Help with figuring out cause of disaster.

[Ram]

Hey there folks,

First post here!

Well, the reason I joined is because.. God forgive me, I just killed 5 fish

I decided to educate myself before I do something so dumb again.

But, I seriously have no idea why this happened. Here is the story.

I had a 5 gallon tank for close to a year. I had about 4 fish die for unknown reasons in the first 2 months. (some within 3 days of buying).
I bougt 2 fish that looked like zebras. 1 orange shark looking fish (1 inch long).
and had 2 of those neon fish. All were extremely cheap. (as if you can attach a price tag to a life...dont think that cheap fish mean less to me!)

Soon I discovered that algae found a home in my tank and discovered the "algae eater".
Everything was fine for a few months. Then the Algae eater died. I didnt do much, but the water got extremely cloudy with black/green moss and I ran to the pet store and got the same old algae eater I had. It was a black guy with a big head. He died within a week!!

I went to the pet store and he told me that the algae eater was too big for me tank. However, the fish didnt even eat the algae! I bought a smaller algae eater and it too didnt do much.

Later another store said I had the wrong type and gave me a BIG algae eater. This guy was 2 inches long and cleaned the entire tank OVERNIGHT!!!
I got worried that he might starve and I bought algae eater discs.

Everything was fine for 4 months after this.

Then.. last week.. we were getting some work done and I had to leave the house.
I fed the fish, came back in 2 days and HOLY COW!!!!!

(this is sad.. please do not read if you get upset easily.)
The whole tank was VERY cloudy and the water was blackish.. Almost all the fish were dead (floating upside down).
only one of the zebra fish was alive.. but kinda twitching.

I noticed that my filter's "bio wheel" had stopped turning and this "black" stuff was all over my filter as well.
I wasnt the best caretake, but come on! Two days??

I changed half the water every 4 months on my tank and I always used bottled water! The fish drink better water than I do!

And btw.. please tell me how much you a really supposed to feed a fish!

Thanks for reading guys.. hopefull you can come up with the reason why this happened.

-Ram

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

The fish you lost in the first few days are probably because your tank wasnt cycled. 5 gal really isnt big enough to do much with, just a betta tbh.You should be doing 25%water changes weekly not 50% every 4months. I cant really help you with the black water and filter although it sounds like it broke down and all the gunk was released back into the water.
Welcome to the forum
Edit: There a few guidelines for feeding fish. flakes can be 3-4 flakes per fish but most people use as much food as can be consumed in 2minutes. In smaller tanks you have to get every single piece uneaten because in such a small volume of water a little overfeeding each day can create alot of pollution.

 

[Ram]

Just from reading the forum over the past hour I gathered this much:


1) I turned off the light/filter at night (shouldnt have done that)
2) I fed em too much (didnt know better and the LFS told me wrong)
3) I didnt clean the gravel. I did a 100% clean half way through.. bad idea
4) Too many fish! (Got rid of the 5G and got a 10G.. biggest I can get for my little room)

Thanks guys!!
Nice forum!

-ram