# HELP!!! need help ASAP life or death



## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

OK, so heres the story. Me and my g/f decided to start a fresh water tank tonight with Dalmatian mollies, Mickey Fin fish, Platy's, some snails, and ghost shrimp.

They have been in there for about an hour and are not looking very good. All of the snails are closed. the Mollies are all acting really funny. The two Mickey fin fish basically stopped moving even when you touch them. the others are acting similar.

What could be wrong? we started the tank tonight and put some "waste control Organic waste eliminator. for rapid reduction of organic waste in aquariums" and also "some instant decholor" it is roughly a 20 gallon tank. We dont know what to do and really dont want to loose all these fish?

Hoping to get an answer soon so we dont lose them all tonight...

we also tried this a week ago and put them all in and woke up the next morning and they were all dead. But we thought the cause was some other chemical that she put in the water so we decided to try it again.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

your tank is not cycled. Please read up on cycling a aquarium. Ideally you should return all the fish and do a fishless cycle. 

What size is the tank? It sounds like you have way too many fish for a fish-in cycle. Most if not all will die at this rate. 

ATM do a large 80% water change using dechlorinated water.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

We did not cycle because we did not know anything about it. There is no way to return the fish tonight because it is to late. and they will be dead by morning.

It is a fresh set up but we did use dechlorinated water.

Is there any kind of chemical we can buy at wal-mart that will help or get them through the night? or anything else we can do tonight?

Thanks for the help...


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

It is a common beginners mistake. Most stores do not tell you about cycling, at least the easier fishless cycling. Because it is no profit to them if your tank sits empty for a month. You unknowingly add fish, they die, you try adding more fish, ect. Store makes more money this way.

The best thing to do is to do water changes. I'm not sure if walmart carries it, but the product called Prime will help in addition to water changes. It dechlorinates and will help detoxify ammonia and nitrite.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

So they can die that fast?

I should also add that they endured a 3 hour car ride.

We are trying to put in something called ammonia clear that sounds like it does something similar to what you are describing. and I also forgot to mention we have 4 plants in the tank... I dont know if that makes any difference


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

chrismeats said:


> So they can die that fast?
> 
> I should also add that they endured a 3 hour car ride.
> 
> We are trying to put in something called ammonia clear that sounds like it does something similar to what you are describing. and I also forgot to mention we have 4 plants in the tank... I dont know if that makes any difference


It depends how many fish you have in the tank. The more fish the quicker you are going to lose water quality. A 20gal should have 2-3 small fish for a fish-in cycle and often that requires 25% water changes every day or two. Fish-in cycles take much longer than fishless cycles and generally are a lot of work and are stressful as you are finding out. 

Fishless cycles require you to add small amounts of ammonia to the tank for about a month and you have to test the water to see the rise and drop of ammonia and nitrite. One this is finished you can fully stock a tank without issue.

3 hour car ride should not be a issue. I've had fish in bags for 8 hours no problems.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Starting to die within hour is extreme even for a cycling tank. It take time for ammonia to be created from fish waste (assuming you don't dump in the ammonia from the bags the fish came in). Something is wrong with your water. Do as large a water change as you can manage. And if all the fish die, do 100% and rinse everything before you start over.

My first guess is something you are adding is killing the fish, I'd start with only a dechlor or Prime or Amquel+, any one product that detoxifies ammonia and removes chloramines and chlorine. Nothing else, those "waste control" products have a bit of bad rep. A product that removes chlorine without 'detoxifying' ammonia can cause fish death if your tap water has chloramine in it. The dechlor releases ammonia by removing the chlorine. You can test this by using an ammonia test kit on your tap water before and after dechlorinated it. Go ahead and double dose, some water systems use an excessive amount of chlorine or chloramine on occasion. Also check your calculations, make sure you used enough dechlor. Measure your tank and post the numbers, if you have more water than you think it will throw things off. Ammonia & pH test liquid test are cheap at wal-mart and are worth having. A better kit that includes nitrite and nitrate is helpful for cycling. 

Second guess is your water is very different from the store water and you shock your fish by dumping them in it. You can test this be taking a water sample to the store for testing. But I think its less likely, usually a few fish will survive this kind of shock.

Read about cycling a tank and try again with just a few shrimp. You don't want to fix the immediate death problem only to have them die in 3 weeks when the nitrite spikes.

Where did the equip come from? Could it have been poisoned by being resealed with the wrong sealant, or by sitting dry someplace that was sprayed for bugs? Did you fill the tank with a bucket or hose that could have been contaminated?

http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3982+4240&pcatid=4240 says that ammonia may peak when using "waste control". Reducing organic waste to ammonia or even to nitrogen gas via ammonia seems really dangerous to me in a tank with fish. Ammonia is very toxic to fish. The whole point of "cycling" is to oxidize the ammonia to less toxic nitrate, which you remove with water changes.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

The same thing happend last week when we did this except they we didnt see them start to get sick... just woke up the next morning and they were all dead.

Its not the equipment she has had the equipment for a long time and we rinsed before putting them in. We have been adding amonia clear tablets and it kind of seems to be helping..... I dont know we may just need to start all over


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

we have also been changing the water but dont have anyway to check any of the levels.... already lost one molly completely.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Keep up with the ammonia control measures and water changes. Whenever the fish look worse, gasping, or red gills, change water again. 

If I had to guess whats going on, I'd speculate that the "waste control" is turning all the dried fish poo in the gravel, all the dried algae on the glass to ammonia and that, added to the ammonia from the water in bag with the fish in the car ride, and the ammonia from dead fish is whats killing your fish. In a "cycled" tank, the filter would turn all that ammonia to nitrate, but in an 'uncycled' tank, it just builds up to toxic levels. if you get to wal-mart tomorrow, pick up an ammonia test and just keep changing water to keep it in the "safe" range. Don't bother feeding, the fish won't feel like eating until they feel better anyway. 

You can try adding some non-iodized salt (aquarium, rock, kosher) at about 1 tsp/gallon. It helps reduce toxicity of nitrite (which I expect to appear soon) and mollies, platys, and shrimp like it. However, it could be bad for the snails.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

Well they are still alive now except for the one that died earlier. A few of them are not looking the best but some seem to be doing ok.

Thanks for all the help emc7... We actually went to wal-mart tonight and I got test strips for amonia and then a 5 in 1 that does nitrate nitrite ph and some other stuff... I cant seem to get the amonia levels down below 3 (according to these strips.) We have changed the water multiple times and added amonia clear tabs and it doesn seem to much of anything. So I decided to test our tap water and it says that it is at 3 as well!!! does this make sense? 

Any other ideas on how to get the ammonia levels down? or are my test strips just lying to me? I will run to a real pet store tomorrow on my lunch break if the fish are still alive.

We did not add the water from the bags into the water thankfully.


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2010)

its quite normal for tap water to contain ammonia. looks like u will need to use diff water while doin water changes. emc has pretty much given u all the tips any of us can suggest to help you at this time...now its just a waitin game. i hope ur fish pull through it.

emc,tos,ron,loha would it be ok if he added bottled water to the tank to help lower the NH3 content seein that his tap is already coming with 3ppm of NH3?


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

well it looks like the 1:00 AM trip saved some of them for now. So far the only casualties are 2 mollies, how ever a 3rd isn't looking so great. Thanks for all the help guys.

Right now we still have 4 fish in the tank along with a bunch of ghost shrimp. We pulled the snails out and put them in there own bowl. and put 3 other fish that werent looking so great into another larger tank that used to be a turtle tank (we put in the turtle in a different tank. We figured if we left them all in one they would all die. hopefully this way we can at least save some of them.

I plan on going on my lunch break to get some good water testing stuff and hopefully some better chemicals then what I got at wal-mart last night.

emc7, you were right about the "Waste control" sh*t we put in the tank... I got to reading on the back of the bottle and it said that basically during the process "ammonia levels may spike"

Any idea on what I can do about water so I'm not starting off behind? I really dont want to pay a bunch for water. just kind of seems silly to spend a couple bucks on water every day for a month?


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2010)

what you need is a 2nd tank thats least 3/4th the size of ur main. run a fishless cycle in it using a good filter. once you have 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite and <40 Nitrate, you can move this water to your main tank. or get a BIG drum/rubber maid like a 100gallon and do the same thing. use this water for your water changes. this will save your main tank from runnin into a cycle everytime u do a water change.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

*sigh*

I can't believe this thread got this far along without someone mentioning the obvious, actual cause of this problem. You guys are really slipping.

You cannot set up a tank and put fish in it the very same day without having problems, unless you do it in a very specific sort of way, or just get very lucky.

Your fish aren't suffering from ammonia, and cycling has nothing to do with this.
( _UNLESS your city uses chloramine instead of chlorine in it's water, and your dechlorinator only zaps the chlorine half, but that's a pretty rare problem these days. In that case your water would have ammonia in it, but not straight from the faucet_ )
EDIT: 3ppm ammonia? Better double check that. If it's true, then yeah, that's certainly no help, but I'd bet it's not true.

Chlorine is likely part of your problem, but zakk mentioned 1/2 of the real problem, which is that your water at home may well be very different in chemistry from the water at the store. This is very likely, in fact, if you live 3 hours away from the store. Fish do not like being suddenly put in very different water. They need to be acclimated to it slowly.

The other main part of your problem is that if your water is too new, or "raw," then your fish will suffocate. New water hasn't had time to de-gass the bad gases which build up in it inder the pressure of the city water pipes, and it likewise hasn't yet gotten saturated with oxygen. You really have to let a new tank run for a whole day to fix this before adding any fish.

Again, there are ways around this, but unless you already have some tanks going or otherwise plan ahead, they won't do you much good now, so save that lesson for next time.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

Actually the first time I tested the tank it came up with 6ppm ammonia because of that waste control stuff we put in it.

It seems we did everything wrong. not cycling, using the waste control stuff, not having a sufficient bubbler, shocking the fish, etc. a learning experience is an understatement lol... If the fish we have now dont survive the fish in cycle process then we will be do the cycling the correct way without fish.

Now my g/f thinks that between the filter and the air bubbler strip (I think thats what they are called) that there is to much current for the shrimp and some of the fish. is this a valid concern or just paranoia?

Thanks everyone for all the help...


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Its a valid concern if the fish can't rest and have to keep swimming, even at night. You should be able to rearrange things so there is a calm area to rest in. Maybe use a rock or plant to deflect the current. For the shrimp, a flat rock to hide under will likely do the trick. Lots of aeration will help with breathing (ammonia hurt gills) but fish can get tired. 

Keep up with water changes and ammonia "detoxifying", eventually the tank should start to cycle and the ammonia level go down.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

If there really is ammonia in the tap water, and it can happen, then the 2 ways to deal with it are use different water or use ammonia detoxifier and a cycled filter to turn the ammonia into nitrate. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a false positive. If it really is that high, it could be hard to cycle the tank, since at around 5 ppm, ammonia can kill your cycling bacteria. 

Consider adding "Stability" to jumpstart your cycling process.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

WOW things are looking much better. We lost some of the ghost shrimp and about 4 of the fish. and the others are looking really good.

I went to the store yesterday and got some stuff that sounded like the prime stuff you guys talk about. (They didnt care the prime). I then went home and did about a 75% water change and put in the prime like stuff in. This was at noon. after I got off work at around 9 I pulled out the water test kit that I got at the store (not the strips but an actual test kit which is kind of fun... I felt like a little kid) The ammonia level was 0  and the nitrite was low  

The only thing is the stuff I put in the water seemed to make it cloudy. Is this normal?

Hopefully things will keep going well.

Thanks again everyone for all the help.


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## Fish Grandma (Dec 27, 2009)

Wen I started up my tank, I put the ph perfect powder in my tank. My tanks were cloudy, white cloudy all night. When I got up the next morning it was perfectly clear. Good luck, it sounds like the others may have dodged a bullet.


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2010)

cloudy is good. signs of a cycle in process. am glad u got the problem sorted out.


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Chris I will agree with what everyone has instructed you to do for your fish thus far. The only problem I see is the high ammonia levels from the tap. The only reason I am this concerned, is I have the same problem as you. High ammonia from the tap is going to make a few things happen. One problem you will have is the fish's health. Their gills are very susceptable to ammonia poisoning. Ammonia makes their gills burn. This will shorten their overall life. The other problem, is that ammonia is a fertilizer. Algae will grow very easily in your tanks. 

A few things you can do to combat this problem.
1. Do as people suggested above. Use a separate tank to "pre-cycle" the water and the ammonia will become the less harmful nitrate.

2a. Use a product like Seachem Prime. A dechlorinator that will remove ammonia, usually with a double dose of it.
2b. Use Ammo-chips or zeolite in your filter. It will absorb the ammonia. It will need to be recharged or replaced when you do water changes. 

3. Get a reverse osmosis filter. This will get you the purest water you can get. Most people set up a trash can or an extra aquarium in their basement, with the water from the filter dripping into it. 

4. If it is a small tank, buy water. I usually get my water at the grocery store for about 35¢ per gallon. I use this for my saltwater tanks, since they need R/O water, and I never bought a R/O filter.

You will need to choose one of these four methods, or come up with your own way to fight the ammonia levels coming out of the tap. At 3ppm, they are already harmful to your fish.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

UPDATE: Fish are still doing great!!! ammonia, nitrite, ph, carbonite(sp?), and CO2 levels are all good. My test kit says it can test for nitrate but I couldn't find any instructions on this?

bmlbytes, I'm not sure if that 3ppm is accurate. That was with the cheapie wal-mart test strips. I have not re-tested it with the nice liquid test kit yet.

How often should I do water changes? should I just watch the ammonia levels and such and do it when they start to rise again?

I found that http://www.aqadvisor.com/ on here today and plan on playing around with that when I get home to make sure I dont have to many fish in my tank.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

I also wanted to ask about gravel. Right now I have no gravel in my tank. Should I add some? is it needed? should I add it before my cycling process is done or add it now? does it matter what size of gravel I use? (ie regular pea gravel or larger river rock)


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## pinetree (Nov 29, 2009)

Whether or not you "need" substrate depends on the fish you keep really or if you are using an undergravel filter. Some fish like gravel to dig in or hide in. However, you don't really need gravel to keep the tank alive, in fact some people prefer bare bottom tanks for ease of cleaning. Or bare bottom with a few river rocks or ornaments. I think it's mostly a preference.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Lots of fish are bred and raised in bare-bottomed tanks. Lots of mine are. Its seldom "necessary". Substrates are another place to clean. But a well chosen substrate can feed live plants, buffer the water, make the fish more comfortable (reflective bottoms are scary), allow fish to show you natural behavior such as sand-sifting or nest building, or keep aggressive fish busy moving rocks instead of chewing on each other. 

I've seen anything from powder fine sand to shooter-marble sized rocks used. Substrate is more important to bottom-dwelling fish than upper water fish. Whatever you use, rinse well.

I think you can and should do without while you cycle. Unless you are pulling water through it (under-gravel filter), the surface for bacteria to grow isn't enough to balance the ammonia generated by waste that escapes the siphon. 

Once you are through cycling, read up on what pleases your fish and look at pictures and decide if substrate is something you want and if so, what kind.


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## chrismeats (Mar 22, 2010)

Thanks for all the help... I'm still having trouble keeping the amonia levels down. Our water here does have around 3ppm of ammonia  

I was using a product called "nutrafin cycle" which actually worked really well untill about the 4ths day. the ammonia and nitrite levels were staying low the whole time. then when i tested again on the 4th day they were way up. So I added some more of the nutrfin cycle and it didnt seem to do anything. So I did some looking online and found it kind of had a bad rap. I guess it is not good for the tanks cycle process because it prevents it from ever finishing and just created a series of "mini" cycles and you have to keep adding the stuff forever.

So I went to the store today and picked up some korden amquel plus. hopefully it will do a better job. does anyone here have any experience with it?

I know I know Seachems prime is the best but we only have 1 pest start and wal-mart and neither one seem to carry it.


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## Cam (Nov 9, 2009)

Everyone has covered everything except this. Try not to buy fish from walmart. They are nearly always unhealthy. Best of luck!


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

pest start = Petsmart?

Anyway many products will turn ammonia into a less harmful version of ammonia. Therefore it will show up in the tests, but it may not be doing damage to the fish. If you got a spare $100 to $200 laying around, you could get a RO/DI system to get PURE water filtered from the tap. You will have to add minerals to the water, but at least you dont have problems with the water, and you know EXACTLY what is in your water.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

> pest start = Petsmar


lol. I really like them for cat stuff, but the fish they carry are nuts, IR sharks and Tinfoil barbs, Hard to find a fish that doesn't get 12". Heard they are 'redoing' the live inventory list. Hope for improvement.

I haven't used Amquel+ , but its label reads very like Prime's and other here have reported it as good.


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

emc7 said:


> Heard they are 'redoing' the live inventory list. Hope for improvement.


They will probably just start carrying great white sharks and beluga whales.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

So the 3 ppm ammonia in tap water is confirmed. I think its time to plan pretreatment. Do you have room for 5 gallon bucket with a lid? You could run an air-line in and power a box filter full of ammo-carb. This is one situation where ammonia remover is appropriate. Use the water once its tests ammonia-free.


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