2 Clowns dead, 1 sick, 0 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate readings

[thetexasranger]

So I have quite a few issues here.
In the last week I've lost 2 clown loachs. Both struggled to swim as their first symptom. They had a "twitch" like motion to force themselves to swim at times. Later they just stopped swimming almost and eventually just lay on their side and died (always had rapid gill movement, were pale, and had red spot on anus).
I find it really odd that they don't all get sick at once and die, rather they die on after another.

Of also major concern after more than a month of having fish in the tank I have 0 nitrates, 0 nitrites, and 0 ammonia which I find odd as readings using the API master kit.

Heres how I started: 1 month and a half ago i got a 55 gallon tank. Using an emperor 400, eco-complete, 1 large plant, some ferns (which only brought me snails and algae and thus removed after some time) I attempted a fishless cycle using Ace ammonia which failed after 3 weeks as nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels all crashed to 0 (nitrates had been 20 ppm and nitrites maybe 10ppm at max). I added more ammonia and checked back a few days later and everything was still 0 So I opted to dump out all water and start anew (as a side note I did no water changes during this fishless cycle though I did and still do add Excel Carbon and occasionally nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous to lesser degree).

Using 2 bottles of safe start I added a BGK and and bushy nose pleco. 4 days later added 6 clown loaches (1 died I'm pretty sure because he was injured by the net but not 100% sure). Few days later added 2 Rams and a week after that 2 kribs (plus 2 plants).

Last week first noticed loaches which had been happy swimming around and clicking had become reclusive. One had issues swimming as described above. He died this past saturday in considerable pain. I noticed right after his death another clown was having similiar symptoms. He died yesterday. Now today I noticed a third clown "twitching." Am considering returning all clowns.

Around same time first clown had twitching issues, my BGK was occasionally "knocked out." He lay motionless for a few moments on his side in his hiding spot. When I looked in closer he started doing his motionless swimming as he usually does. In this last few days I've found him "knocked out" 3 times but he always gets up and swims around. At night he is normal swims around though sometimes he lacks zip and can swim on his side more than he had.

All other fish seem fine oddly enough...might all this have to do with the fact that loaches and BGK are scaleless?

I should also mention that for the first few weeks I overfed. 2 large feedings a day with flakes and one small feeding of bloodworms (no ammonia readings though?!). Last 5 days cut back a lot, last 3 days only fed every other day with green peas.

I do water changes once a week for 25%. Sunday did a major change of 60%. Today about 33%. Used prime today but had been (probably overusing API tap water conditioner).
Decided to test tap water from faucet...0 nitrites but also .25 ammonia...I don't know how that affects things.

Let me know if I can provide any more info and thanks for any input.

[chefkeith]

There could be a number of problems, many which you already mentioned. Here's a few things-

1stly- Water Quality. The tank probably isn't fully cycled yet. It can take more than month on a new tank. The plants are helping combat ammonia problems. When the lights are on, the plants consume any ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, but when the lights are off, that's when ammonia/nitrite might be toxic. The toxicity of ammonia depends on the pH level and the temperature of the water. The higher the pH and temperature is the more toxic ammonia becomes. If the tank is still cycling, then nitrite can also spike at night. Nitrite can be very toxic either way. Salt can help make nitrite less toxic.

2nd- Disease. When you added the cribs, you my have infected the tank with parasites. Loaches are very fragile and don't have much defense against foreign pathogens. You really need to start quarantining new fish in a separate tank when you 1st get them so that you can properly inspect them and treat them for any problems that might exist before they go into your main tank.

3rd- Water Chemistry. You'll need to learn what the water's KH, GH, pH, and TDS are. The consistency of those water parameters is critically important to the fish and to your long-term success as a fish keeper.

4th- Fish compatibility. BGK and cribs are might not be ideal tank mates for loaches. Some people might disagree with me though. I don't know much about BGK's, but I do believe they emit electrical pulses which helps them hunt prey. That might cause some problems with the loaches. I've never kept BGK so I'm not sure.

5th- Environment. Loaches need there own caves and hiding places. Sharing room in a cave with a BGK doesn't sound good to me.

[chefkeith]

I haven't had much luck with heaters either. All mine usually malfunction after a year, so I don't have a favorite brand. My tanks are heated mostly from my filters anyway. If you add another filter, it will probably keep the water a few degrees warmer. If you insulate the tank with styrofoam or even plywood, the temperature will stay quite steady. Insulating the top of the tank is the most important. With lighting that can be tricky. You may want to get a canopy hood for the lights if you already don't have one.

[BotiaMaximus]

BGKs and loaches actually do fine together. I had clowns and a BGK in a tank together for nearly 8 years and the clowns slept in the BGK's tube with him. The BGK wasn't exactly happy about them sleeping in his tube, but the clowns would lay right up against him, in spite of the electrical field they create.

The kribs and the clowns will be a case by case scenario if it will work, if the clowns are too small the kribs might harass them.

Your lighting might be too intense for clowns, I believe 2 watts per gallon is plenty for a planted tank and clowns would prefer less.

I would not consider your low nitrates a bad thing at all. You want 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite and nitrate less than 20ppm and lower is better (I don't like mine to go over 10 before I change water). Your plants will be feeding off the ammonia and nitrite more than nitrate. I think in a couple more months your tank will be fully cycled and you will see nitrate in there.

I prefer frozen foods and algae wafers for clowns, I don't like flakes, I think they make too much waste. I go for frozen bloodworms, spirulina brineshrimp and mysis shrimp along with the algae wafers and in small portions 1 or 2 times a day with a fast day once a week.

A small canister filter in addition to your Emperor 400 or an Emperor 200 would help out with increased filtration and water movement - loaches likes lots of water movement and filtration.

Could be just luck, but I'm having good results with RENA SmartHeaters.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... atid=18444

[Diana]

I use canisters and large HOB filters such as the Aquaclear 110 on tanks of this size. Clowns do indeed require LOTS of water movement for high oxygen levels. Aim for about 10 times the tank volume per hour. You could add a power head such as a Koralia to increase water movement.

I would increase the scope of the food.
Avoid any food that is mainly fish meal and grains.
Look for food that is high in whole fish and shellfish, spirulina algae and similar good things.
www.ANTFF.com has high quality foods.
I also feed just about every frozen food that is available in the stores.
Also, fresh fruit and vegetables. The harder vegetables are cooked until they are barely tender, not over cooked or they will fall apart in the tank.
I also make my own fish food based on the recipe here at Loaches.

The trace of ammonia might be a little worrisome, or it might be a blip in the test results. The few times I have used the AP ammonia test, though it has been very clearly 0 ppm and no two ways about it. The bubbles at the surface might also suggest there really is a problem with ammonia.
NitrAte might be expected to stay low with lots of plants. It is usually measured in larger numbers than .5 - 1 ppm. Do you have the tests mixed up?
If your nitrIte test is showing .5 - 1 ppm then there is a problem. Add 1 teaspoon of salt per 20 gallons to the tank to protect against Brown Blood Disease. Keep up the water changes to keep the nitrite under 1 ppm. Brown Blood Disease is when nitrite enters the blood and prevents it from carrying oxygen properly.
Between the plants and the Tetra Safe Start I would hope that the biological filter would be established by now. Tetra Safe Start works in just a few days, and the plants ought to be growing great.

What happened when you tried the fishless cycle?
Perhaps, if the bacteria was not growing then, it is still not growing very well and this is related to the problems.
Please describe exactly what you did when you started the fishless cycle, and why you stopped.

Test the tap water for all the things you test the tank for, and if the tap water is very similar to the tank pH, KH, GH then do frequent water changes to remove whatever toxins are building up.

I do not have problems with my BGK and Clowns.

[thetexasranger]

I can assure you I'm not mixing up the tests. Nirtrites are blue on the api test and it matches. I say .5-1 nitrates as an estimate. Its not a pure yellow so I assume some nitrates must be in there.

Here is what I can tell you about the fishless cycling. Had tank, filter, and 2 plants (one is ulva something) I added 5 ppm ace hardware ammonia. Waited some time added a bit more occasionally. Nitrite levels boomed as expected to 10 ppm and Nitrates to 20 ppm (solid orange on api test). However in the 3rd week I noticed all 3 levels crashed. I didn't do water changes during this time so I don't know how that affected the chemistry. When ammonia levels and nitrites were 0 and nitrates were 10 ppm I thought I was good. But a few days later Nitrate levels also crashed to 0. At the time assumed someone who didnt know better adding non dechlorinated water may have done the damage.

At that point I opted to use 2 bottles of Safe Start (after removing all the old water) and added the clowns, pleco, and BGK. Nitrate levels have been very poor ever since the crash. I couldnt really tell you why. I do know that my substrate is pretty messy (eco-complete) and theres a decent amount of plant debris despite my best efforts on the floor.

If this helps my big ulva plant is in poor shape these days (I imagine this is my pleco but not sure). Full of holes and full no new shoots coming out. It might not be able to absorb bad stuff as well as it had.

[Diana]

During the fishless cycle high nitrites can interfere with the growth of the bacteria. Anything over 5 ppm is too high. This may be part of what happened.
Were you keeping the ammonia up? 5 ppm until the nitrites showed up, then 3 ppm for the rest of the cycle? If you had quit feeding the bacteria then this may be why they crashed. On the other hand, feeding too much ammonia is usually why the nitrites go over 5 ppm.

There is something in the tank now that is removing nitrogen. I see 2 possibilities.
Plants (if there are enough of them) can remove nitrogen.
Anaerobic bacteria will reverse the process of the nitrifying bacteria and turn NO3 into N2 gas with leaves the tank. This is a several-stage process and you might see traces of Nitrite or Nitrate during this, and hydrogen sulfide bubbles may erupt from the substrate. This can be toxic to the fish. If you can smell 'rotten eggs' then this is what is going on.

[thetexasranger]

I attempted to keep it at 5ppm...i added a dash of ammonia like 3 times. I stopped because it got into my head that if I kept adding ammonia the cycle would never end. Your theory sounds very likely.

Its possible my plants are removing the nitrogen but I will say I only have 2 big ones and one is pretty damaged right now. As far as the Anaerobic bacteria, while I do have lots of bubbles at the top of my water, it doesnt smell like anything.

As far as today I found my BGK not moving on his side again but once again once I got close he swam off. I did a 60% water change today and removed a heater which as it turns out was damaged. I also added 2 carbon activated filters and cleaned the filter and tank as best I could. I also cleaned my onion bulb which had a rotting layer of skin...THIS smelled pretty bad.

Despite these efforts I still have one more very sick clown which as detailed in first post cant swim well and is pale...going through the same steps as the one which just died.

[Diana]

During the fishless cycle you do want to keep feeding the bacteria so they have plenty of food to increase their population.
One species grows for a while, removing ammonia and producing nitrite, then another species starts growing that uses the nitrite and turns it into nitrate. This species cannot even get started until there is nitite available in the tank. This takes time. Then it takes a while to get their populations up to a good level so they can handle a tank full of fish. Under good conditions a fishless cycle takes about 3 weeks. You will be testing for and feeding ammonia for the full 3 weeks.
Once the populations are up to the point that ammoia added is removed in 24 hours (Ammonia and nitrite read 0 ppm the next day) you then quit adding ammonia from a bottle and start adding ammonia from fish. You stock the tank. You should not stop adding ammonia.

In that sense, the cycle never does end. A circle has no beginning, no end.
You are simply spiraling up the population to get it up and running, then the fish take over.
If the fishless cycle was finished, but you were not ready to add fish you could keep feeding the tank ammonia until you were ready to add the fish.

Anyway, back to the current problem. Yes, there does seem to be something going on. Sick fish, and almost no nitrate.

Fat belly, hovering at the bottom combined with overfeeding sounds like constipation. Rotate more foods in their diet, feed less, skip a day feeding, include more roughage (peas, daphnia).

Difficulty swimming, with that twitching or jerking to hold position sounds like a weak fish, but does not specify what the problem actually is.

Fish lying on their side can be an osmoregulatory problem. This is most often seen when the TDS of the water changes, especially if it gets suddenly lower. Often seen when you bring home new fish that were in hard water at the store and your tank has softer water.
In fish that have been in a tank for a while you can get the same problem if you do a large water change and the new water is so soft that the tank water ends up much softer than it was.
Example:
Tank originally with GH of 8 degrees, TDS of 400.
25% water change with RO water (0 degrees GH, 0 TDS)
New GH level 6 degrees, TDS 300.
This is enough to cause problems in some fish.
Do you have GH, KH and TDS test results for tap and tank?

A single plant (even a large one) is not really enough to remove very much nitrogen (in any form), so I suspect the bacteria are not producing as much nitrogen. But the fish are still producing ammonia, so where is it going? Maybe the large plant is removing enough to account for the readings you are seeing.

In this situation I would keep up the water changes, frequency and volume to keep the ammonia under .25 ppm and the nitrite under 1 ppm if you do see either. Otherwise, I would do a minimum of 25% twice a week. Doing smaller, more frequent water changes is less stressful to the fish than infrequent, larger water changes. (Especially if the tap and tank water are not the same). Include gravel vacuuming to keep fish waste and other debris picked up. You could do half the tank with one water change, and half the tank with the next.

The rotting plant is contributing ammonia and other toxins to the tank. Keep cleaning the dying parts frequently so they do not rot in the tank.

[thetexasranger]

Thanks for the cycling info. Wish I had stuck with that longer. Sorry I don't have a kit that could provide kh, gh, or tds. I may try to get one but kits with that capability seem expensive. As for whats going on I think I saw my BGK not moving again for a moment. Until today it had been some 48 hours since I had seem him like that. Sometimes he doesnt have any zip when he swims and sometimes he does. Right now he doesnt. The clown that was still sick is on its death bed. It can barely move while on its side on the floor. As mentioned above its pale and on has a red spot on its anus. I will add more veggies to diet and have cut back feeding and aim for a 25% change tomorrow. As a side question whats the proper way to dechlorinate water? I've been adding a very small bit of prime or api water conditioner in the bucket I use or in 1 gallon jugs. Is there a more efficient way?

[FishyLady]

I use Aqua plus water conditioner and just add it to the water in the quantities as stated on the bottle. I always use Visitherm heaters and have found them to be very reliable.

Val