Koi Fish Information Centre

Hello. My 3,8, and 10-year olds finally convinced Mom and Dad( that’s me) to set up a freshwater tank. Being a bit Type-A about things, we got the (29-gal) tank, filters, bubblers, substrate, plastic plants, “ornaments” and so on around Christmastime 2007. We spent the next 6 or 7 weeks reading, together, all about aquariums/aquaria, fish-keeping, water/conditions, components of a good/healthy tank/community, etc etc. We read cover-to-cover, and I (and the kids) seemed to have a pretty good handle on things (At least, I thought we did). About 3 weeks ago, we finally set up the tank, used store-bought pea-gravel- sized substrate, a couple of tank-bottom decorations (a battle-ship and log that we bought from the aquarium section of the local WalMart. We set up the filters (rinsed etc), tested the water (everything seemed okay., incl pH, ammonia/nitrate/nitrite, hardness, chlorine/chloram’s, KH) the bubblers were working great. The water became a bit cloudy immediately upon adding water (the large blue-bottle variety for water-coolers, but we treated it to get rid of Cl, metals etc anyway); I didn’t rinse the substrate (my bad!)so I assumed the cloudiness was fine dust suspended in the water. After about three or four days the cloudiness settled down, but seemed to take almost two weeks before the water appeared as clear as my kids’ friends tank, so I added some tank-clearing stuff, as per bottle directions (I didn’t notice an appreciable difference after the addition, though). I rinsed the rinse-able filters . Of note, I did not cycle the tank before adding fish (???my bad???).
Okay, so things seemed to be going well. The kids got the water- testing thing down well, and seemed pretty comfortable with tank care. 5 days ago, we bought three Sailfin Mollys and three Mickey- Mouse Platys at our local/reputable pet-store, and were assured that their tanks had had no recent troubles or fish-additions. I didn’t check their tank water. So we brought the fish home in their little water-filled bags (to which the pet shop owner had added some “StressKote” to the water) , we let the bags sit in the tank (80 degrees F) for about 25 minutes, and poked a hole in the bags allowing the fish to enter our tank. Within about 5 hours, our tank water became murky/cloudy (the next morning we couldn’t see the scene on the outside-back of the tank!), and one Molly was dead. The cloudiness has decreased but is still hazy. Last night another of the Molly’s died. The remaining Molly, formerly a fish that zoomed all over the tank non-stop, alternates between very slow moving/stationary. and apparently-normal behaving. The Platy’s have taken up residence in the log so we don’t see much of them at all. One does come out periodically (the Platys used to all hang out together).
Okay…testing: the pH has climbed from 7.2 to between 7.6-7.8. It does not respond to “pH down ” products or to buffering tablets.. The hardness/carbonate is climbing slowly but steadily. Ammonia levels started to climb but not too high (0.5ppm max) and NO3/NO2 aren’t detectable). I’ve added pH stabilizing/buffering evanescent tablets (no real change), re-treated the water for Cl etc (although no cl-containing water was ostensibly used), my wife used a rapid- ammonia reducing compound-no change) I even added some stuff to jumpstart the biol filter (it said it contained bacteria and was to bee added on days 1,7 14 and up to weekly thereafter, but I’m not sure about the rationale for the weekly bit)
Today, the hardness continues to climb, the water is less hazy but still far from clear, my wife is currently at the local pharmacy obtaining some distilled water to do a 25% exchange, the temperature remains constant at about 80F.. Whassupppp??? ARRRRGGGGHHHH. Of course, it doesn’t help that two of the three kids have lost their first pets…..
Any thoughts would be mucho mucho appreciated. Thanx, and sorry for the lengthy note.
Brian
Okay, so things seemed to be going well. The kids got the water- testing thing down well, and seemed pretty comfortable with tank care. 5 days ago, we bought three Sailfin Mollys and three Mickey- Mouse Platys at our local/reputable pet-store, and were assured that their tanks had had no recent troubles or fish-additions. I didn’t check their tank water. So we brought the fish home in their litlle water-filled bags (to which the pet shop owner had added some “StressKote” to the water) , we let the bags sit in the tank (80 degrees F) for about 25 minutes, and ppoked a hole in the bags allowing the fish to enter our tank. Within about 5 hours, our tank water became murky/cloudy (the next morning we couldn’t see the scene on the outside-back of the tank!), and one Molly was dead. The cloudiness has decreased but is still hazy. Last night another of the Molly’s died. The remaining Molly, formerly a fish that zoomed all over the tank non-stop, alternates between very slow moving/stationary. and apparently-normal behaving. The Platy’s have taken up residence in the log so we don’t see much of them at all. One does come out periodically (the Platys used to all hang out together).
Okay…testing: the pH has climbed from 7.2 to between 7.6-7.8. It does not respond to “pHdown ” products or to buffering tablets.

Category: UniQuaria