killed their fish as well. I don't usually use tank clearing solutions, but have in the past. Will never do it again. Lesson learned!
API Aqua clear
- Thread starter Dragon
- Start date
Just running the filter, some conditioner. Had water tested after and it came out fine on all counts, pH, nitrates and nitrites. Temp is 79. Don't know the numbers though.
You will need to do a fish in cycle, so it's best to buy your own API freshwater test kit.
Just putting water in the tank and running a filter is "not" cycling a tank.
If this is what you did, its not the API product that killed your fish.
Cycling a tank involves creating a large enough population of beneficial bacteria that consume Ammonia and Nitrite.
It usually takes about 6 to 8 weeks to cycle a tank before any significant amount of fish can be put into the tank.
There are many threads here on MFK on how to successfully cycle an aquarium.
Read about it, and become educated on how to do it, or you will continue to kill fish.
If this is what you did, its not the API product that killed your fish.
Cycling a tank involves creating a large enough population of beneficial bacteria that consume Ammonia and Nitrite.
It usually takes about 6 to 8 weeks to cycle a tank before any significant amount of fish can be put into the tank.
There are many threads here on MFK on how to successfully cycle an aquarium.
Read about it, and become educated on how to do it, or you will continue to kill fish.