sly
Active Member
It sounds like your water quality is suspect. You should always mix up new water to put in your tank. Not put water from an old tank. It's ok to share rocks and sand from tank to tank, but not water. As water ages it loses valuable nutrients such as calcium and magnesium. Think of aged water as "depleated" water. There are dozens of trace elements which get consumed as the tank ages. Unless you know exactly what those elements are and can add them back to your tank as it ages, you will need to do water changes with new, filtered water.
What kind of filtration do you use? FYI, never use tap or well water under any circumstance unless you filter it. Reverse osmosis/Deionized water is the best.
To properly set up a tank, you need to add freshly mixed water to your tank and let it cycle for at least a month before you add any fish to the tank. It takes a month for the nitrobacter bacteria to fully establish in your tank. This is the bacteria which consumes your fish's waste and is part of your biological filter system. Most people add just live rock and maybe some frozen shrimp to cycle their tank. After a month when the ammonia starts to drop down, they do a major water change to clean the tank and then add just a few fish.
Add fish just a few at a time. As you add fish, you increase the amount of biological load on the tank. It takes some time for your nitrobacter to adjust to the new load. So only add about 1 or 2 fish per month as you stock your tank. Your tank is fully stocked when you start seeing some trace amounts of ammonia or nitrite in your tank. This shows up when your fish load is larger than your filters can hande. At this point you need to either do more water changes, increase your filtering capacity, or get rid of some of your fish.
Acclimation is essential. Use the drip acclimation method as described on this site. I have the best success with this method. I will usually spend about 4 hours acclimating fish. Sudden fish death is usually the result of poorly acclimating the fish into a tank that is not properly established.
What kind of filtration do you use? FYI, never use tap or well water under any circumstance unless you filter it. Reverse osmosis/Deionized water is the best.
To properly set up a tank, you need to add freshly mixed water to your tank and let it cycle for at least a month before you add any fish to the tank. It takes a month for the nitrobacter bacteria to fully establish in your tank. This is the bacteria which consumes your fish's waste and is part of your biological filter system. Most people add just live rock and maybe some frozen shrimp to cycle their tank. After a month when the ammonia starts to drop down, they do a major water change to clean the tank and then add just a few fish.
Add fish just a few at a time. As you add fish, you increase the amount of biological load on the tank. It takes some time for your nitrobacter to adjust to the new load. So only add about 1 or 2 fish per month as you stock your tank. Your tank is fully stocked when you start seeing some trace amounts of ammonia or nitrite in your tank. This shows up when your fish load is larger than your filters can hande. At this point you need to either do more water changes, increase your filtering capacity, or get rid of some of your fish.
Acclimation is essential. Use the drip acclimation method as described on this site. I have the best success with this method. I will usually spend about 4 hours acclimating fish. Sudden fish death is usually the result of poorly acclimating the fish into a tank that is not properly established.
