Urgent help needed Dying fish in qt

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11 Sep 2009
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Yantai, China
Please please please help me.

I had 2 qt set up. Both of them I used seachem matrix in a small canister filter, fed stability and used safeguard, heater and light. This I did for both of them. Both of them I had at a sg of 1.090 for 2 weeks. At the 2 weeks mark things got bad. The one tank I had a yellow belly regal and a lipstick(60L tank). The other I had 16 small clownfish, snowflakes, black ice and pucassos ( 50L tank). Ok the first tank.

Tank 1: I never had any problems with ammonia, did a wc every second day (20L) and nitrates was always in check. One night out of the blue the nitrates shot up to 60, water was cloudy and had a foul smell. I immediately made a new batch of hyposalinity water and matched the kh, did a 80% wc. Fish seemed fine throughout the night. The next morning the were breathing heavily, tested ammonia and it was 30. Both fish died the same day.

Tank 2: did the exact same with the clownfish tank, this morning I woke up and 5 of them died. Ammonia is undetectable, nitrate was 50 so I did a 80% wc on them as well. Out of the 16 only 4 survived but not sure for how long.
 
So what the hell am I doing wrong? Qt is supposed to a stress free environment. So what is causing this? What can I do????
 
the problem is the speed you do the 50%water change. You must handle it the same as acclimatizing new fish. The new water must go in slowly, up to hour to fill up again.

I use those 20L drums with the tap, as used by caravaners and campers. Support it on 2 wooden planks on top of the quarantine and open the tap so that I have a fast drip rate. Then go about other things to do. Much later I will empty the last little bit left in the drum into the QT, and remove the planks.
 
Get one of those seachem ammonia badges that stick on the inside of your glass. Money well spent.
 
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