Minnows in my tank are dying

[Iowabucks]

Hey everyone, A buddy and i just got a 55 gallon plastic barrel tank going a week ago. Our first attempt at keeping our own minnows. We have a real good aeriator and a 500 gpm pump pulling through a pvc filter running batting and charcoal. We had the tank up and running for 5 days before adding any minnows at all. I had also added a chemical to help the benificial bacteria get started.

We had bought 2 pounds of rosey red minnows. After about 3 days we are having about 20 minnows a day die off. Water is starting to get cloudy.

I used some test strips to test 6 different chemical levels. After 3 days of having minnows in the tank the ammonia was at 1.0 which it says is just getting into the high range. PH is good. Akilinity is a tad high too.

Any ideas what could be causing them to die?

The charcoal should be helping with the ammonia i would think. I could buy something to take the ammonia down if i have to.

[M R Dux]

What was the barrel used for before you got it? Even new plastic barrels can have contamination that could be your problem.

[slickwater1]

cloudy water sounds like a water quality issue. might check to see that batting is not breaking down or charcoal might need to be washed.

[FroggerZack]

Are you feeding them?

[Cracker68]

Did you put anything in there to get rid of the chlorine.

Another rule of thumb. 1 inch of fish per gallon....2 inches of fish per filtered gallon.

You want ammonia at zero... I'm not sure what your PH should be, but i remember right 7.0 is neutral If your PH is 1 it is way too low... I will check my manual.

[slickwater1]

to much food is as bad as to little food. to much food usually will create an ammonia spike.

[Cracker68]

Checked my Manual
A pH of 7.0 is ideal. ( i think the colder water the lower the pH)
If your ammonia is anything but 0 get you some Ammo-Lock 2.
Book says monitor Ammonia once every two days for 3-4 weeks.

[sac-a-lait]

Water's natural ph is 7, neutral. Comes out of a tap usually around 6 though. How much charcoal are you using. I had a few die at first till I added more charcoal. Is the pump on 24/7? How about air? Is there an air pump and stone? I got a lot of PM's about my tank and not sure if we talked already or not. Activated Charcoal too. Is it city water? What's the sorce? My source was city water taken from a river/rez.

Also I noticed the older my water is, as long as it's clear the better they do.

No way his ph is 1. His amonia was at 1. 1ph and they wouldn't last 5 minutes.

Also add more holes in that filter housing to allow more water to be filtered. You can have too many holes. Get some in that top cap too. Drill them all over except in the area where you have none, good move. THe battin and charcoal are loaded in there right? I did mine battin, coal, batting. It got to where I was adding a lot of coal. Like 2 cups full and I would change all of that about every 2 weeks.

How storng is the current outflow from that pump. At 500gph it shoule be MOVING FAST in there. I mean FAST.

[slimeyslab]

I had the same problem a few weeks ago and I tried everything. The man at the minnow store suggested I pump more ait to them. I bought a 4 outlet air pump from Petco and they stopped dying. I also change 30% of my water every couple of day's, especially when you first add the minnows. I don't know if minnows are the same as shad but my grandad would alway's put the shad he caught with his net into a 5 gallon bucket for a few minutes and let them settle before he scooped them out a few at a time with a bait net and put them in his baitwell. He believed that they would poop from the shock of being moved and the ammonia level's would go way up from it. This way they would poop in the bucket before he moved them. Since I saw him do this I have seen alot of others do the same.

[SlabTastic]

What about water temp in your tank? I have been putting frozen ice bottles in mine to keep the water temp down. I also added some shad saver in there and they are doing fine. My water temp got around 70 degrees at the highest, but I kept it in the shade.