Trouble setting up aquarium

JKM

Just a quick qeustion. I've had goldfish all my life but only ever in a standard non-filtered tank. Recently we bought a tank with filter and light. We haven't exactly had a great start. We followed all the advice given by the pet shop. i.e. set up the tank and left it for a few days, adding a few flakes of food to build up bacteria, before adding fish. After more than 2 days we bought two goldfish. Then about a week later another two. We only feed them about a flake each every two days on the advice of the pet shop. After a few days one of the second two introduced seemed to fall ill then a day later died. After that the water went very green. It was so bad I had to change more than half the tanks water. And even at that it was still quite green, just not as bad as it was. Another fish died and the water was still very bad so I decided to do a complete water change. When I went to scoop out the stones to clean them a big plume of green stuff spread through the water. It was really bad. It seems to have cleared for the time being, since the clean out, but I have just scooped out fatality number 3. We currently have four healthy enough looking fish and I hope to keep it that way.
Any idea what could have went wrong? And what I can do to prevent it happening again?
On a side note, I have noticed that the remaining fish are all huddling under one of the ornamental plants. I'm wondering if it's possible that the aquarium light is too bright for them? Maybe that's just their habit, but any fish I had previously in non-filtered tanks were quite active around the tank.
Cheers in advance for any advice.
JKM

Silverfish

What size tank is it?
Goldfish need a minimum of 60L per fish to be healthy and not have short lives.

Have you tested the tank for Ammonia, pH, nitrite, nitrates?

Also, you need to cycle a tank for several weeks before adding fish, usually 6 weeks unless you can get a sponge / bacteria from another cycled tank to kickstart the process.

Here's info on cycling a tank.

For the moment, try doing 25% water changes to try save the remaining fish.

Also , Caresheets for Goldfish.

Alkers

You'll be fine without the 60L per fish for the moment but don't get any more fish. Are you adding anything to the water from the tap when doing water changes? You need to let the water come to room temperature and ad something like aquasafe (any petshop will have this) to get rid of the chlorine in tapwater.
Also, you don't want to ever do a full water change, 50% tops.
Get yourself a test kit asap and then you're probably looking at 25% water changes every day or 2nd day for a month until the tank has cycled.
I wouldn't listen to whatever they're telling you in the petstore either...
If you think the fish are afraid of the light, leave it off, it's probably bright enough at the moment and when the fish are used to the tank you can start having it on for a few hours at a time. (assuming tank is in a lit room)

JKM

Thanks for the replies. Sound like we didn't get great advice to start with. When we got the tank I asked if there was anything that we could add to the water (as I remember doing that before when I had fish) but the petstore didn't seem to get what I was saying. When we went in and told us our problem they gave us a bottle of stuff called 'nutrafin'. I'm following the instructions on the bottle for that.
Why would he tell us two days was enough when it clearly wasn't We would have waited if we'd known. I'm kind of annoyed now. I mean we we're relying on their exspertise to guide us.

breadandjam

JKM wrote: »

Why would he tell us two days was enough when it clearly wasn't We would have waited if we'd known. I'm kind of annoyed now. I mean we we're relying on their exspertise to guide us.

Because he wanted to sell you the fish. If they died, he'll say it wasn't his fault and the you'll have to buy more. It's unfortunate but there shops that operate like this.

Alkers

JKM wrote: »

Why would he tell us two days was enough when it clearly wasn't We would have waited if we'd known. I'm kind of annoyed now. I mean we we're relying on their exspertise to guide us.

You could have left it for a year just adding food and it wouldn't have been safe for fish. You need to read the link Silverfish left you on cycling a tank.

JKM

That link was very useful. Thanks Silverfish. I have a lot more information now. I should have come here in the first place. You know you can always trust Boardies for the best advice.
Thanks

Silverfish

What size tank is it?

JKM

Hi Silverfish,

It's a 28L tank. It's gone kind of green again now. I'm not sure if it's due to too much or too little bacteria? I changed about 25% of the water today and used the nutrafin that the pet shop gave me. I don't really know what else to do.

JKM

Silverfish

JKM wrote: »

Hi Silverfish,

It's a 28L tank. It's gone kind of green again now. I'm not sure if it's due to too much or too little bacteria? I changed about 25% of the water today and used the nutrafin that the pet shop gave me. I don't really know what else to do.

JKM

Okay well, not to panic just yet...

The green could be algae just, the best thing to do is get a test kit with the test tubes and bottles, and test the water, not sure if you're near the Seahorse Aquarium in Ballymount but they'll test a sample of your water for you.
Chances are the tank is trying to cycle, so with a few fish in there, there'll be a lot of waste building up. What you can do in the meantime til you get the test kit, is change out 25% of the water daily.

You might want to keep an eye out on adverts.ie or somewhere for any cheap larger tanks that pop up as well.

JKM

I'm actually down in south of the country, but i'm sure I can pick one up in a pet store or failing that the internet.
I'll keep changing out the water like you advised and hope I see an improvement over the next while. I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks again for the advice.