- Have you tested your water?
- Yes
- If yes, what is your ammonia?
- 0
- If I did not test my water...
- ...I recognize that I will likely be asked to do a test, and that water tests are critical for solving freshwater health problems.
- Do you do water changes?
- Yes
- What percentage of water do you change?
- 21-30%
- How frequently do you change your water?
- Every week
- If I do not change my water...
- ...I recognize that I will likely be recommended to do a water change, and water changes are critical for preventing future freshwater health problems.
Hi there I’m new to this forum. Hopefully people still use it. I have a red tail tiger shovel, nose, catfish hybrid who is in a tank that was totally cycled. No ammonia, no nitrite, 40 nitrate. He was in a 55 gallon tank with a hang on back filter inside the canister was a blue bio filter, and two floss like filters with activated carbon. Also in the filter canister was all ammonia, reducer, ammonia, killer, flu, clearMax a.k.a. resin. And these crushed white shells that I forgot the name of to stabilize pH and hardness. Anyways, I asked for four male blue convict Cichlid to put in that tank. But I actually got two females and two males, who immediately made it, and had 300 or so eggs each female. And they hatched. At the same time. It was crazy. So I decided to get another tank that was 55 gallons the same exact set up Cycle it the quick way like it did the first time with the first tank by using the nitrifying bacteria, beneficial, bacteria, prime stress by API conditioners for the chlorine all that, etc. I don’t think I clean the tank very well I just know I didn’t. I forgot to rinse off the canister for the filter and everything that went inside of the tank. I don’t think I did a great job wiping down the glass on the inside or the bottom of the tank. I also don’t think I did a great job of Rinsing off the new substrate which is just white gravel before putting it in the tank. So I don’t know if there is some sort of chemical in there from the packaging or something. I also ran the tank in the beginning the first night I ran the tank with water that was possibly not declog it all the way so it was about 24 hours of water with chlorine in it running through the new filters. I don’t think I added any food or nothing like that to help the nitrogen cycle speed up. so I do what I did last time and I waited a few days and then I put the all the fish which were a bunch of beginner fish actually, tetras, and Molly and One picked catfish and my hybrid catfish. As soon as I put them in the water all of them, except for the two mollies, one was a black Molly the other one was a dalmatian Molly and my red tail tiger shovel nose, catfish hybrid, who went to the top of the tank and was smart and just breathe the air out of the tank. So, don’t really know what killed the fish other than it not being cycled and possibly maybe pH difference but regardless, it’s been about five or six days. The two little Molly fish, for some reason are doing great and survive that whole craziness, the are the red tail catfish hybrid tiger was doing well but an act normal, but wasn’t eating that I could see her notice. I always found his food there the next morning, still in the tank just kind of rotting, so I will take it out. I know he went through some sort of shock as well as the other Fish just toughed it out. But he was still acting normal today. I did a couple of water changes cause I’ve been doing constant water changes to get whatever was wrong with that water out of the tank I did vacuum the gravel already, but I also added a lot of gravel from my other tank into that tank so to help with the nitrogen cycle anyways today for some reason after a water change , he started to swim freely all over the place and I’ve never seen him like that especially during the day at night time. He’s very active in the other tank. But this is different. He is swimming all over the place during the day he’s not scared of me or nothing doesn’t hide. He’s still not eating. And I noticed that he has one eye that is a little cloudy. And I see him kind of bump into things. It’s only one eye. I don’t know if it’s him just realizing that he has so much room and he can swim around a lot more without a bunch of fish and plants because the tank is very rare , it just has rocks and a couple plants. Or if he is confused or blind or going through something still but the other tamales are fine. Is it normal for these hybrid catfish to sometimes just be very very active for a whole day straight and never stop moving ? I also wanted to try to figure out what kind of chemical it could’ve been that was in the tank that would kill everything because from what I’ve learned is that water parameter will gradually or quickly kill your fish if they are not the right parameters, however, now really kills them instantly. All the fish were dead instantly. Except for the catfish and the 2 mollies. I put aquarium salts, and I’ve been doing water changes every single day since the incident. I have Melafix just in case. I also have the same filters in there that had the new water running through them for a few days and I added a third filter that is new, because I wanted to make sure that the carbon and the other ones if damaged would be replaced by the new one.
