The Acara Cichlid died this morning. As I was tending to my spiny eels since I hand feed them all the time, the cichlid was swimming in an extremely strange way. It was making multiple rotations, swimming upside down and up and upside down, flailing around and slamming into things. It looked to me that it could be an issue with its swim bladder, but it died before I could treat it. I have no idea what exactly killed it, but I think that the high nitrates might of really affected him although he was still eating before I starved the fish for about three days.
I made sure to do a 10% water change every hour to make sure that there wasn't any sudden change in nitrate levels to prevent shocking the fish. But the API Freshwater master Kit kept the Nitrate Levels at a constant 5ppm after five separate 10% water changes. So I cleaned my power filter, scrubbed it down, cleaned the sponges which did have some Cyanobacteria matter on them which had since turned blackish in color. I then waited about two hours to do two more 10% water changes and after testing, the API Freshwater Master Kit kept the Nitrate Level at a constant 5ppm still. I do not feel safe performing any test for Nitrates with this kit.
Another thing that might of bothered the cichlid is a lack of oxygen. My 55 gallon aquarium is 48' in length and the power filter is on the left side of the aquarium. So the tank does have a dead spot in the very right corner of the tank where fish waste did build up. I don't know whether I'm pulling straws here or if I should immediately rectify this and increase aeration in the dead spot. I have a Koralia Power Head and even after wrapping it in Nylon, it would not deter the spiny eels from trying to hide in there.
Now I'm feeling gutted and extremely worried that my spiny eels might be affected.