Losing fish like crazy

I have three 29 gallon tanks and a small hospital tank, all of them are about a year old and about half the fish in them I've had for a year, the other half, maybe 6 months. I've lost 10 (as far as I can tell - it get's difficult to count the ones that hide) in the last 3 weeks. All of them are from the first group of at least 1 yr old fish. Two of the three tanks have been affected. The third tank has a small number of large semi-aggressive Gourami's and a semi-aggressive cichlid - they are all HUGE (and need a bigger tank) but none of them have died. The other two tanks are community "peaceful" tanks. All the fish that have died are very small to medium size - I've lost Rasbora's, Cherry Barbs, Honey Gourami, Cory Cat's. a couple have died within a day of getting bladder disease - before I had time enough to even try to treat them. The rest just turned up dead and so bloated it was difficult to tell the species. A few have been eaten, so I'm going by the "counts" to figure out which species died (I keep an inventory).

Like I said, these are all from my first "crop" of fish that I bought and most of them are in tank "A" while a few I had moved to tank "D" to free up space in Tank A. I looked at lifespans and on one website it appeared that most of these species live 1-2 yrs (so they'd all be at least 1 or older) but another website had down 4-5 yrs for the same species - I don't know what to believe. My water parameters are PERFECT, I clean my tanks every 6-8 days with a 75% or more water change and a heck of a lot of suctioning due to my problem with overfeeding so there are always lots of leftovers. Tank A has a horrific snail problem - I am not kidding when I say I remove several HUNDRED snails each week and by the next day it looks like they've all been reincarnated and are back plus another hundred - I spend a good hour during a water change removing snails until I can't find any more - yet they are back again. I don't mind a few snails to help keep debris and algae in check but this is beyond excessive. Tank D - where I've lost other fish has virtually no snails in it - in fact I've take a few snails from tank A and put them in Tank D as a cleanup crew but they never seem to overpopulate in tank D.

I also have a number of other (younger) small fish - chocolate gourami, Licorice Gourami, Rainbow fish, a number of Tetra's and none of them have died.

So do you think these older fish have just reached the end of their lifespans (I always examine them and can find nothing wrong and most die without indication of illness)? Or could there be something more sinister going on or something I'm doing (like my overfeeding is shortening some of their lifespans?).

I also have the WORST problem with heaters. I buy expensive heaters - ones that allow you to set the temperature since not all my fish need 78 degrees and they would never keep them at 78 degrees anyway. My other heaters can be set, but for me to get a too cool 75 degrees on one of them I have to set it on 82. If I turn it to the next option - 84 - I get a too warm 85 temperature reading. All of them work this way one degree or another. They are all 100 watt heaters which is recommended for a 29 gallon aquarium. I have a 50 watt heater for the hospital tank. I've read that overheating some species can shorten their lifespan too. The 100 watt also only seems to heat about 1/2 the tank in some cases (the top half where the lights are so the lights are adding to the heat), if I check temperatures at the bottom they are significantly cooler (way too cool sometimes). Sometimes I find fish huddling around the heater (these are ones from the bottom where the water is cooler).

So any speculation on what's going on? Old age? Too much food? Bad temperature? Too MUCH cleaning?

I must add that I use a chemical Neutral Reducer to get my PH to 7. I will be criticized for this (I'm used to it) Over a course of a week it will be buffered and lower down to about 6.1 which is generally ok - then it's time to change the water again. If I did NOTHING to change the PH the ph would be sitting a 9 due to the high PH of our cities water. Using "natural" methods are fine but they take too long and there is no precise way of getting them to exactly 7.0 where I want them I've been doing this for about 3 months now (I was using Phup and PHdown before that) - but only in the last month have I noticed the death in fish. But I do wonder if I'm changing the PH too fast - although each bucket of fresh water has some of this chemical in it so over 2 hours I'm changing the ph from about 6.1, it may briefly be rising but I hope that by adding the small amount of chemical to each bucket of water I'm generally raising it from about 6.1 back to 7.0. But there are no guarantees that for a few minutes there will be a big PH rise as I add the clean water since it may not have quite enough chemical in it. My ph meter is very accurate but only if the water has been filtering for a few hours - which I don't have time to do during a water change. I don't add this chemical during the week since the PH doesn't vary so much that it's dangerous to my fish. Leaving it at 9 IS dangerous to all of my fish and I want something that is accurate. Perhaps I should be adding the full amount of chemical to the first bucket of fresh water - in the hope that it sets the PH at 7 and subsequent buckets of fresh water won't significantly alter that. I may try that next water change, I would just hate to kill my fish with too much chemical all at once. I know PH isn't a big deal but it is a big deal to change it too fast. But they can't live with ph 9.

pictures?

If you are losing a lot of fish in the same tank and they are all dying within a short space of time, it is not age related.

Do big water changes and gravel clean the substrate every day until you figure out what is going on. Run a hose out the front door and drain the tanks out there so you don't have to carry buckets of water. Then use a hose to fill up buckets next to the tank and add dechlorinator. Then use a water pump to pump the water into the tanks.

We need your water test results. "PERFECT" is sadly not specific enough

Heaters are the weakest link in the hobby. Scary bad. No advice on the best since the best are very expensive and most people are forced to go with common name brands.
You need to step back and stop buying fish for awhile and you also need to stop buying fish that run a pecking order if you don't have an aquarium where the fish can hide or avoid the dominant fish. One of something is best if you don't have a large aquarium. Otherwise,fish hunt each other down.

In other threads I have cautioned you about the long-term effects of all the chemicals/additives you mentioned using to adjust pH and such. This is wearing down your fish and they are dying.

The lifespan of most of the fish mentioned is around several years for the smallest species (smaller fish have higher metabolic rates and thus burn out faster than larger fish), and most of the basic tetras and rasboras shouldlive a decade or more. Corydoras catfish are documented (Ian Fuller) to live 40 years; most may not get this far, but 15-20 years is certainly the minimum we should expect. But only if we provide a healthy environment.

There are many in this hobby who just do not understand fish physiology. It is not essential to become an ichthyologist or biologist, but it is possible to recognize that all environmental factors do affect fish in some way. No fish ever died from clean water.

I'd suggest keeping fish that are compatible with the water you have.

I have soft water so I keep American Cichlids instead of African Cichlids.

Adjusting pH and hardness only causes swings. Fish need stability and it's extremely hard to do with chemicals.

While it may be something else, it very well may be your efforts to adjust ph as previously mentioned.

Literature says lifespans are 1-2 years because that was average for an average hobbyist. We can do better. By providing the right environment we can give them a more natural lifespan of 5 years+(more for some species as Byron already said).

I remember you had some serious ammonia/ nitrite issues a while back and this could have impacted your fish.

Over-feeding seems to be a big factor and I know how easy it is to do so get some foods that you can count. For Example one of my tanks has 9 bottom feeders (cory) and 14 small mid-level feeders (tetra and rainbows). The tank gets 3 New life spectrum flakes and 2 omega one shrimp pellets a day Monday to Friday, on Saturday it shares half a frozen live food cube with the other tanks, nothing on Sunday. It seems small amounts but is actually plenty.

With the heating it seems to be a circulation issue- put the heater next to the filter outlet (in the water flow) to move the warm water around the tank.

Thank you for your responses. As far as fish compatible for my water that would be aggressive chilids. I have one now in a tank full of semi-aggressive large gouramis and she rules the roost. It is a constant series of attacks (not just her but all the fish) I HATE watching that kind of bullying behavior and even this group is recommended for a PH of 8 not 9 or10. Tested my tap water the other day at 11 - that is what is going into my tanks, somedays it's 9 some days 10 or 11. Not good for any fish (or anybody else for that matter) so I'm stuck with adjusting the PH to some level lower than 9 no matter what species I have. This has been the only way to successfully do it. The good news is that it slowly drops during the week to about 6.1-6.5 then it's time to do a water change. This time I tested it after every bucked added and it went to 7 almost immediately - adding more kept it close to 7 throughout the week. It never went to 9 or 10 when I premixed it with the chemical. WHY is this not good enough. Sure it's chemistry but what evidence do we have that this particular chemical causes long term damage/shortness of life? I've been doing it for 2-3 months now, it's only recently I'm seeing fatalities - the other water parameters stay perfect or very nearly perfect.

Overfeeding started day one. I'm terrible about it. I watch very carefully who is getting the food and who isn't and when I see a group that isn't getting food (my tetra's for example) I add a bit more food and they go after it - the other fish are full by that time. But there is a relatively large amount of sediment because the tetras and many of my other fish aren't bottom feeders. The bottom feeders consume a HUGE amount of pellets every day - there are rarely any left overs. Some scoop them in a pile and just lay on top of them and don't eat them - so that's a problem. But my middle swimmers (tetras) will not eat at the top of the tank, it's only when the food drops do they try to eat them and it falls too fast on the floor where they are ignored. So,, like an idiot I add a bit more food and this time they seem to "get it" and eat more food. I'm thinking of getting a small bell to announce feeding time so the fish will be in position to get their food. Do you think something like this would work? When you describe what you feed - I'm easily feeding 10x that much food and yet a number of my fish never get any food - they are sleeping, don't notice, etc until the food has reached the bottom. I don't worry about my bottom feeders although they do overeat. "Chubs" my obese corycat I believe is dead - acting slow for days - now he's disappeared completely - I suspect we'll find his remains tomorrow (Tank A water change day) - makes me sick that I did this to him.

And now for some advice from the olden days. Dr. William T. Innes , in his epic tome, his seminal masterpiece , Exotic Aquarium Fishes says that municipalities add disinfecting agents and other things to water in the winter that they don't add in the summer months. He says that experienced aquarists keep a supply of water on hand that has been aging and ripening. His recommendation is five days. So I thought I would try it. Every day I fill a couple 5 gallon buckets with my aged water and pour them back into my big holding container. This aerates and stirs the water so that chlorine can evaporate at the surface. The water reeks of a strong chemical smell for a few days then tapers off. EPA rules considered, if they did this 60 years ago what are they doing now ? I don't use dechlorinator any more. It ups the initial TDS in my R/O water. My results are that my fish love it and my test readings are always perfect. Yes, perfect. Ideal or better all across the board. What once was SOP in 1938 has now become my practice.

The answer to your first paragraph is that these chemicals build up, or the difficulty they cause fish increases, to the point where the fish simply cannot cope and it dies. But you keep mentioning pH...what is the GH and KH of the tap water? And what if anything does the water authority add to raise pH?

As for the second paragraph, the feeding...seriously, you are killing your fish with food. That only makes more stress, further weakening the fish. As for the meal gong, that is a good idea, I do it. I've always done this; when I feed the tank I gently tap on the frame after I open the cover, and I add the food. There is no question the fish recognize the tapping. I have species of Corydoras that I never see, but within a minute or so after this they are all out. Same for the loaches in another tank. Back in the 1990's I had a Zebra Plecostomus that lived in one chunk of wood, and a few seconds after the tap, out he would be, charging around the space in front of his "home" where he knew the food would appear.

So you could cut down the huge amount of pellets? Then the lazy bottom feeders might be hungry enough to go and find some leftovers.
When I had another brand of flake I would dump a "pinch" in and the tiny pieces would spread all over the tank hitting the deck before the middle feeders had a chance to get more than one or two specks. Now I have New Life Spectrum they are big enough to pick up one at a time and count and also big enough to float around whilst they are nibbled.
When I feed the frozen cube I've found adding a few morsals at a time is better, waiting until it is gone and the fish are looking for more before adding another bit so none gets to the bottom.

Do you get a lot of algae? Extra food causes nitrate and phosphate to rise which cause algae. This might add to the cleaning you have to do.

I'll post a picture of the two tanks. Both show 0's on Ammonia, 0's on Nitrites, 5 on Nitrates (pretty typical for my tank). City PH range is 8.5-9.9 (avg 9.4), I have seen 10's and 11's in the days I used to take reading daily (I don't now). GH 110-282 ppm or 10.6 average with a range of 6.14 -15.8 KH:47-95 ppm or 5.3 average Range between 2.6 to 7.7. My tanks in particular seem to run just higher than average -( can't locate where I put that test kit or I'd post my results as of today) Occasionally the water will be very soft for a few days (or so it used to be) I don't think the city is consistent with what they put in the water I hope there is a reason for that. I guess it's ok for THEM to add chemicals but not me.

Pictures below (Both tests are sort of a mess because I just fed them) 1st one is Tank A and has been slightly cloudy for a few days now, me and my aquarium keeper don't know what caused it but I will say that it was the first time she added chemicals by herself (Neutral Regulator, Prime and Tetra Sure Start (extra bacteria - 15 mls) it's also got more snails than is countable - we remove HUNDREDS each week and there are HUNDREDS more the following week - it just gets worse and worse, but more likely however the cloudiness is because a fish died but my ammonia levels are 0 and usually I see .25 ammonia when a fish dies. Tomorrow is clean tank day for A so I'm guessing I'll find my much loved corycat "chubs" died and was eaten faster than he could be found. Tank A has Dwarf Gourami, Red/Blue Gourami, Long finned zebra, Cherry Barb, CoryCat (2 I hope), Licorice Gourami, Bristlenose Lemon Pleco x2 , Blue Phantom Pleco, Thomasi L188A (1-2), Rainbow Praecox x2.

Tank D is the second picture, also full of food mess, but not too bad for them. It contains Harlequin Rasbora, Glofish Tetra x 5 - Dojo Loach Gold x 3, Pearl Gourami x 3, Honey Dwarf Gourami x 2. Kubotai Loach x 3, Reticulated Hillstream Loach x 2, Chocolate Gourami

Looking at these lists I've mosty lost Cherry Barbs and Rasbora's and Cory Cats (from both tanks), and 2 Honey Gourami - From Tank A I've lost: 7, From Tank D I've lost 9. 2 weeks ago we totally removed all the fish and cleaned the entire tank in order to switch out the color of substrate that was constantly causing a tan film on the wall and it was ugly to look at. We replaced it with black sand (Seachem) super-well rinsed and I see no residue. Moving the fist from buckets to tank caused 2 Rasboras to die (I used to have 5, now I'm down to 1). I have not lost any others since the substrate change. Tank A is a mix of one side black sand and one side black clay. Looking at the numbers I can't believe I lost so many from tank D which has always been "perfect" Tank A has been the problem child (it was my first tank). I'd blame it on the snails if I could but I've thown a few snails in my other tanks to act as clean up crews. In tank B and D there may be a total of 5 snails, they don't seem to like to reproduce in those tanks and I believe, in Tank D I have a snail eater. Tank A is OUT OF CONTROL I almost bought a chemical snail killer but the VOICE OF BYRON spoke in my head and told me NOT to add this chemical for any reason (I wasn't comfortable with it either).

To answer Byron, when I had the city water manager on the phone I asked him what they put into the water to make the PH so high and he said they don't specifically add anything to make the PH high - that's water from the Kansas river is, I guess very alkaline. Nobody that I know of goes fishing in in it - never heard of any creatures other than dead human bodies being thrown in it. Where I live it looks like you walk in the River - there are so many sandbars - but they disappear if we have a long rainy season. It actually flooded North Topeka (other side of the river from where I live) in the 1950's and caused a hell a lot of a disaster. I know there are a lot of farm fields built next to it so I suppose that's how they irrigate their crops. East of my location I guess there is much deeper water.

OK can't do the reading of GH and KH in MY tanks today - I have every kit you can get for freshwater and the one kit I need right now I cannot find, I destroyed my organization when I was madly looking for a temporary filter to use. I will definitely stay on it - I'm really curious to see what it reads with all these chemicals in it. I haven't measured it for some time since I wasn't doing anything that I knew of to affect GH or KH. For Christmas somebody bought me a nice electronic PH measure - if they only had an electronic measuring tool for everything that would be so timesaving. The PH of Tank A today was 6.12 (it was 7.0 , 6 days ago - tomorrow will be water change day). PH of Tank D is 6.89, water was changed last Friday and this is Sunday - it will likely be 6.1 by this Friday when we change the water again. The chemical we use is very predictable. It also causes a White cloud as seen in Tank A but it always settles down after about 30 minutes. I don't know where this white cloud came from unless my assistant poured in the entire jar, and she's way too careful to "experiment" with anything except how to get the water and debris in an out faster. I have a Phython but besides the fact I've nearly had a zillion fish want to swim in it - trying to get the water OUT of it when your done for the day is a huge nightmare, plus it overflows my sink to get the pressure I need for the suction. I have to have a 50 ft length and my oxygen cord gets trapped in it constantly but I'm sure with her help we could do it very fast. I just don't think it cleans out the bottom of the tank as well as the smaller gravel cleaners. For the person suggesting a hose - I couldn't lift one big enough to go from the outside faucet in the back (windows no longer opern) to around the house and down to the farthest bedroom and I have no place to store the water - but it would be handy. You'd need to keep the water warm until you used it though

My landloard doesn't know I even keep fish on these amazing floors and gives me a big break on the rent since my father basically made him a millionaire helping him pick out good houses to flip. Now he even does commercial property. Also - for the last two years before my father died he insisted there was a quit claim dead on this property and both sides were to go to me when he died because he knew his wife would move to Chicago and didn't want to manage rentals. The only person that also heard my father say this was my husband - who is also dead. When my father died and I talked to my stepmother about it she said "well I'm just going to charge you xxx amount and when it's bought you'll have to deal with them. I told her about the quit claim dead and my father's assurances that I inherited the duplex and she just gave me a stare and then said "I don't know about that". She told me how much he was paying for it - and I offered to match that offer - even though I knew it wouldn't appraise for that much and we'd renegotiate - I got a property tax statement in the mail and read it - she sold him two properties for the price she said she sold this one for. So SHE had already promised him the properties before my dad even died. Sorry I digress - but in my mind I feel like this place belongs to me. My dad would be sick over this and she'll go to hell. She has well over 500K in the bank, got 300K from my father that he didn't use up in the nursing home and yet and has no problem stealing $125 K from me. She's one of these ultra-right wing evangelical Trump supporters and started hating me when I argued with her. Everything is in a trust except this property because they hadn't updated the will - that's why my dad knew he could do it without dealing with the trust. In the trust I'll get 1/3 and her 2 children get 2/3 - not fair since my dad owned the bulk of poperties she had to sell off and gets to keep the money and use it until she dies and the trust comes into effect. The only thing nice I can say is that she did treat my father wonderfully the last couple of years of his life - lifting him, cleaning him and giving 100% of her life to him until her back was too injured (she's in her 80;s. So I guess that's worth 125K, at least my dad was taken care of better than I could have done. END OF RANT.

For Naughts - I have cut down the amount of pellets in half for tank A (a lot of bottom feeders) and same for Tank D since my cory cats are all gone but I do had 5 really big pellet eaters left but I could even put in fewer pellets since they aren't that large of fish. In my tank B which has BIG 5-8" fish I put in a LOT of pellets and every last one of them is gone within an hour. They just nibble on the flakes, and will eat tubiflex worms from my fingers - all day if I let them.

I'll keep lookin for the GH KH kit.

@Jan Cavalieri one thing I have seen play out exactly the same over and over is the greed of so called friends and relatives when a loved one dies. Your dear loving relatives and friends will bend you over and ream you royally. They will lie right to your face with a big warm smile on their face and their arm over your shoulder. But watch out ! That arm over your shoulder has a knife in its hand to stab you in the back with. Trust no one.
And for crying out loud go get yourself a reverse osmosis unit .

I tracked down the water report for Topeka, Kansas where I assume you live. The GH is stated as being in the range 110-282 ppm, with the "level detected" 190 ppm, and KH is 47-138 ppm (136 ppm). This is moderately hard water in general terms. The pH is given as 9.4 with the range of 8.9 to 9.9.

If you keep fish species that suit these parameters--and the GH is the most important here--you can use the tap water with a dechlorinator (conditioner) and that is it. There is no reason to be messing with dangerous chemicals.

Livebearers would thrive in this water. There are also a number of somewhat "softer" water species that could do well, fish like Pristella Tetras come to mind. Fish requiring very soft water will not be healthy.

Now, the above is responding solely to the city's water report. If these values are changing in your aquarium(s), there is a reason. You would be better to just do the weekly water changes without attempting to adjust pH or GH or KH. Continue tests and keep track in a chart of the results. After several weeks (you can do spot checks, especially once you have a reasonable grasp of how it goes) compare.

Every time you add some substance tyo adjust one of these values, it has complex ramifications. You/we need to know what is going to occur according to the laws of nature respecting water chemistry and biology, and then work within that.

The only safe alternative is to dilute the tap water with "pure" water, such as distilled, Reverse Osmosis or rainwater (if the latter is otherwise safe). RO is the easiest to manage, obviously, but also expensive. And frankly at this point I am not suggesting it. I suspect all of us in the initial stages anyway were drawn into this mindset that stores seem to foster, that our fish will not really be healthy without our adding "x" and/or "y" and/or "z" to the tank, and we must have "a" or "b" values for pH, etc, etc, etc.. This is not the way to do it.