How Long To Wait After Fish Die To Add More?

[oneponygirl]

Oh the long story but I'll try to keep it short and some of you may remember some details anyway since I posted about them. At the beginning of May my 29 gallon came down with Ich which wiped out all my neons and cherry barbs but my pygmy corys and dwarf gourmai survived. I wanted to restock but was waiting to watch the rest and make sure Ich was gone. Then one of my pygmys died without warning of what appeared to be septecemia. I again wanted to watch the rest to make sure they were OK. Then my dwarf gourami came down with hole in the head or lateral line disease so I isolated him until he looked better and then put him back in the main tank. He was fine for a good while but then suddenly day before yesterday I did a water change in the afternoon and by evening he looked to be on deaths door, laying on the bottom not moving. No visible signs of injury or illness. He died the next day (yesterday). So after all this and out of all my stock I have one pygmy cory who seems to be surviving and thriving.

So my question is, how long should I wait to make sure that the tank is safe to add more stock? Or, if I should do something first, please let me know. Through all this my water stats have been perfect. Yesterday when I tested it Ammonia and Nitrites were at 0, Nitrates were around 5 and PH was 7.2. I can't figure why I suddenly started to have so many problems but I'm hoping they are over and just maybe my poor gourami had had too much stress with multiple ilnesses or something.

Also, just out of curiosity, when doing water tests is it preferable to draw the water from top or bottom of the tank or does it not matter? Thanks all!

 

[sussexgirl]

So my question is, how long should I wait to make sure that the tank is safe to add more stock? Or, if I should do something first, please let me know.

Also, just out of curiosity, when doing water tests is it preferable to draw the water from top or bottom of the tank or does it not matter? Thanks all!

I would wait for a couple of weeks and just monitor your remaining fish to make sure he's going to be ok. I would do a 30% water change as soon as possible and keep an eye on things. It should be ok to add fish in a couple of weeks though if the pigmy cory is ok. I draw my water for testing from the top of the tank simply because I would have thought the filter was mixing it all up enough.