polka dotted loaches died

[mac524]

I recently put a penguin 125 filter on my 10 gallon tank. I had read a suggestion on Marineland's website regarding the noise from this filter. They suggested attaching a piece of filter material to the outtake under the biowheel. I did just that using a rubber band a poly filter pad. It worked wonders with the noise! Unfortuately, 1 week later my 4 polka-dot loaches and my spiny eel are dead. They all died within two days of each other. My ph is neutral and the ammonia is virtually non-existent. It's a pretty new set up but the ammonia has yet to spike. No nitrites as well.

Could the rubber band have been toxic? What about Stress-Zyme, Cycle, Biozyme - could I put too much of that in a tank?

Any ideas or help would be appreciated. Those loaches cost $11.00 each and I'd like to replace them.

 

[ryan]

Spiny Eels and Polka-Dot Loaches (Botia kubotai) are not the best fish to add to a newly started tank, they should really be added to an eastablished tank, and one alot larger than 10 gallons. I'd look at the stocking before anything else, what were the other parameters?

 

[mac524]

This was only meant to be a temporary situation. My 2 30 gallon tanks are a little crowded and I've contracted with a local woodworker to build me a furniture quality stand and canopy for a 120 gallon tank. The tank is on order. Within the next month or two they would have been added to the big tank.

I've only tested ph, ammonia and nitrite. The temp is at 78-80 deg f.