wrote in :


Hi, I am a newbie to fish and I desperately need some help.

I have a 100 gallon tank with 2 types of pump filters, one that gives
white powers stuff, and one that contains black carbon filter. I got
these from a friend and he helped me setup everything. He use to do
this a lot but has no room for it anymore. He use to have salt water
fish but said frehwater goldfish is the easieste...

We put water in and connected everything. Put new filter/carbon into
both filters, also installed those bubble thing at the bottom that
helps oxygen. I got so excited, I decided to buy some fish. So I got
about 10 small goldfishes and put it in the tank. (actually we put the
plastic bag that contains the fish/water into the tank and let it sat
for about half an hour. He said it helps the fish to adjust to the new
water temp.

Then we opened the bag and put the fish in. everything looked good. I
even put a bit of fish food into the tank. The fish is a little shy
but one of them came up and ate some of it. but after a day or so, the
fish begin to look not so good, and today all of them have died. They
are definitely not short of food, as there are still some food
particles at the top of the water. (actually i wasn't home yesterday
so they could've died yesterday. i don't know.

I am puzzled, what could it be? Here are some of the things I can
think of.

1. water temperature is too cold.

It has been pretty cold here in the past few days. I don't know what
the water temperature is, but it is slightly cold to the tough (but
definitely not freezing). I'd estimate it to be about ~45-50f. The
water is from the tap. I am in the bay area, the water here is
slightly hard, but reasonable.

You'll have to measure that. If the tank is indoors, then it won't be
that cold. Unless you live in an igloo. Your water would have been slowly
heating up to room temperature.
However, that's not cold enough to kill most goldfishes, provided they
were acclimatized properly. If they weren't, you would've noticed it
right away. They would've basically sank to the bottom and stayed there
until they died (most likely). Sounds like that wasn't the case.

They're also fairly flexible when it comes to water hardness. I've got
nicely goodly hard water here, and my carp(goldfish, koi, etc) have never
complained.

2. Dust/dirt from old equipment. Although the water looks very clean.

Did you give it a good scrub before you plugged it all in? You don't
mention whether you did or not, and if you think it might've been
dust/dirt, I'm guessing you probably didn't.
Well, the dust or dirt wouldn't've done anything.
What -might- (though it's unlikely) have had an effect would have been
leftover bacteria from the last use. You didn't mention how long ago he
stopped using the tank, so if they were still a little wet, the bacteria
could still have been there. If they were bone-dry, it's not very likely.

3. Do I need to keep the lamp on 24 hours a day? Does the fish
care/mind if the lamp is off at night?

They prefer darkness to sleep. Don't you?

The thing is, about an hour after I put the fish in, my friend said
some of them doesn't look too good, about 4 all sit at the bottom
resting... a few of them was still swimming around.

o. well maybe they didn't get enough acclimatization time. Next time
start your water off ~70'f (get a thermal-meter (thermometer) and test
it. they're cheap). That'll be closer to what the fish store water was,
and they'll be less stressed. This isn't to say that you didn't give them
enough time to acclimatize; my pond fish will sit at the bottom and do
nothing at all during the first few days of winter before I get them out
of the pond and back into the house. They just generally slow down when
it's too cold.

I am going to ask my friend about it tomorrow, but I feel bad because
all of them has died for some reason...

Next time make sure you don't put your fish store water into your fish
tank with your fish. Scoop them out with a net. Yes, I know it's a pain,
but fish store water is not to be relied upon to be clean.



What most likely happened, however, is that there was no cycle set up in
the tank.
http://www.bestfish.com/breakin.html
http://honors.montana.edu/~weif/firsttank/cycle.phtml
http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html
and just google for others.

Basically, you shouldn't put more than 1-2 fish in your tank for the
first month at least. Your tank has to 'cycle' before you can add more.
What that means is it needs to build up the right kind of bacteria to
deal with the waste salts that fish produce.
Basically, fish pee out ammonia, which gets turned into nitrite, and then
into nitrate. Nitrate is usually fairly safe for goldfishes. ammonia and
nitrite will kill them if there's too much of it ("if levels get too
high").

I think you'll find most people will say: "your tank didn't cycle, and
that's why your fishes died."


Finally, I'm guessing what you got were those "dime-a-dozen" feeder
goldfishes. They're alright, but even with the best tank conditions,
expect a good proportion of them to die. They've got weak immune systems,
have been systematically overcrowded and overstressed, and just generally
have been abused up until the point where you got them.


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