I've had about 13 fish in my tank, mostly feeders and gold fish. My ph is normal, but my nitrate is high. 1 fish dies about every 3 days on average. One of the original fish i have is still alive and has been alive for 3 weeks. I have these in here just to get my tank ready. What could be killing them? the nitrate? and also how do i bring my nitrate down? Also i was leaving my light on for long periods of time and started to grow alagae, but it's going away now i fixed my timer. Could that be theproblem?
Fish dieing...
- Thread starter Joe5688
- Start date
Nitrates will kill fish. If a fish lives in the water as they go up they can stand a lot higher concetrations of nitrates then a fish that is put into a tank with high nitrates.
What are you readings for amonia, nitrites and nitrates?
You lower nitrates with water changes.
What are you readings for amonia, nitrites and nitrates?
You lower nitrates with water changes.
Plants including algae will temporaily remove nitrates from the system, as they die it is returned, except for specialised deep bed, Monaco, type systems nitrates are as far as the breakdown cycles go, gravel vacing and water changes are needed to remove it from your tank. A couple things come to mind, first what is your nitrate level in your tap water? Second do you also test for ammonia and nitrites, the cycle goes biowaste-ammonia-nitrites-nitrates. Ammonia is the most toxic and then nitrites, these should read zero, if not you need to reduce your bioload or increase your bacterial bearing biomedia. These steps will reduce the ammonia and nitrite readings and slow the production of nitrates, other than that I suggest weekly water changes of about 30% and gravel vac at the same time, I would also plant some cheap plants such as vals, sagittaria, cabomba, and elodea, as they grow trim off and discard the excess.
Got my water tested. Everything was fine except for the nitrates. They were at an 8.0. I got a free 55g tank yesterday with a flulva 404 filter so everything should go good after the tank is ready. Tahsnk for the info. Also i'm getting 3 rbp's but are there any other fish that could stay in the tank with them? These are like 1" and are really small and i think they will look stupid in a big ass tank until they get bigger lol
I have never successfully kept any fish with piranha for very long, they get eaten sooner or later, might try a common pleco about 4-5" long until the piranha get bigger. What is the nitrate level of the water before you add it to the tank? I am looking at that reading of 8.0, is that ppm, because that is not an unusual reading for tap water and unless you were keeping a reef tank that is an acceptable reading, in freshwater for all but the most sensitive fish anything less than 20 ppm is not a real concern for nitrates. I am thinking you had a temporary ammonia spike, as the fish died less ammonia was produced and the bacteria in the filter got a chance to catch up.
You could probably add some small, cheap cichilds (IMO they might be better for cycling the tank than goldfish), but nothing that you are not willing to consider an expensive meal for the Ps. Even if they cohabitate in peace for a while, inevitably the Ps will decide to stop playing nice one day/night. I have had aggressive cichlids in the same tank that seem to even shoal with the Ps, even for months and months, only to find bits and pieces of them one random morning. Basically, once you begin thinking your Ps are docile, they will prove you wrong.