Fish Keep Dying, No Help Offered, Advise Please

[riddler65]

Hello everyone
 
This is my first posy on to the forum and hopefully you can give me some advise on the problems I seem to be having.
 
First off I will explain about my tank. I have a 190 litre curved Juwel Tank, with the standard pump it came with. I started the Aquarium back in September with the help from my local shop. They advised how to set it up, how to test it and I started with 6 Zebra Danio's for the first 6 weeks to allow everything to mature.
 
In the tank I have 5 different plants, 2 wooden logs and 4 rocks
 
Since then I have had numerous amounts of fish die, they include
 
3 black molly's
1 rainbow shark
2 serpia tetra's
3 cobra skin guppy's
3 sunset guppy's
2 mountain loach
1 platy
2 schrimps
3 corydoras
1 angelfish
 
What I have in my tank at the moment is:
 
6 Zebra Danio's
6 Mountain Cloud Minnow
6 Neon
6 Red Empers
2 Plechos
2 snails
2 Gourami's
1 Rainbow Shark
1 Serpia Tetra
2 Sunrise Platy's
 
I have been testing the water religiously for ammonia and nitrate every other day and the ammonia has been between 0 and .25 and the nitrate has stayed at zero virtually all the time.
 
The water I do a 20% water change every three weeks and I use APi stress zyme and stress coat. I also change the white filter once a week. The carbon filter I change when I do the water change and I also wash the rest of the filters in the discarded tank water.
 
I feed the fish every other day. One day it is flakes the other day is bloodworms.
 
What I have is a problem with Fury Algae. It is all over the plants, on most of the rocks and on the glass. I have even started to see it on the pebbles in the bottom.
 
I took a sample of water to local aquatic shop and they tested for several different things, and the only thing that stood out a bit was the ammonia, but the level at worst was only .25,  and I left the store with the staff scratching their heads.
They told me that Gourami's are not so hardy as Angelfish, and the Molly's are on a par with the Platy's so they are confused why so many have died and not the ones they would have expected.
 
A couple of weeks back I removed 3 of the 5 plants to see if this made a difference. Well the water looks a bit cleaner, the Algae does not seem to be spreading so much but I have still had 3 fish die in the last couple of weeks.
 
I thought I would start off with Tropical fish, get some experience before I then go for Marine fish, but I never thought it would be this hard and so many dying
 
Any advise would be greatly appreciated
 
regards
 
Graham
 
 
 
 

 

[Ryan10]

The changing of the white filter pad every week is probably your problem.  The carbon filter is the least important part (unless you are removing meds).  I don't even use carbon in my tanks.  Just filter floss, a sponge and ceramic cylinders for the beneficial bacteria.  The white filter pad is home to your beneficial bacteria so don't change it very often.   It's the whole reason you cycled the tank.   I've noticed a lot of stores talk about the importance of cycled water...it's not true.  The water does not cycle, it's your filter media that does.  I keep piranhas and change around 50%-70% of the water weekly and I am able to do this due to my filter media.  What kind of filter are you using?  Another thought is the rocks in your tank.  When I first started I collected rocks from outside and it ended up being a bad idea.

 

[l_l_l]

Ryan is spot on about your filter pad.
It does not need to be changed unless it's falling appart, litteraly.
How do you test the water? With strips, or drop tests?
 
I see you have Red Empress in your tank, they can grow up to 8 inches, and will probably end up eating your other fish.
They are also really aggressive and destroy your smaller fish. Same thing goes with your rainbow shark
Plecos can also grow really large, up to 18 inches!
 
And on top of it all, you have way too many fish in there, especially considering the bigger fishes..
If you remove the plecos and red empress, you might get way better water quality, with a lot less fish dying.
Not sure why your fish shop thinks your stocking is ok, but to me, it looks wayyy too populated.

 

[Ryan10]

Oh yeah...I didn't notice the red empress.  They are too mean for my African peacock tank let alone a tropical.   Get them out as soon as you can.  After they kill all your fish they will start killing each other.  Don't get too frustrated, we have all been here when we started.

   I hate to say it but my best advice to you is to not listen to your local stores.  Some are very good at what they do and care about your fish but most just want your money.   Research everything yourself and ask questions here if you need more information.   This site has a lot of smart people just waiting to talk about fish. 

 

[KrystaK]

Just going to offer some more advice
 
1: A 20% water change every 3 weeks isn't often enough or in enough volume in my mind. Some people may disagree, but I'd be doing 30% water changed at a maximum of every 2 weeks, doing it weekly would be better. I know that seems like a lot of water to change out, but if you get on a schedule it doesn't seen so bad. Another option is to get an Aqueon Aquarium water change, then you don't even need a bucket. 
 
2: As the others said, removing the floss is probably your problem. If you want to gently rinse the filter floss in the discarded tank water to dislodge the larger particles that's okay. I change my filter floss every other month (I have 4 different filter pads in my filter, and I only ever change 1 at a time)
 
3: Where is your tank located? You either have it too close to natural light i.e: a window that gets a lot of sunlight. OR you leave the aquarium light on too long. They don't need to be left on all day, live plants only need 6-8 hours of light a day. 
 
4: Your stock isn't the best; no offence, but as others have said, some of your fish are aggressive, and will grow too large for your tank. 
-Mountain Minnows are cold water fish, and won't thrive in a tropical tank, the temperature will be too warm for them. 
-Tetra's are schooling fish, the more of them in a tank the happier they are. I'd get more Serpae tetra if I were you, or re-home the one you have. 
-Rehome the Pleco's, they get huge. If you want a Pleco for algae control, get Bristle nose Pleco's, they only grow to 4 inches and eat algae for their entire lives (Common pleco's only eat it as juvi's)

 

[the_lock_man]

-Rehome the Pleco's, they get huge. If you want a Pleco for algae control, get Bristle nose Pleco's, they only grow to 4 inches and eat algae for their entire lives (Common pleco's only eat it as juvi's)

 
I agree with pretty much everything KrystaK has said, apart from this bit.
 
We don't know what species of Plec it is that Graham has - it may well be that he already has Bristlenoses, or another of the smaller species.
 
Graham, I would suggest that you post a photo of the plec, so we can ID it, and then advise whether it needs rehoming or not.

And the bit that KrystaK said about the Mountain Minnows, the same applies to the Zebra Danios too.

 

[riddler65]

Wow
 
Some great responses there and I thought I had covered pretty much everything in my first post. I think I need to make clear a few things.
 
1/ The Red Embers I have are really small. I have 6 of them and they are the same size as the neon's I have. They look like a mini Serpia Tetra.
 
2/ The Serpia Tetras are the ones who originally caused me the most problems. My store told me they are related to Piranhas and out of all the Tetras they are the most awkward ones to keep. hey kept on attacking the fins of other fish.
 
3/ I have two Pleco's and I have tld will only grow to 4 inches but I can't find a image so I can confirm what they are called.
 
4/ I was told by the store that the reason I have so much Algae is because I change the water too often. I used to do it 20% weekly as suggested and they say the hard water is feeding the Algae.
 
5/ My Tank is in the corner of a room, there is sunlight during the day but not directly on to the tank. I have the lights on a timer from 3.30pm to 10.30pm.
 
6/ The filter system I have is Juwel Filter System Bioflow 3.0. This contains 1 polypad, 1 carbon sponge, 1 coarse filter sponge, 2 fine filter sponge, 1 Nitrax and 1 Cirax.So in total I have 7 filters.
 
7/ All the fish I have bought are either in pairs, 3's or in 6's. The serpia is left on his own because the other two died.
 
8/ I only have 32 fish in my 190 litre tank. Most of these are no bigger than 1 centimetre (neons, red embers), So I was working on the basis of 1cm per litre of water?
 
9/ The rocks I have were bought from the actually store, same as the logs.
 
10/ The test kit I use for Ammonia and Nitrite is API liquid kit.
 
When I was researching what to buy I went to all my local Aquatic Centres and only one of them told me to establish the tank first and this is the place I am using. They also told me only to use Danio's to start off with. All the fish they keep they label either green, yellow or red stickers. Green being the community fish, so everything I have purchased had the green label. So to that extent I think they have been helpful but clearly I need to try different things to stabilise my tank.
 
So talking to you guys has been the first step, Thank you

 

[riddler65]

Just to add to the previous post.
 
I have searched for what type of Pleco's I have and I believe it is a Rubbernose Pleco. I will confirm this when I next go to the store.
 
The Danio's and the Minnow's are all doing well. The temperature in my tank is a constant 76 degrees.
 
I have checked the Red Embers, and they are certainly not the fish I have. So I did a search and in fact what they are Ember Tetra's, sorry about the confusion
 
regards
 
Graham

 

[the_lock_man]

4/ I was told by the store that the reason I have so much Algae is because I change the water too often. I used to do it 20% weekly as suggested and they say the hard water is feeding the Algae.
 

 
Not really true, but sort of. The problem is CO2, I suspect. A lot of water companies inject CO2 into their water as it helps to stop degradation in their pipes. Rather like chapagne going bubbly once it's opened, the CO2 stays dissolved in the water because of the pressure, but once it's in your tank, it gases off. The fluctuation CO2 levels in the water causes some types of algae.
 
I can understand why you then would do less water changes, and whilst it helps with the algae, it creates other problems. Ideally, you would use water that isn't straight out from the tap to do a weekly water change of about 30%.
 
 

5/ My Tank is in the corner of a room, there is sunlight during the day but not directly on to the tank. I have the lights on a timer from 3.30pm to 10.30pm.
 

 
 
Try the lights from 4 til 10, if you have a problem with the CO2, then this will help.
 
 

8/ I only have 32 fish in my 190 litre tank. Most of these are no bigger than 1 centimetre (neons, red embers), So I was working on the basis of 1cm per litre of water?
 

 
You have to use the fully grown adult size of the fish in your calculations, not their contemporary size.
 
BTW, the minnows and danios may look perfectly OK, but the increased temperature will have increased the speed of the fish's metabolism, and therefore reduced the lifespan.

 

[riddler65]

The Lock Man
 
Thank you for your reply.
 
I do understand about the quantity of fish to the size of the tank. 190 litres would equal in theory 190 fish if at one centimetre each. 5 cm per fish would equal 38. So surely I must be well under this with 12 of my fish being 1 cm.
 
The CO2 makes perfect sense. So I will revert back to doing 20% weekly, but would I add anything to the water if doing weekly like Stress Zyme and Stress Coat?
 
I will also change the timing to 4 till 10pm.
 
I today removed some of the pebbles that had Algae on them, when I removed them the amount of debris which released from them is really bad. It has made my tank look cloudy. Could this be a cause of my problems?
Whenever I do water change I have a Juwel Aqua Clean which I place at the bottom of the tank and cleans the pebbles as it removes water. Is this adequate or am I using too many pebbles?
 
Also would it be advisable to remove the rocks and scrub the Algae off of them and then place them back in the tank?
 
regards
 
Graham

 

[l_l_l]

Hi Graham! Good on you for taking the advice from here
I am happy that you have red ember tetras and not red empress :')
Much better!
 
Are the pleccos you talking about like this?

If so, you are fine
 
 
Water changes are in fact really important! I change about 20-30% on my tanks every week, even if my water quality is top notch every day, it's good for fish and some things we can't test in water will be removed.
 
You can remove algae from the rocks but that will remove food from your fish!
 
When you do your water changes, do you add any water conditioner? I personally use Seachem Prime, and it's been real good to me!
 
Hopefully we figure this out!
 
Cheers!

 

[riddler65]

The pleco in the picture is not ones I have. I believe it is a Rubbernose Pleco which only grows to around 5 inches.
 
Since my last post I have had another fish die. It was one of my Gourami's (
 
When I change the water I add nothing else.

 

[l_l_l]

Ohh! You MUST add water dechlorinator (conditioner) in your water before adding it! A bottle is not so expensive and is very important because fish are highly sensitive to chlorine and chloramine!

 

[ShinySideUp]

I change 50% of my water every week and I have 640 litre tank. 10% to 20% every three weeks is inadequate and will give rise to all sorts of problems. You lost Mollies and Cory's, you could not save both as Mollies need Ph of over 7 and Cory's do well in water of less then pH 7 so you can never have both being happy. Molies also tend to like slighty brackish water too.
 
I presume the'white' filter you throw away is filter floss, this is correct. It is there to filter out fine particles and is not worth washing or keeping. Add Prime or Aquasafe with all added water until things have settled down. If using Prime, make sure you add enough to deal with the whole tank volume, not just the water you add.
 
Dump the carbon filter material and replace it with foam. Carbon does nothing for a healthy tank and is only any use for filtering out old medications, if used in a healthy tank it will filter out any plant food you put in. If you must have crystal clear water then use Purigen (it's bloody expensive though).
 
Anything I haven't covered I don't know much about, everything I have covered I know a lot about.
 
To reiterate my first comment, 'change more water'!

 

[riddler65]

Blimey
 
It seems I am doing lot's wrong.
 
The white filter is floss. When you say add foam instead of a carbon filter. Could you give me a example or a link of exactly what you mean please.
 
I have never tested the water for Ph, and was never told that Molly's like high and corey's like lower. I have never been told to add anything to the water after a change. Is the conditioner just called Dechlorinator ?
 
Thank you again