New and Need help

[Zcarroll22]

So I just got a new 20 gallon tank of my own after not having one since childhood and back then my mom did all the care. Well i let it sit for a week with no fish in it as recommended. The first group of fish I put in were one powder blue dwarf gourami, one red dwarf gourami, a black skirt tetra and an African dwarf frog. I waited about 5 days before adding the second group of 2 black skirt tetras, 2 painted platies and a black mystery snail. The second group was added about 4 days ago. Everything seemed fine until last night two of the black skirt tetras lost their color. I figured they just figured out who was dominant or whatever as one of them held their color super dark and the other two lost theirs. Upon waking up this morning I found one of the black skirts dead and the rest of my fish are acting funny except for the red gourami and the African dwarf frog. I found the snail just floating at the top of the tank. Still alive tho and the rest of the fish are just floating at the top of the tank lazily with their snouts pointed up to the surface of the water. The red gourami is still active as can be but the blue gourami is just sitting their aspirating slowly and barely moving his fins along with the tetras and the platies. Any help would be awesome.

 

[Zcarroll22]

Here is a picture of what they are doing

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean immediately. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank. Leave the fish in the tank when you do this.

If you don't have a gravel cleaner, get a basic model from the local pet shop. The following link has a basic model gravel cleaner similar to what you use for cleaning the substrate.
https://www.about-goldfish.com/aquarium-cleaning.html

Then do a 75% water change each day for the next 2 weeks.

Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite & pH and post the results here. If you don't have a test kit take a glass full of tank water to the local pet shop and ask them if they can test it for you. Write the results down at the shop and post them here. We want numbers like ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm pH 7.0.

My guess is the tank has ammonia and nitrite which is caused by fish food and waste breaking down in the water. After a month or so of having fish in the tank you get beneficial bacteria in the filter that eat ammonia and convert it into nitrite. Then you get more good bacteria that eat nitrite and convert it into nitrate.

Any ammonia or nitrite will stress and kill fish so doing 75% water changes each day will dilute the levels in the tank and hopefully keep the fish alive until the filter kicks in.
If you can post the type of filter you have we can tell you how to clean it.

Reduce feeding to once every 2 days and only give them a tiny bit of food. they should eat it all within about 20-30 seconds. Remove any uneaten food because this will push the ammonia level up faster.

 

[Zcarroll22]

Thank you for the information. I'm not sure what brand filter I have but it's a triangular shaped filter that suction cups to the corner of the tank and sits inside the water. I'll have to wait a bit to get the water tested as my fiance has our car at work but I'll get started on the water change and gravel cleaning.

 

[Zcarroll22]

Got the water changed and the gravel cleaned out. Everyone has calmed down and returned to normal behavior except my blue gourami is still stressing out at the top of the tank.

 

[Colin_T]

The water change is the most important thing right now so do that. You can get water tested any time but if there is ammonia and nitrite in the water, a big water change will dilute it and make it safer for the fish.

For future reference, if any fish ever die in an aquarium, or if the fish are looking off colour or gasping in the tank or below the surface, the best thing to do is a 75% water change and gravel clean. It usually fixes most issues, but even if it doesn't fix all the issues it usually buys you time to get water tested and post pics on here asking for help

The gourami should settle down over the next few hours. Just don't feed them today, and do a water change each day until this settles down

 

[Zcarroll22]

Will keep that in mind. Thank you so much for the help.