"dc" wrote in message
...
"Peter Cashen" wrote in
ups.com:

Anyway, put 3 goldfish and 4 white clouds in there.... first goldy died
after around 5 days.... now another one is just lying on the bottom of
the tank... it is feeding but not doin much else.

Put two thermometers in to be sure and they are at roughly 80F. I have
no heater.

Am I better off putting tropical fish in, is this why the fish are
dying?? Is it too hot!?!?


As many people have already suggested inappropriate temperature is not
your
most likely culprit for the loss of your fish.

While both goldfish and white clouds are cold water fish they are tolerant
to a wide range of temperatures provided they are not at the extremes are
there is not a great deal of fluctuation and adequate aeration.

Your tank is 20 gallons, not 60 gallons (perhaps you were thinking in
liters?). That is a tiny space for the amount of fish you have
introduced,
especially considering it is a brand new setup.

Your fish are most likely succumbing to something commonly referred to as
New Tank Syndrome. Essentially, the amount of nitrogenous wastes being
produced in the tank is too high compared to the biological capacity of
your tank to detoxify it. An aquarium needs time to build up a healthy
nitrifying bacteria culture in order to deal with the ammonia produced by
fish and food waste (and goldfish produce an enormous amount of waste).

Ammonia and some of its byproducts (ammonium, nitrite) are very toxic to
animal life and can kill fish in short order. You've upset the biological
balance of nature and now your fish are poisoning themselves with their
own
waste.

Dealing with the situation without losing any more fish is going to be
difficult due to the amount of fish you have in your aquarium.

Stop feeding your fish. The more food you put in there the worse your
situation will become, and fish going through ammonia/nitrite shock are
not
likely to be very hungry anyway. Fasting is better than further
poisoning.

Your fist step should be to measure your pH, ammonia/ammonium, and nitrite
levels. If ammonia is present (which it undoubtedly is) your first course
is to water change your aquarium to dilute it. Two 80-90% changes should
do the trick, however you must be careful NOT to raise your pH in the
process or the potential for ammonia to kill will increase dramatically.

The lower your pH the more ammonia will exist as its ionic counterpart
ammonium (which is many times less toxic). A small concentration of
ammonia in a high pH is many times more deadly than a much larger
concentration of ammonium in a very low pH.

I highly recommend you pick up a high quality water conditioner such as
Prime by Seachem which is able to remove ammonia and detoxify nitrite
without removing it from the biological cycle. This product will act as a
band-aid while your tank recovers from your horrendous initial
overstocking.

You should also consider picking up a biological supplement from your LFS
which can help seed your tank with nitrifying bacteria rather than just
waiting for nature to take its course on its own timeline. Adding a very
large quantity of Zeolite ammonia remover to your filter may help out in
the interim as well.

It isn't going to be easy to keep all those fish alive in such a small and
brand-new aquarium.


Dammit man, if a nuclear reactor ever melts down, I want you in charge of
the response teams.
Nice bloody post!!