What Have I Done Wrong ?

[Royster]

I got a message from my wife this morning to say we'd lost one of our fish.

My tank is 60l
Stock is;
1 betta
10 now 9 neon tetras
12 rasboras
4 albino cories
8 shrimp but can only find 5

Water is changed once a week, 20l out
Fish are feed once a day and all tests look normal, the tetras have always had a great colour and have been active.

Could I be out feeding them so they are turning on themselves? I only ask as I was told one of the cories was munching on what was left of the tetra

 

[nurglespuss]

Hi there, bad luck!

First off, the corrie is just behaving naturally, and hoovering up a fish corpse.

You are unlikely to be doing anything wrong perse.

I would say that 20l (for me) change in a 60L tank every week, might be a little stressful for the fish (especially if you have, for instance, bogwood/substrate in the aquarium that acidifies the water...

Might be an idea to drop this to 10 10-25% change p/week. Thats plenty really.

As for the neon, it could be anything, but if everything else is happy and healthy, don't worry about too much.

 

[clivealive]

need a little more info , how much do u feed them, also i personally think 1/3 water change once a week is a little much maybe cut down to 20-25 % weekly.
when u change the water , do u treat water, do u let it come up to tempature etc .
when u say all tests?
also note lots of fish will eat a dead or dying fish its natural really even if u was feeding them correctly.
clive
just noticed other post sounds good

 

[nurglespuss]

need a little more info , how much do u feed them, also i personally think 1/3 water change once a week is a little much maybe cut down to 20-25 % weekly.
when u change the water , do u treat water, do u let it come up to tempature etc .
when u say all test?
also note lots of fish will eat a dead or dying fish its natural really even if u was feeding them correctly.
clive

lol snap ;P good advice

 

[fluttermoth]

Nearly all fish will eat other fish once they're dead, it's just natural to them I'm afraid

How long has the tank been set up, and was it cycled? what's your maintanance regime?

You're also a bit overstocked really, even though your fish are only small. I'd rehome one of the shoalers (probably the neons; potentially a bit nippy for the betta), and the cories which grow quite big (three inches) and really need a sand substrate and a bigger group (6+).

Do a few extra water changes (warm, dechlorinated water) and buy some test kits for ammonia and nitrite (or get your LFS to test in and write down the actual numbers[/]i, not just 'it's fine')

 

[This Old Spouse]

How long has everything been set up?

Neons are notorious for being a bit delicate. Do you have plants? I find it difficult to locate all my shrimp! When I first put them in my tank, then looked for them about an hour later, I couldn't find a single one. But now I've located several, so I'm assuming they're probably all in there ... somehwhere.

 

[fluttermoth]

need a little more info , how much do u feed them, also i personally think 1/3 water change once a week is a little much maybe cut down to 20-25 % weekly.

There's no such thing as 'too much', as long as the new water is warmed and dechlorinated. Big water changes are always the first, best thing you can do if you have a death.

 

[nurglespuss]

Disagree,

there's nothing to suggest anything other than a natural death at the moment.

large water changes (outside of normal routine) are stressful for the fish, and so are best avoided.

Unless there is a specific problem, just like everything else, little and often is the key.

 

[Royster]

ok here's some more info.

glass is cleaned once a week ,when i do the water change, with a magnet cleaner.
when i put the new water in i use some 5l bottles i have, i put a 2.5ml shot of aquasafe in each one and use warm water from my mixer tap, cool it down with the cold tap until if feels "right" with my hand, and when pouring it into the tank i pour it into my hand so it doesn't disturb the sand.
tank is about 3 months old and was "set up" before i put any fish in, i added fish weekly and changed water twice weekly for about the first 3/4 weeks.
water tests i carry out are ;
ammonia ;looked a bit higher than normal,maybe at very worst 0.15/0.20ppm,not as high as 0.25ppm
nitrite ;0ppm, has never changed.
nitrate ;5.0ppm, it's rising but slowly.
Ph ;6.4

fish are feed one small pinch ( maybe 1 and 1/2 ) of flake a night,or some fry food once a night or half a cube of blood worm once a week.

i'll cut down my water change to 10l once a week but will continue to carry on as normal with my routines.
the only thing i did differently this week was i got an air stone and plumbed it up to my pump, i fiddled with the flow for a while but turned it off over night so it wasn't one for hours on end.

could i stressed him out and he croaked it over that ?

 

[This Old Spouse]

I've only ever seen here that large water changes will help any situation. nurglespuss is the first one aside from a newbie that suggests large water changes are harmful to the fish! Rubbish.

Since your ammonia readings are a bit high, you need to do larger water changes until they are 0. It's really the only way. Even a little bit of ammonia is harmful.

 

[Royster]

Sorry I should have said, those figures were off yesterday's water. And after that I did my 20l change.

Maybe it was natural, maybe I stressed him out.... Either way I'm still #71###ed off about it.

 

[Tizer]

I can imagine a water change in a small tank with less places to take cover and hide could be a little more stressful than a bigger tank packed with hidey holes. Im sure theres loads of petty arguments out there covering both sides of the equation. That said, i've never had a fish keel over dead after a water change so im my opinion i dont consider it a big stressful thing.

I would say its just natural selection at work, fish die.

 

[clivealive]

I can imagine a water change in a small tank with less places to take cover and hide could be a little more stressful than a bigger tank packed with hidey holes. Im sure theres loads of petty arguments out there covering both sides of the equation. That said, i've never had a fish keel over dead after a water change so im my opinion i dont consider it a big stressful thing.

I would say its just natural selection at work, fish die.

yeah dont panic just cut the water changes down a bit as suggested and keep testing and only panic if u loose a few more .
we all loose fish its gutting but not always down to water conditions.
dunno what others think but not sure about using water from the hot tap as it contains more toxics than the cold . (like to know for sure as i dont use it)
I add declorinator etc and let it stand and raise to room temp and then add slowly.
(done it that way for 15 years and seems to work ok.

 

[divegirl]

As I understand it the hot water 'myth' comes for the fact that it is generally stored in a tank in the attic and not, as with cold water, directly from the mains supply. The issue is that most houses of a certain age will contain copper piping and so the first few gallons will have been sitting in the pipe and could there fore be contaminated! Easy solution is to let the hot tap run for a minute or two before collection to go into the tank!

Lisa x

Edit....been doing that for 20 years!

 

[clivealive]

As I understand it the hot water 'myth' comes for the fact that it is generally stored in a tank in the attic and not, as with cold water, directly from the mains supply. The issue is that most houses of a certain age will contain copper piping and so the first few gallons will have been sitting in the pie and could there fore be contaminated! Easy solution is to let the hot tap run for a minute or two before collection to go into the tank!

Lisa x

Edit....been doing that for 20 years!

oh right cool or should i say hot tape a little in future.