Hi all, bit of a novice on the old fish keeping scene, just bought (off a friend) a 60 litre tank, complete with 2 goldfish and a few tropical fish, heating is right, filter seems okay.

Two of the tropical fish died last night, one got stuck in an obstacle, big enough to get in, not big enough to get out, actual cause of death, unknown. The other just died with no apparent reason. They were both healthy, ate when fed and swam around happily. There is no obvious signs of illness on either fish. Got any ideas why that may be?

Also, one of the goldfish spends an unusual amount of time at the surface, it is able to swim around so it's not stuck there, but does spend a lot of time gasping for air. I do not have a source of oxygen in my tank, no plants etc but my friend kept this tank for a while with no issues at all. Only had it a couple of weeks where he had it a lot longer.

Any help would be appreciated!

Nick

How did you recieve the tank?
Did you fill the tank with dechlorinated water?


What makes you think the heating is right. If you have gold fish and tropical fish in the same tank, the heating is definately wrong for one of them! You need to decide if you want a tropical tank or a goldfish tank. My gut feeling would be to get rid of the goldfish to your local fish shop. They are messy things and can get big for a 60 litre tank.



How are you judging this? I guess the filter may look like it's working fine, but filters play an important part in keeping the chemistry of the tank in working order.

Take a look at this thread. You will need to get a test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. That will help you know if things really are ok with the tank.



The reason may be more known after testing the water. Also, what temperature is the tank running at. eating is often a good sign, but not the only one as you realise.



not a great sign. Gasping for air indicates a bit of an issue.. again, the test results will help here.

Your friend may have had the tank long enough for it to cycle, which would have balanced out the water stats with regular maintenance and water changes. Depending on how the tank change over went, and what you did with the filter at this time might make a difference. You may have un-cycled the tank. For fish cycling, see the link i gave above.

I'm not having a go (just in case i came across a little stern).. i'm just trying to help

Squid

The tank was transported, totally empty by car, the fish then carried in fish bags securely and individually. The heat is determined by the thermometer, according to the higher and lower points it is well within the boundaries.
One of the goldfish is apparently about 6 years old, has lived in these conditions for all that time and the other is definitely over 6 months old, but not sure beyond that.

Filter seems to be doing its job based on the fact when I clean it, it has got bits of dirt on which then are washed away. It shows signs of filtering.

I don't have a testing kit but will be sure to pick one up and do some tests.

Tank is currently running at about 25C.

When I filled the tank, I left the fish bags in the tank and gradually filled with luke warm water to allow them to adjust to the temperature, left it for a few hours like this and then released them in, for the first week to 10 days they were fine, it's only in the last few days they have started to seem a bit sluggish. When I filled the tank up I did use a stress coat and a tap safe solution, both the recommended amount for the water used and size of tank.

how often have you been cleaning it? and how have you been doing this?

hopefully you haven't replaced all of the filter media from when your friend had it, and hopefully you haven't fully cleaned the pads out in tap water, both of these would result in you having an uncycled tank

Where did this luke warm water come from?

It was tap water, then settled with the filter and heater on and also like I said, stress coat and a tap safe solution were also added.

Unless you were using thermometers, this surely would have just been guess work on your part? You described it as luke warm tap water. As far as I am aware, you should really look to add water from the tank to the fish bags to help them aclimatize, as this is actually where they will end up living anyway.

Either way, what is done is done. Like someone else said, check out all the stickies in the newbie forum, plenty of fantastic info and advice. I've learnt more in the past week off this forum than I have in 15 years sporadic fish keeping!

Good luck mate.

Welcome to the forum. You'll learn lots of info on here to help you.
More questions I'm afraid...
How big is the 6 year old goldfish? 60L isn't enough for one goldfish really let alone 2
What is the exact temperature of the tank and what are the other tropical fish? Goldfish and tropicals need varying degrees of warmth and I'll be surprised if your fish are all falling within the acceptable parameters for that.

The two goldfish are maybe 4 inches each, they aren't massive, from reading another site the size of fish I have appear to be okay for the tank size. Does it vary for goldfish?

I also have a black spotted catfish, though I don't know its exact name and 3 tiny things lol, I also don't know their name. Maybe I should ask my friend. The catfish is only a few inches and the small fish are probably not even an inch.

Looking at the thermometer it is give or take a little bit, virtually spot on 25C.

I am going out today to buy a plant for the tank for more oxygen and also a water testing kit.

Took a sample of water to my local aquatics centre today, PH and nitrates are fine but nitrites are high, got to do another sample next week to see if it is coming down or going up! But not all bad news I suppose.

Been given some good advice from someone who appears to know a lot about and be passionate about the topic.

Probably going to get a couple of barbs next but eventually I'd like to move on to a bigger tank and maybe even some black redtailed sharks.

Thanks for your advice and help!

This post has been edited by NickT24: Dec 9 2007, 01:17 PM

Your nitrites will be high because goldies are high waste fish. 60L isn't enough for one 4 inch goldfish let alone several I'm sorry to say

You need to decide what type of fish you want to keep, goldfish and tropical fish need different temperatures so you can't keep both in the same tank.

The fish I have are just the fish I inherited, I didn't pick them and therefore am not responsible for the mix of fish. However I know no one with a goldfish tank and the only local place doesn't stock goldfish so can't take them from me, I guess it's murder or put up with it and control the nitrites.

Thanks for all advice, think I'll stick around, learning a lot.

Just to let ya know, some barbs are aggressive. Red-tailed sharks can be kinda aggressive. I had 2 red-tailed sharks and one was very mean to the other, I'd feed them and one wouldn't let the other eat