Should I buy more fish

[Lamie]

No, you were correct initially. It's just a matter of there being two different kinds of cooling systems. The cheap kind are just fans that blow across the surface of the water. They work through evaporative cooling since the air movement will increase evap rates and the process of evaporation removes heat from the system. This will only cool the water by a few degrees though. The really expensive kinds are the fancy ones that use actual refrigerant. They pull the water from the tank, cool it, and then return it.

Regarding the topic of the thread, it probably is some sort of disease going through your population, although I'd also recommend finding a different source of fish once the one month period is up. Some shops just have consistently bad fish, and if you keep purchasing from them, you'll just keep running into the same problems.

Once the month is up do I need to know the source of the problem before I buy new fish? Or is one month enough to know that there is no disease? Sorry if that is confusing

 

[Lamie]

No, you were correct initially. It's just a matter of there being two different kinds of cooling systems. The cheap kind are just fans that blow across the surface of the water. They work through evaporative cooling since the air movement will increase evap rates and the process of evaporation removes heat from the system. This will only cool the water by a few degrees though. The really expensive kinds are the fancy ones that use actual refrigerant. They pull the water from the tank, cool it, and then return it.

Regarding the topic of the thread, it probably is some sort of disease going through your population, although I'd also recommend finding a different source of fish once the one month period is up. Some shops just have consistently bad fish, and if you keep purchasing from them, you'll just keep running into the same problems.

I will use a new fish source

 

[Colin_T]

You don't need to cool your aquarium over summer. A temperature of 26-27C is not going to harm any tropical fish if the temp is only that high for a few months each year. Most tropical fishes can live at those temperature all year round, so a few months in summer is not going to harm them.

I live in Western Australia and my tanks sat on 30-34C for 3-4 months during summer and into autumn. I had all sorts of tropical fishes (including Corydoras) and they were fine.

I used to survey waterways and collect fish and during the dry period, I would find fish in small shallow pools that had a water temperature between 30-40C. These sorts of temperatures are quite common during the dry season in warm areas. The water sometimes evaporates completely and the fish die or get eaten by birds. Sometimes the pools hold water long enough and when it rains, the pools fill up and the water temperature might drop 20C in an hour. The fish survive and start a new generation.

If you are really concerned about the water temperature, get a portable room air-conditioner and use that in the room with the aquarium. Set it on 25C.

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If you think your fish might be sick, post pictures and videos of them so we can check them for diseases. Post a picture showing the entire tank too.
Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Post the results in numbers.

Try to quarantine any new fish, plants, shrimp or snails for a month before adding them to an established aquarium.