Guppies dying

Question
Hi Nicole,

I was hoping you could help. We purchased a 190 litre jewel tank just after
Christmas and set it up with plants etc... On saturday we purchased 6 guppies
and on Sunday night two of them died.

The details are:

PH 6.5
Nitrite - 0.3 (although it is sometime slightly higher)

We have been doing daily water changes since Saturday of between 20 - 30%.
We use Nutrafin water conditioner in the tap water when we do our water
changes and when the Nitrite levels are going even higher we add Nutrafin
biological aquarium supplement.

The fish are being fed twice daily with flakes.

What are we doing wrong?

Or other main concern is the conditioned tap water we are adding. It looks
like the area we live in has really high level of Nitrite - around 0.8. We are
treating this water with conditioner before we add it but surely it is just
adding more Nitrite to the system when we do a water change. Please help.

One of the 4 remaining guppies doesn't look good and is gasping alot.

Please help. Should we keep up with daily water changes? Are we adding the
right supplements?

Thank you for your help.

Kate & Andy

Answer
Hi Kate and Andy,

I am sorry to hear about your troubles. That water is going to be difficult to use for aquarium water changes. I have heard of nitrates in tap water, but nitrites is new to me! I recommend you use Prime, by Seachem, as your water conditioner. It neutralizes chlorine and chloramine, as any stock dechlorinator ought to, and the 50 mL bottle has a convenient dropper bottle...just 2 drops per gallon is needed to make tap water safe. Test a gallon of water after adding some Prime to it, I know that it can be used to neutralize ammonia by doubling the dose, you may consider trying this. You could also let the water sit out a while and see if this helps at all. I am not aware of any way to get nitrites out of the water, except to use a drinking water filter, with either carbon or ion exchange resins, which is going to be expensive in the long run if you need to run your aquarium's water change water through it...

Fancy guppies are not the hardiest of fish. They also demand hard and alkaline water, which does not sound like your water...a pH of 6.5 is lower than neutral, 7 is neutral. Livebearers (platys, mollies, guppies and swordtails) all prefer a higher than neutral pH, and a fairly high alkaline reserve. Do you have a test kit that measures alkalinity as well? A 5-in-1 test strip ought to do this. Alkalinity is important in keeping the pH stable, low alkalinity can be buffered up with baking soda or other means if necessary. Let me know...

I am sorry to say that neither goldfish nor livebearers are going to do very well in your water, they hate acidic water! Fortunately, you can still investigate barbs, danios, rasboras, and tetras, most of whom do fine in water with a pH lower than neutral. You can read more about soft water below, if you are interested:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwsoftness.htm

I would feed very little while your aquarium is still fairly new. Guppies don't need much anyhow, so the amount of flake you are putting in the tank should be tiny - maybe half a thimbleful a day. You are doing a fine job with the water changes, I would have recommended these amounts myself! I would not continue using the biological supplement, the only ones that work are the refrigerated kind. You can try Tetra's Easy Balance, which helps buffer up pH and keeps nitrates low in the aquarium, once it is established. However, refrain from using Cycle and other such products.

I would recommend you add aeration. A bubble wand powered by airline tubing and an air pump will do this, you can also get a powerhead for the corner of the tank. If nothing else, drop the level of the water a couple of inches so that the filter makes more splash. The gasping is actually a symptom of ammonia poisoning (this often goes along with reddened gills or red streaked fins) but adding oxygen to the water still helps the fish get more comfortable. If you can find Bio Spira by Marineland, this [refrigerated] product truly does cycle a fish tank instantly, provided you add fish within 24 hours.

Although this might make the guppies more uncomfortable, raising the temperature of the tank to about 80 degrees helps with cycling, as the beneficial bacteria multiply faster at higher temperatures, within reason. Make sure a heater is on your tank, since too much temperature fluctuation is harmful. A steady 77 or 78 degrees is recommended in the long run.

Your tank is fairly large, the larger the tank the longer it takes to cycle (unless you have mature filter media to add)...are you planning on keeping the guppies, or did you get them to cycle the tank? Although I don't recommend cycling with fish, zebra danios are usually much hardier fish for this purpose.

Are you new to fishkeeping? Just in case you are, here's some websites I recommend for beginners:
http://www.firsttankguide.net
http://freshaquarium.about.com
http://badmanstropicalfish.com
http://www.wetwebmedia.com

I hope that helps. Take care,
Nicole