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Theresa_M

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  1. UPDATE for the people who are following this post. I am so pleased to share that the cloudiness is completely gone and the fish are active and schooling as if nothing happened. Zero ammonia and zero nitrites since I did a water change this morning at 6am. Checked the water three times so far today and always zeros!! I have a trace of nitrates which means stuff is happening people! Everything seems copacetic. Will continue to monitor, but looks like I may come out of this a little earlier and better stocked than I expected. I am thrilled!
  2. Hi @CalmedByFish! Great question. Ultimately, my bacteria crashed. What caused it is not entirely known. I took several actions to save my fish that likely played into it - a comedy of errors, so to speak (although not so funny). Look up "nitrogen cycle" or "aquarium tank crash" on YouTube and you'll see that this does happen from time to time. It's not always super clear the reasons why. Short answer to your question about the ecosystem in your tank is that, "no" the cycle is not bullet proof once established. Having said that, some people never have problems and others do. I suspect that the more complex your tank is (not speaking from any scientific knowledge here) with fish, wood, botanicals, etc, the more risk you have of things falling out of balance. BUT, that's not going to stop me from using any or all of those things in any tank 🙂
  3. Here's a great resource from Aquarium Co-op - read and watch 🙂https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/how-to-treat-ich-on-freshwater-fish.
  4. @Goldie Blue you're not alone. I would venture to guess that most people start out in the hobby that way. I know I did!! It's such a relief when you start to see your nitrites (eating ammonia) and then, as they dwindle, your nitrates come through. It's very satisfying now starting a new tank, knowing what I know. But THIS - fish in cycle - is not fun. Good luck! You've found a great resource in this community!
  5. @GeorgeJ thanks so much for commenting. Sounds like you're getting started the right way! Congrats and enjoy your new set up!
  6. Oh @Crabby 😭🤗 Thank you so much for sharing! It means a lot to me and others as well, I'm sure. I have to say, I'm not a fan of learning this way!
  7. @Guppy Guy thank you so much for sharing your story!
  8. I appreciate you! Thank you! Oh no! I feel for you!
  9. @Minanora I use an Eheim heater in this tank. The heater isn't broken and neither is my thermometer. When I added cooler water, the temp went down. The water feeling hot was not actually the reality of the situation. The temp was hovering around 79/80 and when I did the first water change with cooler water I dropped it to 76/77. Now talk about stress on the fish. Oy. That was not a good decision. I could have validated the temp, but was in a total panic and just wanted to act quickly. Maybe that's another lesson - LEVEL YOUR HEAD AND VALIDATE before taking action, lol.
  10. I appreciate that! Thank you for the encouragement! No clue. I'm still trying to work through it. As I said, it was a series of poor decisions on my part and it's hard to say. I think I probably should have started with the water change after that second random death - for sure after the third. I also should have moved the new fish to quarantine at the same time. That's what I'm thinking. Could have been an overloaded tank and I just didn't realize it. Medicating at that moment is my biggest regret, though. If you have a bunch of fish suddenly dying - all different species - over a series of a few days, it's probably(?) not a disease issue that needs resolving.
  11. Isn't that the truth @Gail Kali? You can go along for so long and not have any problems. Then boom! There are a couple of scenarios I'm going through as I try to learn from this - the water change with ferts right before adding the new fish, not quarantining ... so many things.
  12. I appreciate you @Mmiller2001! Thank you
  13. It's just embarrassing. It was really the perfect storm of everything you've ever learned through fishkeeping school that you are not supposed to do. So, if people avoid doing everything this fine forum advises against, they should be good 🙂 I have a mature 75 g tank with a whole host of fish and plant life that hasn't had any new fish added in over 6 mos (maybe even closer to 9 mos). No additions, no subtractions - just bliss. I wouldn't say that it was overstocked, but it was well stocked. Diamond tetras have been on my list for about a year, and last week I went on a road trip to my favorite fish store just to check things out. They had the most beautiful, fat and healthy diamonds I've seen yet and couldn't resist picking up 6. I also wanted to add to my otocinclus clan, as I only had 4. I picked up 3 more on my trip. Lesson 1 = QUARANTINE. I did not. They were so healthy looking (as is every single thing I buy from this store) that I tossed them right in. Two days passed and life was good. On day 3, I had a dead new otto. I was a little surprised, but chalked it up to a stress death or something like that. The next day, I had a random neon tetra death. Ok, that caused me pause. I checked water parameters with strips and also the kit as a back up. Parameters were perfectly normal. The next day, I lost a black neon and another neon. Still normal water parameters. The next day, lost a borneo sucker, another black neon and another neon. Still perfect parameters - 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, ~20 nitrates. Water was clear. I'm thinking, if the water is fine, there's no need to change it. I had just done a water change the day before adding the new fish. I didn't attribute this to bioload, I attributed it to sick fish. So, I figured, it's been a solid 9 mos or so since the tank had been treated and with these new fish, better to be safe then sorry (I was already feeling pretty sorry). I decided to treat the entire display tank with the med trio and did so last night. (Maybe lesson two should have been to remove the new fish and put them in quarantine instead of treating the whole tank!) I didn't go back to check on them this morning because I've done this before without incident - it's how I treat all new fish in my other tanks. Lesson 2 = MONITOR MEDS. If you use them ... keep an eye on things. Today, when the lights popped on shortly after noon, my husband called to me that the tank looked cloudy. Meh, no big deal. That's to be expected when you medicate. I took my time getting over there to see what was up. I bent down to look. It wasn't the cloudiness of the water that concerned me. What concerned me were several dead tetras belly up and all of the rest of fish (INCLUDING MY PLECO) at the surface of the water gasping for air. I stuck my hand in the water and it felt HOT. Checked the temp and it hadn't changed. I assumed that the heater was burning out on me and frying my fish and that my thermometer was broken. That's when I added another airline/pump and removed the lids. Ha! I have literally no idea why that was my next action. Lesson 3 = CHECK PARAMETERS FIRST! When you see cloudy water, check your parameters and do a water change! 10 mins goes by with no change in behavior. In my panic, I hastily grabbed all of my equipment and did a 25% water change and replaced with cooler water (smacking my forehead right now). Puzzled, I left, asking my husband the check parameters for me. He said, "That can't be the problem. We just checked them last night and they were fine." I encouraged him to do it anyway. NITRITES were higher than we have ever seen in our lives! I didn't even know these kinds of results existed!!!! And the bloom! It must be bacteria!! I immediately did a 50% water change. Things are better. Nitrites are there, but barely. I will now spend the next many - many - days recycling my tank with all of my display fish in cycle with multiple water changes a day. It's not ideal, but with more fish on the way tomorrow that I purchased online over the weekend - I don't have a choice. Those new fish are going straight into my cycled quarantine tank and my other tanks are full. So that's my story. It's all wrong. Every bit of it.
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