Unexplained Deaths?

[LRPRESTO]

Hi everyone! I have a problem in my guppy tank I can't quite figure out and I hope someone here may know who to help me. I have lost more than half of the fish in my tank in the last two weeks and don't know why. They show no visible signs of disease and didn't before they died either. I have lost six males and four females so far! I have two males and five females left in the tank (a 45 gallon breeder tank), along with three neon tetras,four young platies (that I'd like to move to the platy tank but don't want to until I figure out what is going on with this tank), two ghost fish, a bottom feeder and a weather loach (trying to control the snails) I did a 90% water change three days ago (and still had four dead over the weekend) I usually do at least a 40% water change every third day. I have a couple of five gallon buckets I use only for my fish tanks. When I do the water changes I put 1 tsp. of amquil plus and 1 tsp. of novaqua plus and 1 tsp. of aquarium salt (lfs owner swor by it) I have fake plants in the tank, no real ones and haven't added any new fish in quite a while. I use an Emporer 280 bio-wheel filter with the standard activated charcole filter and have Pro-Z in the secondary filter (I haven't changed the Pro-Z in about three months but I change the charcole filter monthly) I have a bubble stick under the rock too. They are fed twice a day (Tetra Color Tropical flakes) and occasionally some live baby brine shrimp.
Here's my levels:
Temp. - 80 F
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
PH- 7.6
Nitrate- 5.0
I think the levels look great! I have also noticed that the females (I have been having a hard time keeping females alive in this tank anyway and don't know why!) tend to die after giving birth. Any ideas why this is? I would love to hear any ideas you all have about this problem. I am afraid I'm just going to lose more and more fish in this tank soon! Thanks for your help!! Lisa

 

[roseK]

thats a massive water change! and 40% a week might be too much

 

[SamUK]

water changes may be a bit much.


if its 45 gallons then its not fully stocked so theres not really any need to change so much so often.


i do all my tanks once a week and even then i only do 15%-20% water changes and i havent lost a fish in about a year to illness.

 

[LRPRESTO]

I don't USUALLY do the 40% change but I have over the last two weeks because it seems that when asked about sick fish the answer is usually 'frequent water changes'. When all is well I check levels weekly and change when I see the nitrate above 20. Then I change out whatever it takes to vacuum the gravel really well. (usually three to four buckets) What is "fully stocked" for this size tank?

 

[roseK]

Hi everyone! I have a problem in my guppy tank I can't quite figure out and I hope someone here may know who to help me. I have lost more than half of the fish in my tank in the last two weeks and don't know why. They show no visible signs of disease and didn't before they died either. I have lost six males and four females so far! I have two males and five females left in the tank (a 45 gallon breeder tank), along with three neon tetras,four young platies (that I'd like to move to the platy tank but don't want to until I figure out what is going on with this tank), two ghost fish, a bottom feeder and a weather loach (trying to control the snails) I did a 90% water change three days ago (and still had four dead over the weekend) I usually do at least a 40% water change every third day. I have a couple of five gallon buckets I use only for my fish tanks. When I do the water changes I put 1 tsp. of amquil plus and 1 tsp. of novaqua plus and 1 tsp. of aquarium salt (lfs owner swor by it) I have fake plants in the tank, no real ones and haven't added any new fish in quite a while. I use an Emporer 280 bio-wheel filter with the standard activated charcole filter and have Pro-Z in the secondary filter (I haven't changed the Pro-Z in about three months but I change the charcole filter monthly) I have a bubble stick under the rock too. They are fed twice a day (Tetra Color Tropical flakes) and occasionally some live baby brine shrimp.
Here's my levels:
Temp. - 80 F
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
PH- 7.6
Nitrate- 5.0
I think the levels look great! I have also noticed that the females (I have been having a hard time keeping females alive in this tank anyway and don't know why!) tend to die after giving birth. Any ideas why this is? I would love to hear any ideas you all have about this problem. I am afraid I'm just going to lose more and more fish in this tank soon! Thanks for your help!! Lisa

if its not "usually" then idk

 

[SamUK]

Hi everyone! I have a problem in my guppy tank I can't quite figure out and I hope someone here may know who to help me. I have lost more than half of the fish in my tank in the last two weeks and don't know why. They show no visible signs of disease and didn't before they died either. I have lost six males and four females so far! I have two males and five females left in the tank (a 45 gallon breeder tank), along with three neon tetras,four young platies (that I'd like to move to the platy tank but don't want to until I figure out what is going on with this tank), two ghost fish, a bottom feeder and a weather loach (trying to control the snails) I did a 90% water change three days ago (and still had four dead over the weekend) I usually do at least a 40% water change every third day. I have a couple of five gallon buckets I use only for my fish tanks. When I do the water changes I put 1 tsp. of amquil plus and 1 tsp. of novaqua plus and 1 tsp. of aquarium salt (lfs owner swor by it) I have fake plants in the tank, no real ones and haven't added any new fish in quite a while. I use an Emporer 280 bio-wheel filter with the standard activated charcole filter and have Pro-Z in the secondary filter (I haven't changed the Pro-Z in about three months but I change the charcole filter monthly) I have a bubble stick under the rock too. They are fed twice a day (Tetra Color Tropical flakes) and occasionally some live baby brine shrimp.
Here's my levels:
Temp. - 80 F
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
PH- 7.6
Nitrate- 5.0
I think the levels look great! I have also noticed that the females (I have been having a hard time keeping females alive in this tank anyway and don't know why!) tend to die after giving birth. Any ideas why this is? I would love to hear any ideas you all have about this problem. I am afraid I'm just going to lose more and more fish in this tank soon! Thanks for your help!! Lisa

if its not "usually" then idk

ditto



how old are the fish?

 

[LRPRESTO]

I got them full grown so I don't know how old they are. I've had them for about three months now.

 

[whuangs01]

properly the PH is too high; My tank has Neon Tetra at 6.4 PH. They are a week old. Put some salt for Guppy too. Please get the right salt.

 

[Corleone]

properly the PH is too high; My tank has Neon Tetra at 6.4 PH. They are a week old. Put some salt for Guppy too. Please get the right salt.

It's an old post - probably been resolved, but pH is not a critical water stat. With a handful of exceptions (mostly challenging fish to keep in general), nearly all commonly traded species will adapt to a stable pH avoiding extremes - say, 6.0 to 8.0. My city has a pH in the 7.6-8.0 range, and it seems that I have the only community tank in the city that doesn't have a shoal of 12+ neons.

Guppies don't need marine salt, nothing needs aquarium salt. Particularly not when housed with freshwater fish.

 

[whuangs01]

properly the PH is too high; My tank has Neon Tetra at 6.4 PH. They are a week old. Put some salt for Guppy too. Please get the right salt.

It's an old post - probably been resolved, but pH is not a critical water stat. With a handful of exceptions (mostly challenging fish to keep in general), nearly all commonly traded species will adapt to a stable pH avoiding extremes - say, 6.0 to 8.0. My city has a pH in the 7.6-8.0 range, and it seems that I have the only community tank in the city that doesn't have a shoal of 12+ neons.

Guppies don't need marine salt, nothing needs aquarium salt. Particularly not when housed with freshwater fish.

Yes some species can adapt to range of PH if the species are stronge enough to stay long enough to the adaption.
If any of them are weak, they will get sick and die. I did a test on 20 neon on two tanks; tank #1 has PH 7.6 and Tank #2 has PH 6.4; I lost 7/10 Neon on tank#1, and 2/10 on tank#2. PH does matter for all fishes. Unless you are willing to lose more fish to get them adapt whatever water chem is setup. I think guppies are the weakest species these days because of bad human action to get them fancyer with mix DNA.

 

[Corleone]

If your pH is that different between two tanks with the same water source, the problem is not the pH, but whatever has caused the pH to shoot up that much. TBH, this post shows the same lack of cause and effect research your recent escapade stocked 8 inches per gallon did.

 

[whuangs01]

Not sure what are you talk about. This is just my experince of keeping fish

 

[Corleone]

I'm referring to your first two threads in July with your 12 gallon tank. Specifically referring to your repeated talk of "properly" getting ammonia to 8.0, and attributing stress from fish in poor water conditions to the water changes and not the water. Your pH advice here is the same type of reversed thinking. It's a common mistake in several aspects of fishkeeping (particularly pH, water quality, and bacterial blooms).

The high pH was probably not the root cause of death for your neons - if you have two tanks with such wildly different water stats filled from the same water source, something is causing one to have an increased pH or the the other to have a decreased pH. A steady pH of 7.6 is highly unlikely to kill even the frail neons sold in my area - bred from poor stock and shipped internationally. However, a fluctuating pH or a change (either if the fish were in the tank when it changed, or were adapted close to the tap water pH, as they likely were at the store, and then introduced into a radically different pH), can stress and kill most fish, even hardy fish, and even if the fluctuations stay in their most ideal range.

Also, I noticed the pH you mention you lost most of the neons in was the same as the pH in your 12 gallon in that first post. If that's the tank you were talking about, 4-8.0 ppm ammonia readings need little more investigation for cause of death, particularly in a higher pH.

 

[whuangs01]

Not sure what you are trying to prove by putting out someone's experince in questions. The point here is PH does matter. That's all.