Fish Kill...

[CHOMPERS]

Hi Everybody,
I am new here and I am also having a huge problem with my fish. It is a new tank setup, and the fish are from Wally-World (Wal-mart). I bought 2 Oscars and 7 Red Bellied Pacus...I asked the girl if my tank was big enough;12x12x24... She said “Sure, you can put a lot more in a tank that big." I did the math and it is a 15 gallon tank. Not a good thing... So now I am getting a 20 gallon tank ready to handle some of the load until I can get my 100 gallon tank set up...when ever that will be. So far, I have lost four fish and I am wondering if 35 gallons between them is enough. I also have a ten gallon tank that I could use but it barely seems adequate for anything. The ammonia load is through the roof, evidenced by a room filling stench and foamy water. I have been doing daily water changes and gravel cleanings. The fish have been getting progressively worse and I have resorted to the salt and temp treatment when they started clamping their fins and some started with fin rot. After the first day of the salt treatment, they started getting stringy mucus coming out of their gills and mouths. Some had this stringy mucus on their bodies and fins. They are mostly over the stringy mucus, but some still have it in their mouths. Now I have noticed red spots and what looks like blood in some of their fins. Did I get sick fish or am I killing them on my own? I have had them for just under two weeks. Any info will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[fishnthings]

sounds to me like you threw way to many fish in way to small of a tank at one time.. the bioload will be huge causing your ammonia to rocket through the roof..... as for 7 redbellys, im not flamming you or anything but do you realise how big those get and what you just got yourself into

as to fix your problem i would set up every tank you have and get them all cycled and seperate the fish so the waste they produce will greatly decrease in each tank thus creating less of a bioload

 

[fishnthings]

o yea.. id turn the tanks up to 84-86 and do 1tbs of salt to every five gallons

 

[rallysman]

no offence, but if 100gal is the biggest you have, get rid of everything but 2 oscars.
otherwise the amonia will skyrocket, stress the hell out of the fish, and they will die. the slime you see is because the fish are so stressed. pacus get huge and are messy, oscars get fairly large and are very messy as well. the water will foul in small tanks like you have them in no matter what you do.

I dont mean to sound harsh and I def. welcome you to MFK...but do yourself and the fish a favor and get them into a suitable home asap.

 

[fishnthings]

no offence, but if 100gal is the biggest you have, get rid of everything but 2 oscars.
otherwise the amonia will skyrocket, stress the hell out of the fish, and they will die. the slime you see is because the fish are so stressed. pacus get huge and are messy, oscars get fairly large and are very messy as well. the water will foul in small tanks like you have them in no matter what you do.

I dont mean to sound harsh and I def. welcome you to MFK...but do yourself and the fish a favor and get them into a suitable home asap.

well said man.....

guess what.... this is my 2000th post and you cant forget the

 

[guppy]

An adult oscar needs a space about 18"x30"x15" (about 35g) all it's own, minimum.
An adult red belly pacu needs a minimum space about 36"x30"x72"(around 235g) each.
It is true that you could put those 9 fish in a 15g tank as 1 1/2" long babies that would be very close to max for a well established, over sized filter.
At this point split the fish between the 15g and 20g and do 35-50% water changes every day, also beg borrow or steal some sludge from someones healthy filter and seed yours with them. It sound like you added the fish all at once to tanks that had virgin filters containing no bacteria to eat the waste. Keep the temp at around 78-82F and only add 1 tablespoon salt per 5g water to help keep down infections, the slime/mucus, bloody streaks are a combination of ammonia poisoning and bacterial hemorrhagic septicemia (which is actually made worse by higher temps), antibiotics might save the fish but there is a good chance that it is to late to save them. If they do survive plan on trying to find homes for the pacus in about a year as they will out grow a 100g

A 15g tank will support 20-40 neon sized fish, 20-30 guppies, 15-20 blackskirt sized ones, about 6-8 fish about the size of dwarf gouramis, 3-4 the size of blue spot gouramis, and the largest fish that should be kept in it is a fairly inactive one at around 8" such as a single dollar sunfish or nandus. These are maximum levels for adult fish.

Here is the stocking method I use for new tanks,
Fill the tank with dechlored water and arrange decor, seed filter with sludge from a healthy tank, a teaspoon-tablespoon per 5g tank capacity, set temp. on thermoeter and wait until the next day,
check to see if temp has stablised and if there are visible problems, add plants (if any) I wait another day here to check for hitchhikers.
Add a couple fish and wait a coupledays, add a couple more. Wait and repeat until you have reached the stocking level you want, waiting a couple days between each set of additions, this lets the bacterial colony in the filter catch up with the load.
Good luck
By the way, welcome to MFK, I wish it was under better circumstances.

 

[ewurm]

Sounds fine to me!

 

[CHOMPERS]

antibiotics might save the fish but there is a good chance that it is to late to save them.

Thanks Everyone for your input and advice... And Guppy, you forgot to say "knock on wood"... now I am down to one oscar Oh well, now I know. And I want to say thanks for taking the time to list your start up procedure. I will be putting it to good use.
Kudos

 

[CHOMPERS]

btw, I wanted to add that after I posted last night, one pacu had lost the will to live and another didn't look like he would make it through the night. This morning the other two had died as well, leaving only the oscar. It seems pretty healthy at this point and I am keeping my fingers crossed...
Thanks again

 

[fishnthings]

oscars are pretty hardy and if you had the salt and turn up the temp like guppy had said, and have that tank filtering reall good he should make it with only one fish in there now... just cross your fingers IS all you can really do now

Good Luck man
oh yea welcome