# fish panic and darting around the tank



## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

Hi

I have 3 rummy nose, 1 molly, 5 cardinal tetra and 2 amano shrimo in my 7 gallons planted tank. They aare always hiding and darting around the tank especially light on and when they realize someone is looking at them. My photo period is about 6 hours and controlled by timer. I am using overflow filter. Does it makes the current to strong for fish to swim around? I am not certain about the flow though.

The tank is ony about 2 weeks old.

Does anyone experience this? What could be a problem? 

Thank you


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## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

I've had fish act like that during ammonia/nitrite spikes..
Was the tank cycled before adding the fish, or is it currently cycled?
How big is the tank?
Are you doing water changes?


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

Chlorophile said:


> I've had fish act like that during ammonia/nitrite spikes..
> Was the tank cycled before adding the fish, or is it currently cycled?
> How big is the tank?
> Are you doing water changes?


 
Hi Chlorophile,

I left tank running about 1 week before adding fish. Yes, 30% water change weekly and have not done any water parameter test at all. 7 gallon


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## TWA (Jan 30, 2012)

A lot of fish it feels for a 7 gallon tank, maybe not. Should probably check water parameters first thing with any strange activity.


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

TWA said:


> A lot of fish it feels for a 7 gallon tank, maybe not. Should probably check water parameters first thing with any strange activity.


 
Noted. So I just perform repeated water change till the level drop to acceptable value?

thank you


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## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

Yea fish are being slowly murdered.
The tank was Running for a week but there was no ammonia so the cycle didn't start till just now.
If you can, take the fish back, otherwise you'll want to buy seachem prime and put a couple drops in there every day, increase water changes to 50% every day for the first week or two.
Then you can dial down quantity or frequency to either 25% per day or 50% every other day, definitely do some reading on nitrogen cycle and cycling aquarium or fishless cycling.
Get ammonia and nitrite test kit, preferably liquid kits as the strips are garbage.

You want to test for ammonia and nitrite right away, if you only have ammonia, you will want to test for nitrite every 2-3 days, once you have a reading on nitrite test kit you can keep testing nitrite or ammonia. 
I choose nitrite because it's an easier test only using one bottle.
When your nitrite starts going down your close to finished, when it reads zero do one last ammonia test.
If you also have zero ammonia at that point then the tank is cycled.
Don't bother with a nitrate test kit unless you bought the master test kit in which case have fun I hate that test kit!

Of course it will take a lot longer if you have fish in the tank because you cannot let the levels build very high.
With no fish you can dump some fish food in the tank and just wait till ammonia spikes, get ammonia to around 4ppm and try to keep it there for a few days, prepares your filter for any bioload you would throw at it.


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## Chlorophile (Aug 2, 2011)

One thing to be concerned with is that that many fish in such a small tank will be producing a lot of ammonia, and the nitrite levels I predict could go from safe to lethal in 12 hours.
You have to have those levels very slow.
If you have a ton of plants you would be okay but as a new tank I doubt you have close to what I define as a ton of planrs


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

Chlorophile said:


> Yea fish are being slowly murdered.
> The tank was Running for a week but there was no ammonia so the cycle didn't start till just now.
> If you can, take the fish back, otherwise you'll want to buy seachem prime and put a couple drops in there every day, increase water changes to 50% every day for the first week or two.
> Then you can dial down quantity or frequency to either 25% per day or 50% every other day, definitely do some reading on nitrogen cycle and cycling aquarium or fishless cycling.
> ...


Noted. Thank you very much


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## bpb (Mar 8, 2011)

Honestly...even with the daily water changes, you will most likely lost all those fish. Cardinals and rummynose tetras are fairly picky about water quality, and with such a small tank I would be willing to bet money they will not survive a tank cycling. It will just take too long. Research fishless cycling through Google or really any aquarium type forum. It has been outlined about everywhere.


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## kcartwright856 (Jan 16, 2012)

If your fish are still alive, go out and find a bottle of Tetra Safestart today, ASAP. It might be too late, but that's your best chance at getting beneficial bacteria going in your uncycled tank.

Until then, water changes. Lots of them!


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

Thak you everyone for all the advise.

I did major daily water change and monitoring the nitrite level which is now in between 0 and 0.25ppm. Will continue the process and continue the monitoring.

What would be the max number of fishes on the tank? Do I just slowly add and continue to monitor nitrite level and ensure that it remains at 0ppm?

thank you


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## sevenyearnight (May 1, 2011)

tanin said:


> What would be the max number of fishes on the tank? Do I just slowly add and continue to monitor nitrite level and ensure that it remains at 0ppm?
> 
> thank you


Add what? More fish? I would suggest the opposite if anything.



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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

sevenyearnight said:


> Add what? More fish? I would suggest the opposite if anything.
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk


 
Yes. I was refering to fish. I have removed all of them to another tank for the time being and will move them back once everything is in check.


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## bpb (Mar 8, 2011)

This is the most frustrating part of the hobby for most people entering. The nitrogen cycle. Learning appropriate stocking levels is the next step. Once your filter becomes mature and your water has no detectable amounts of ammonia and nitrite, you are in the clear momentarily. If you add more fish, you will be out of balance again. It is frustrating and confusing at first, but after youve lost enough fish, and start being successful doing things right it will all make sense. 

Don't change your filter cartridges, that will only restart your cycle all over. 
Don't add any more fish. Most seasoned and successful water keepers on here will agree that 7 gallons is adequate for a short list of fish (male betta, or very small micro-rasbora species, male endlers, or celestial pearl danios, to name a few). Cardinals, neons, and rummynose tetras may look small, but they are very skittish, easily stressed, and super sensitive. Its just not realistic to keep those species long term in a tank that small. One or two people may pull it off, but hundreds will fail. 

Floating plants are your best friend at this stage in the tank. Visit the swap and shop forum on here and try to get ahold of some duckweed, water lettuce, salvinia, or frogbit. Lots of it. Hornwort is also wonderful at soaking up ammonia and nitrite. That will help as much if not more than your filter 

Keep on the water changes. Try to keep ammonia and nitrite at zero, and best of luck, and don't give up. Tons of good information on this forum can be found. I have been a member/lurker on at least 10 other forums and this one is definitely the best.


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

bpb said:


> This is the most frustrating part of the hobby for most people entering. The nitrogen cycle. Learning appropriate stocking levels is the next step. Once your filter becomes mature and your water has no detectable amounts of ammonia and nitrite, you are in the clear momentarily. If you add more fish, you will be out of balance again. It is frustrating and confusing at first, but after youve lost enough fish, and start being successful doing things right it will all make sense.
> 
> Don't change your filter cartridges, that will only restart your cycle all over.
> Don't add any more fish. Most seasoned and successful water keepers on here will agree that 7 gallons is adequate for a short list of fish (male betta, or very small micro-rasbora species, male endlers, or celestial pearl danios, to name a few). Cardinals, neons, and rummynose tetras may look small, but they are very skittish, easily stressed, and super sensitive. Its just not realistic to keep those species long term in a tank that small. One or two people may pull it off, but hundreds will fail.
> ...


 

Thank you. Will definitely stick on and get through with this.


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## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

OK I have some questions for you - for the sake of simplicity I will refer to the tank originally had the fish in as Tank 1, and the one you say you moved them to as Tank 2.

First off - is Tank 2 already cycled and is it a much much larger tank? Cause if not then you have not done anything beneficial as the same bioload of fish is going to cause the same problem regardless of what tank you move them into.

Secondly - if you moved all the fish out of Tank 1 then what are you using as your ammonia source to continue the cycle?

If you haven't done so yet you need to research the nitrogen cycle. Just getting your ammonia and nitrite levels low by removing the fish and changing out some water isn't the answer to the problem. The tank needs to go thru a proper cycle and that will take over a month.


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## tanin (Feb 27, 2012)

wendyjo said:


> OK I have some questions for you - for the sake of simplicity I will refer to the tank originally had the fish in as Tank 1, and the one you say you moved them to as Tank 2.
> 
> First off - is Tank 2 already cycled and is it a much much larger tank? Cause if not then you have not done anything beneficial as the same bioload of fish is going to cause the same problem regardless of what tank you move them into.
> 
> ...


 
Tank 2 is larger (2 feet) and I already mixed with some water requested from aged tank in LFS.

For Tank 1, I also mixed the water from LFS and place a small piece of old filter media from the LFS's tank. I also add some fish food into the tank.

I am monitoring ammonis and nitrite level in both tanks. Now both tanks have about 50% of the water from LFS.

My reason for asking about number of fish in the 7gallon tank is due to space constrain in my house. I only have enough space for a small tank. 

Now nitrite level in both tanks is between 0 and 0.25


thank you for all the inputs.


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## sevenyearnight (May 1, 2011)

Beneficial nitrifying bacteria adheres to surfaces and is not present in the water in any significant amount. You would need used filter media to transfer the bacteria, or purchase a bottle of Tetra Safestart.

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## bpb (Mar 8, 2011)

Check the swap n shop forum. There are people giving away floating plants for the price of shipping alone. These would really help with your water quality.


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