This is so frustrating... what's wrong with these fish now?

T

TessaStarraphobia

New member
Ever since I set up and started keeping an aquarium I've had problems. As soon as I got over one thing, another came up. Anyways, I just cleaned my tank today. Before I cleaned it, all the fish were perfectly fine. They all swam around the whole tank and glady accepted food. These fish are all new (my last ones died when I moved their tank to a different room =/). There are 2 zebra danios (i know i need more -_-) 3 guppies, and 2 albino corys. The zebra danios do not bother the guppies. All of the guppies looked perfectly healthy and showed no signs of having their fins nipped. 10g tank with a 10-20g filter and a 10-20g heater. Temp is about 75-76*F. I checked the water parameters for several days after first adding the fish and everything was fine. I've had them for 1 week, so today it was time to do a water change.

Corys are fine, zebra danios are fine, guppies are dying.
1. my tap water does not contain chlorine. i have never used conditioner before and had no problems. however since ive had bad luck with guppies i did use conditioner this time.
2. the new water was about the same temp as the water still in the tank.
3. as soon as i finished refilling the tank, all guppies went to surface (still very active) i ignored it. now several hours later i decided to check on them and they're all at the bottom. their fins are moving rapidly but they are not moving. when they are disturbed they will swim around (seemingly healthy) and then find a place at the bottom to lay.

considering this happened imediately AFTER i cleaned the tank and used conditioner, what on earth is wrong with them? whatever it is, its not affecting the other fish at all.

i have added some tetracycline, but other than that ive got not idea what to do.
 
You better check there nitrites,too high and they cant circulate there blood properly causing suffocation.usally caused by hard water.
 
You better check there nitrites,too high and they cant circulate there blood properly causing suffocation.usally caused by hard water.
 
What are you doing for air? An air pump is pretty necessary in most aquarium setups.

How are you cleaning the tank? You should never vacuum all of the gravel or replace all of the filter material. If you have to clean the filter material, rinse it out in the tank water. Also, as a rule of thumb don't change more than 50% water during a water change except during certain circumstances.

How new is the tank? Is it still cycling? Do your fish have any spots or strange physical signs that you haven't seen before?
 
Couple of things... How well did you clean the tank (maybe created a mini-cycle)? Second... how old was your water conditioner? Could it have gone bad? Third, is there a possibility your municipality started adding chlorine to your water recently?
 
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