peps fry dying

[madone]

Hi everyone, Had my first batch of fry all was going great they were 2.5 to 3 cm then they start to die of i lost 100 plus in 48 hours.They have been in a grow out tank for about 1 month and growing and eating well.

Now i have more fry about 1.5 to 2cm still with mum & dad and they have start to die of as well.

I've tested the water all is pretty good
Ammonia 0 PPM
Nitrite 0.5 PPM
Nitrate 20 PPM

I only feed them Mushroom,Zucchini and once a week i put some 1mm NSL cichlid pellets in.Their is 8 other tanks that run of this sump setup but all is good in those tanks.
Any help would be great

Cheers Bruce

 

[pauldoit]

Hey Bruce, sorry to hear about the death of your peppermint fry. My only advice would be to carry out water changes to get the nitrite down to 0.0.
I know it can be hard to read off the actual value with your kits but zero nitrite is usually pretty obvious. Also check that your ammonia reading is actually zero and not just an artefact. Maybe take a water sample down to your LFS.
Regardless, water changes to improve the water quality will help. Might just be a case of over feeding all those hungry looking fry. Also an increase in aeration will help relieve any nitrite toxicity. There are also products available that can lock-up toxic nitrogenous compounds. Seachem has something for that. Maybe long term it might pay to get another filter? Air driven sponge filters are cheap to buy and run, and fry can even get a free meal of bio-film from them. Food for thought.
Another possibility could be Hydrogen sulfide from very anaerobic gravel patches....
HTH
Paul

 

[madone]

Thanks paul for your advice the readings i did were ok i did take water samples down to lfs which are the ones i've posted.Just hoping its gone as there is eggs in the log again.

Bruce

 

[Lornek8]

Is the tank bare bottom or is there a substrate. Cleanliness issues with either are a common issue with fry.

 

[madone]

Its a bare bottom tank

 

[beencees]

I had the same problem once. Turned out to be bloat issues. They can be very sensitive sometimes.
Maybe cut out the protein form the cichlid pellets.

 

[Irene0100]

was the tank getting crowded? as they grow they need more oxygen and overcrowding can happen suddenly

 

[Bigjohnnofish]

im thinking you are getting ammonia spikes after feeding followed by the nitrite spike immediately after.... thats why i think you have gotten zero ammonia and a nitrite reading while also having a reasonable nitrate reading also...
b/n fry can get damaged by even small amounts of ammonia and if its happening semi regularly they will have damaged gills and internal organs and they will die

one other possibility if your a on bare bottom you get a slime building up on the bottom of the tank... not usually visible to the naked eye untill it gets real bad... sometimes you can feel it by hand... with adults in the tank on a bare bottom they seem to tolerate this and graze through it... but with fry they tend to have issues with it quite often leading to mass deaths...

but over 80% of all fish deaths are caused by ammonia so thats the first place i would continue to look for a solution

 

[madone]

Thanks to everyone for your time and advice i'll start working on getting the ammonia level sorted out

Cheers Bruce

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Brengun]

First and foremost I would think bloat. Go easy on the food. They only have little bellies. I had 2cm L066 fry dying one at a time yet in the same tank the 1cm ones in another frysaver were fine. Turned out I was overfeeding and being a little too generous with the protein foods.

Water quality also played a part so along with my regular changes, I added an extra half water change in the middle. Problem solved.