Frustrated Fish Owner ready to give up

[LiveBearer Fan]

My husband has a 20g long. In it he has eco substrate with white gravel over top, root tabs, live plants (java fern windelov, water sprite, aponogeton, anubias, moss ball, and some others), sponge filter in back left corner, airstone in center of the background, and a 30g HOB filter with an intake sponge. (HOB has 2 sponges and a bag of biomax rings in it.)

He has/had 2 powder blue gouramis, 3 black ruby barbs, 5 five-banded tetra, one albino pleco, and a mystery and/or pond snail (not exactly sure which). Parameters are 6.8 pH, 0 ppm ammonia, 0 chlorine, 0 ppm nitrite, 20-30 ppm nitrates, hard water. There is no lid on the tank. Unless numbers are off, he has been topping off the tank with Seachem Prime-treated tap water as needed. We have probably done 3 water changes and 2 filter cleanings in the last two months. We do bi-weekly doses of Seachem Flourish for the live plants. (I have added Seachem Stability as dead fish are removed also.)

He has lost everything but the black ruby barbs and snails (snails are multiplying - found 3 new babies this morning) in the last month. Are these types of fish extremely sensitive to water parameters? Is the lack of a lid problematic? He is so frustrated he is thinking of just shutting the tank down if the barbs don't make it. I don't want him to give up; I have suggested "easier" fish, like livebearers.

Any advice? I am currently treating the tank with Ich-X because I noticed one barb with spots. We are also taking a water sample to our LFS.

Thanks in advance.

[Isaac M]

Hi @LiveBearer Fan, I am am sorry to hear about all of the frustration and losses. Assuming the testing is correct, it appears that your tank is cycled. Do you know what your gh and kh is? I know you said hard water but having the actual numerical readings can be very helpful. 

Not having a lid should not be an issue unless your fish are jumping out or you are having extreme temperature swings? 

Do you have any pictures of the aquarium and the fish? Have you been quarantining the fish? Have you been getting all your fish from one store? Do they look healthy and are eating at the store? Do you know their water parameters and how they compare to yours? 

I know that is a lot of questions but I am just trying to sort out the various possibilities. 

[ScottieB]

I second the condolences, you are not alone. We have all had ups/downs so try not to get too discouraged. 

My first thought that would be topping off with Tap water. When water evaporates it leaves all dissolved minerals, contaminants, organic matter, etc, behind. So continually adding tap water would slowly raise values of whatever is in your tap water. I live in Kansas and the water from my tap is so bad, nitrates are like 30ppm in addition to whatever else I can’t test for. It wouldn’t take long to ‘overdose’ the tank using tap water for topping off. 

I use reverse osmosis water which is devoid of most things (0 tds), essentially pure H2O just for replacing evaporation. 

Something to consider. Hope things improve. Keep us posted and we can try to help!

 

[CalmedByFish]

My first thought is the possibility of other substances getting into the tank. Air freshener, glass cleaner, lotion on hands, maybe soap on the containers used for top-offs... there's a wide variety of stuff that can get into a tank, and a wide variety of ways. 

[SWilson]

I'm sorry to hear about that too, and can relate to how frustrating this can be.  I did start with endlers livebearers, since I had not kept fish in decades and based on what I'd heard about them being basically bullet proof. 

But, I second all the questions @Isaac M had.  Also, just to throw out more possibilities: 

• Has the pH stayed relatively stable?  In my house, we've sometimes had pH crashes a few weeks after setting up planted tanks if we aren't closely watching the KH and keeping it high with added calcium carbonate sources.  
• What is the temperature? 
• Are there other sources of stress on the fish?  Were the 2 gouramis fighting?  I don't have experience with them, but I've heard that 2 powder blue males can fight.  Similarly, I've never kept barbs, but have heard that they can be pretty boisterous.  Could there be external sources of stress like noise?
• Could there be something besides chlorine in your tap/source water? like copper, etc? Though, if it was copper, it would have affected the snails.  (though in my experience bladder snails can survive really extreme environmental parameters - kind of amazing really)

[LiveBearer Fan]

@CalmedByFishThat is exactly the line of thinking my husband has. @ScottieBWe started the tank with water from our outside hose; we then began using the treated tap water because I have it in a 29g with no issues. @Isaac M, I am currently on a call for work. I will test gh and kh and take a photo after this call. Not sure if readings differ with Ich-X but I did treat yesterday afternoon. Also, temp was up to 88 degrees (trying to kill ich). I lowered the heater to 79 degrees this morning.

[CalmedByFish]

32 minutes ago, LiveBearer Fan said:

Also, temp was up to 88 degrees (trying to kill ich). I lowered the heater to 79 degrees this morning.

Somebody check me on this if you know otherwise.

I think that although a higher temp kills ich, just 86 degrees will at least stop them from reproducing. So you could stop them from reproducing and not make the fish deal with *such* high heat.

I have a note too that at 80 degrees, ich's life cycle is decreased to 4 days. So even getting it up to just 80, while medicating, would be a compromise to get the ich gone without as much heat.

[LiveBearer Fan]

Justed tested the water with Aquarium Co-op Multi-test strips. (AND my husband corrected me. He had 5 black ruby barbs. Now down to 4. One jumped out of the tank.)

• Nitrates have risen to 50 ppm (just performed 30% water change yesterday before adding Ich-X)
• Nitrites 0 ppm
• KH is 0 ppm (Is that bad?)
• GH is between 150 and 300 ppm (top end of the hard scale)
• pH is down to 6.4
• chlorine is 0 ppm
• ammonia (API liquid kit) is 0 ppm

Edited April 28, 2021 by LiveBearer Fan

[darkG]

The low KH means there is no buffering capacity; the pH may plummet and crash in short time for little reason. A decent KH (4?) will push back and hold the line to mitigate fast swings by neutralizing acids. I have not had to deal with this myself. You'll probably have to consider KH in conjugation conjunction with pH.

Edited April 28, 2021 by darkG

[Mike_M]

My guess is that the fish you are getting are unhealthy when you get them and are dying from bacteria or parasites after a while. My advice would be to quarantine and medicate fish with maracyn and paracleanse when you get them. People focus on water parameters because they are testable, but diseases and parasites we can't test for kill a lot of fish too.

[Isaac M]

@LiveBearer Fan Thank you for providing the information and pictures. Since a barb has jumped out of the aquarium, I would recommend adding a lid. 

Nitrates are a little high given you just did a water change yesterday. It would be good to have those constantly below 40 ppm for your new fish. This depends however on what the nitrate level is of your water before adding it to the aquarium (tap water or whatever source you use).

Your kH is 0 ppm? I would retest. kH is the buffering capacity of your water to resist pH swings, given that you said that you pH is “down” to 6.4, it is likely you will need to supplement your water with some crushed coral or something similar. For kH you typically want to see 70-140 ppm or 4-8 dkH. A pH swing can occur at or below 40 ppm or 2 dkH which can potentially result in fish deaths. I would focus on this and adding a top to your aquarium. 

If you can, I would also test the main water source you are using for water changes as that will give you a baseline to work with. I would at a minimum test it for pH, nitrates, gH and kH. 

See the link below for a link to a very helpful aquarium co-op blog post on pH, kH and gH:

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh?_pos=2&_sid=77131c669&_ss=r

I hope that helps enough to save your aquarium and to stay in the hobby! Please let us know if you have any other questions. 

[CalmedByFish]

23 minutes ago, Mike_M said:

 My advice would be to quarantine and medicate fish with maracyn and paracleanse when you get them. 

After you figure out the water itself, and are ready to re-stock:

I wonder if it would make sense to plan out exactly what you want to have in the tank, buy it all at the same time (assuming you're well-cycled), and thoroughly medicate it all at once. Maybe it would mean you only have to do the medicating once instead of over and over. 

I know ACO has at least one video on how to thoroughly medicate newbies, and they even sell a package of every med needed so you don't have to think about it as much.

Edited April 28, 2021 by CalmedByFish

[LiveBearer Fan]

@Mike_Mthat is a valid point. The fish look very happy and healthy in the LFS where we purchase. Obviously coming home to our water is a shock for them. I bought an electric blue balloon ram from the same store and placed it in my aquarium (29g) after 15 minutes. 2 days later it developed ich spots. It is healed now but it was probably telling that it was the only fish who showed those symptoms. Definitely need to invest in a quarantine tank and medicate before adding to the general population like Cory recommends (just watched the video yesterday). Thank you!

[Hobbit]

3 hours ago, CalmedByFish said:

I have a note too that at 80 degrees, ich's life cycle is decreased to 4 days.

I heard somewhere that at 80 degrees ich's life cycle is 12 days, but do I have a source for that? Nope. 😅

I do agree though that raising the temp so high is probably more harmful for the fish than helpful. It may kill the ich but if it also kills the fish...

I’ll also second the advice about raising your KH. That will bring your pH up and also help keep the pH stable. Fish are more susceptible to disease when stressed, so pH swings could be contributing to them getting sick.

Tell your husband to hang in there!! It *is* possible to have a stable, thriving tank. We promise! 

[hamlet10]

I don’t have much to add about troubleshooting the issues with the existing fish.  If your husband does end up starting with new fish, I just wanted to suggest starting with zebra danios.  They are very cheap, pretty fun to watch, and almost bulletproof, in my experience.

Nothing makes fish keeping more fun than success, and I can’t think of a fish a beginner is more likely to succeed with than zebra danios.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

It is my understanding that Ich is **NOT** killed by heat, only it's life cycle is sped up so that you can get through the treatment process FASTER, treatment being salt, Ich X, API Super Ick etc. I have treated Ich with and without heat AND meds (1x API Super Ick- with heat in a 20 gallon tall, 1x Seachem Paraguard- without heat in a 3.5 gallon tank)

[Mmiller2001]

Hello @LiveBearer Fan

I was just about to update my journal when I saw this post and I want to add my suggestions. But before I get started, it's important to let you know, I'm one of the "Black Sheep" of this forum, So please, don't take my advice or suggestions as rude, maybe take them as, you know, fluffy little kitties?

Lets get down to stabilizing a lot of problems here. Your tank is all over the place, and it's really hard to pinpoint what's going on. So in order to "set a base line" we should do a couple of things that quickly caught my attention.

1. Eco-I assume you mean Eco Complete substrate. If he is using Eco Complete, stop root tabs immediately. This substrate is designed to draw in water column nutrients and nutrients from fish. This is then slowly released back into plants once the Eco Complete has reached saturation. I suggest Google'ing CEC value to get a better grasp of how this substrate works. But the TL/DR version is, Eco Complete needs to be left alone. When we shove these "Root Tabs" down into our substrate, we are unable to measure the rate of release, water flows through our substrate, just like in the water column, but slower and at an immeasurable rate. Stop root tabs , continue Flourish per directions. After a month, we will know, roughly, our true Nitrate ppm. Testing nitrates weekly will let us know we are headed in the right direction.. 10,000.00 bucks says your nitrates are not 40ppm, but rather a mixture of fish waste and fertilizers, we need to know the difference.

2.  Eco Complete-  Removing the gravel, that he placed on top of the Eco Complete, is something I would consider. If you guys want a white substrate, pool filter sand would be a better option, but that's another can of worms we don't want to open right now. Just keep in mind, the gravel is hindering the Eco Complete.

3. Test GH and KH , ignore pH. KH and GH are way more important right now. Find the "happy medium" for your fish load. And adjust GH and KH, slowly, to that "happy medium".

4. Do not raise the temperature of your tank. That's a stress on the fish we want to avoid. Trust your meds to do the work. Slowly reduce the temperature to the "happy Medium". 1 Degree over 2 hours should be fine. Slower if you can.

5. Continue Ich X per directions. If Ich X doesn't cure the Ich, it's not Ich. We will cross that bridge if we need to.

6. Edit: Let's correct our water, then dose Paracleanse or API General Cure after.

7. Test your source water GH and KH, know the difference from your tank water.

Summary:

Gravel on Eco Complete and root tabs is going to be challenging.

Stagger filter cleaning over a month and only if you notice a reduction in flow.

Med trio ALWAYS to rule out disease. Edit: Med Trio new fish arrivals.

Test source water, we absolutely need to know what these parameters are. Top off tank with distilled or RO water only. 

0KH is not bad. 

 

Edit:

I missed your post with the KH and GH result. I apologize for that. I also did a quick look into your fish. I saw the word tetra and looked no further. I'm glad I did, your 0KH is a problem for these types of fish. 

Can you get a better GH reading? 150-300ppm is 8.6-17dGH. that's a big difference. API sells a KH/GH test kit. It will definitely help with accuracy.

For your Barbs, let's shoot for 5dGH, that's 87.5ppm. We will mix some distilled water with your source water to lower the GH but we need to know source water GH. 

To increase KH, some people use crushed coral, but I like to alter KH precisely, and to do this we can use Seachem Alkaline buffer or my personal choice is Potassium Carbonate. Check your LFS or box store for Seachem and Amazon has Potassium Carbonate for dirt cheap. Health food stores may have it also. Just make sure it's food grade and no other additives

Seachem buffer is probably going to be the easiest to find locally.

Once you test your source water KH, we will add product to set a 4dKH. A 5dGH and 4dKH is a nice happy medium for your fish and plants. I would buy a five gallon bucket, with lid, so we can mix a "batch" of source water. This will reduce our work load.

If you decide to go this route, I'll make the calculations for you, so don't worry there.

We will then use our new "soup" to do water changes. This will raise and lower our numbers slowly and eventually set our GH and KH.

Don't get discouraged, once you/ he does this a few times, it will be very simple. It just seems scary at first.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[Mmiller2001]

I want to add two photos. I have Eco Complete on the left side of the tank and sand one the right. Absolutely no root tabs. See how the Eco Complete side is growing out of control? I get a lot of hate, but root tabs are Hocus Pocus. Adding root tabs is causing uncontrollable nutrient and TDS swings. This is destabilizing and can cause stress on our fish. Stressed fish is a recipe for trouble.

The second picture is all sand. Absolutely no root tabs. When I did use root tabs, I had nothing but trouble,  algae, dead fish and odd KH and GH behavior. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[Hobbit]

@Mmiller2001 you have a few different strategies when it comes to fishkeeping but you are still one of the flock! 😊

[Mmiller2001]

3 hours ago, Hobbit said:

@Mmiller2001 you have a few different strategies when it comes to fishkeeping but you are still one of the flock! 😊

I'm flattered! Thank you! 😁

[LiveBearer Fan]

@Mmiller2001WOW, thank you for taking the time to lay all of that out for us. I will print this out and go step-by-step.  At this point we are trying to save 4 fish. We really have nothing to lose. Your plant growth is AMAZING! 

[laritheloud]

10 hours ago, Mmiller2001 said:

Hello @LiveBearer Fan

I was just about to update my journal when I saw this post and I want to add my suggestions. But before I get started, it's important to let you know, I'm one of the "Black Sheep" of this forum, So please, don't take my advice or suggestions as rude, maybe take them as, you know, fluffy little kitties?

Lets get down to stabilizing a lot of problems here. Your tank is all over the place, and it's really hard to pinpoint what's going on. So in order to "set a base line" we should do a couple of things that quickly caught my attention.

1. Eco-I assume you mean Eco Complete substrate. If he is using Eco Complete, stop root tabs immediately. This substrate is designed to draw in water column nutrients and nutrients from fish. This is then slowly released back into plants once the Eco Complete has reached saturation. I suggest Google'ing CEC value to get a better grasp of how this substrate works. But the TL/DR version is, Eco Complete needs to be left alone. When we shove these "Root Tabs" down into our substrate, we are unable to measure the rate of release, water flows through our substrate, just like in the water column, but slower and at an immeasurable rate. Stop root tabs , continue Flourish per directions. After a month, we will know, roughly, our true Nitrate ppm. Testing nitrates weekly will let us know we are headed in the right direction.. 10,000.00 bucks says your nitrates are not 40ppm, but rather a mixture of fish waste and fertilizers, we need to know the difference.

2.  Eco Complete-  Removing the gravel, that he placed on top of the Eco Complete, is something I would consider. If you guys want a white substrate, pool filter sand would be a better option, but that's another can of worms we don't want to open right now. Just keep in mind, the gravel is hindering the Eco Complete.

3. Test GH and KH , ignore pH. KH and GH are way more important right now. Find the "happy medium" for your fish load. And adjust GH and KH, slowly, to that "happy medium".

4. Do not raise the temperature of your tank. That's a stress on the fish we want to avoid. Trust your meds to do the work. Slowly reduce the temperature to the "happy Medium". 1 Degree over 2 hours should be fine. Slower if you can.

5. Continue Ich X per directions. If Ich X doesn't cure the Ich, it's not Ich. We will cross that bridge if we need to.

6. Edit: Let's correct our water, then dose Paracleanse or API General Cure after.

7. Test your source water GH and KH, know the difference from your tank water.

Summary:

Gravel on Eco Complete and root tabs is going to be challenging.

Stagger filter cleaning over a month and only if you notice a reduction in flow.

Med trio ALWAYS to rule out disease. Edit: Med Trio new fish arrivals.

Test source water, we absolutely need to know what these parameters are. Top off tank with distilled or RO water only. 

0KH is not bad. 

 

Edit:

I missed your post with the KH and GH result. I apologize for that. I also did a quick look into your fish. I saw the word tetra and looked no further. I'm glad I did, your 0KH is a problem for these types of fish. 

Can you get a better GH reading? 150-300ppm is 8.6-17dGH. that's a big difference. API sells a KH/GH test kit. It will definitely help with accuracy.

For your Barbs, let's shoot for 5dGH, that's 87.5ppm. We will mix some distilled water with your source water to lower the GH but we need to know source water GH. 

To increase KH, some people use crushed coral, but I like to alter KH precisely, and to do this we can use Seachem Alkaline buffer or my personal choice is Potassium Carbonate. Check your LFS or box store for Seachem and Amazon has Potassium Carbonate for dirt cheap. Health food stores may have it also. Just make sure it's food grade and no other additives

Seachem buffer is probably going to be the easiest to find locally.

Once you test your source water KH, we will add product to set a 4dKH. A 5dGH and 4dKH is a nice happy medium for your fish and plants. I would buy a five gallon bucket, with lid, so we can mix a "batch" of source water. This will reduce our work load.

If you decide to go this route, I'll make the calculations for you, so don't worry there.

We will then use our new "soup" to do water changes. This will raise and lower our numbers slowly and eventually set our GH and KH.

Don't get discouraged, once you/ he does this a few times, it will be very simple. It just seems scary at first.

Not meaning to hijack this post, but this is really interesting and the first time I've heard this advice. I haven't commented on many of your posts yet but I've been learning an awful lot about growing aquarium plants and CO2 injection from you, and this is a really provocative and interesting approach. I had no idea I was at risk of over-saturating my eco-complete with root tabs, or that this was how eco-complete was engineered to function. I won't try to fish out what I already put in, but I'll see if I can go several months without using them at all. I already have a pretty stable gH and kH so I won't be too concerned about it, but it's definitely something I'm going to try.

[Mmiller2001]

2 hours ago, laritheloud said:

Not meaning to hijack this post, but this is really interesting and the first time I've heard this advice. I haven't commented on many of your posts yet but I've been learning an awful lot about growing aquarium plants and CO2 injection from you, and this is a really provocative and interesting approach. I had no idea I was at risk of over-saturating my eco-complete with root tabs, or that this was how eco-complete was engineered to function. I won't try to fish out what I already put in, but I'll see if I can go several months without using them at all. I already have a pretty stable gH and kH so I won't be too concerned about it, but it's definitely something I'm going to try.

The key to success is to have your water column dosing spot on. Especially if your are injecting CO2. It didn't make sense to me either but Greggz shattered the notion that inert substrates need root tabs.

Great reads

https://www.2hraquarist.com/

https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/greggz-120g-rainbow-fish-tank-scapecrunch-interview-1-18-2021.1020497/

[Mmiller2001]

2 hours ago, LiveBearer Fan said:

@Mmiller2001WOW, thank you for taking the time to lay all of that out for us. I will print this out and go step-by-step.  At this point we are trying to save 4 fish. We really have nothing to lose. Your plant growth is AMAZING! 

Thank you. I'm home all week so I will happily walk you through the numbers. We will get things on track and keep him in the hobby! Keep in mind, the above advice from others is good. My path is just one way to move forward. Crushed coral works and works well, I just don't know how to measure it and haven't used it, so I had to follow others advice and adapted their strategies to my own fish keeping.

[laritheloud]

50 minutes ago, Mmiller2001 said:

The key to success is to have your water column dosing spot on. Especially if your are injecting CO2. It didn't make sense to me either but Greggz shattered the notion that inert substrates need root tabs.

Great reads

https://www.2hraquarist.com/

https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/greggz-120g-rainbow-fish-tank-scapecrunch-interview-1-18-2021.1020497/

Thanks for the reads! I don't think I'm ready to start with injecting CO2 because it would invite a bit too much anxiety for me to be comfortable with as a newcomer. Right now, I think it's wiser to perfect my lighting/ferts balance. I'll stick to low tech for now and see what I can grow with strictly dosing the water column.