1 Dead Fish And Fluffy Stuff On Plants

[shell685]

We have just lost a golden gourami. He started looking not to well last night and then tonight he really wasn't looking good so we put him out of his misery.

I have checked the water - PH was 6.8 (a little off), Ammonia was 0, Nitrite was 0 and Nitrate was 0. Our tank is 280Litres.
Temperature: 24 Degrees.
We normal do a water change approx every 3 weeks and change about half the water. We use a product called "cycle" at each water change which is supposed to reduce fish loss and fish stress. (after doing some ready it seems we aren't changing water no where near as often as we should be - we've been doing it every 2-3 weeks for about a year and a half with no problems though)
Fish in tank: 4 x clown loaches 2 x pearl gourami's 1 x gold gourami 2 x congo tetras 2 x platties 1 x sucker.

The last time we added fish was over 6 months ago, and we haven't had any dead fish in a year.

I have noticed two changes in our tank in the last week and a bit.
1 is that on our plants and even on some of the ornaments there is green fluffy stuff. Im guessing this is algae. We have never had this before, so Im not sure why we have it all of sudden, or whether is dangerous to the fish?
2 is that one of our 4 clown loaches has got extremely big. He is triple the size of one of the other loaches. We got all four at the same time and he's just grown alot quicker than the rest. I did see him push one of our pearl gourami's around tonight, but thats the first time I've seen him be aggressive towards other fish.

We are going to do a water change in the morning.

Im not sure whether the sickness of our gold gourami was just a once off thing of whether we have a big problem with our tank.

Has anyone got any suggestions? Especially about the algae?

 

[-germ-]

I have checked the water - PH was 6.8 (a little off), Ammonia was 0, Nitrite was 0 and Nitrate was 0. Our tank is 280Litres.
Temperature: 24 Degrees.

Firstly your nitrates should not be at zero, if they are, then for some reason your tank may be uncycled. To be honest i can't see this being possible considering the age of your tank! How old is your test kit? Liquid or strip? Also do you use any form of chemical filtration, if so what?
Secondly most gourami prefer soft water so your PH shouldn't be a problem, unless of course it has dropped recently, but this is normally due to an excess of hydrogen ions as a result of your nitrification process.... If you have no nitrate then i'm not sure if your nitrfication process is taking place....
Anyhow, sudden drops in PH are never good for fish...

We normal do a water change approx every 3 weeks and change about half the water. We use a product called "cycle" at each water change which is supposed to reduce fish loss and fish stress. (after doing some ready it seems we aren't changing water no where near as often as we should be - we've been doing it every 2-3 weeks for about a year and a half with no problems though)

I agree. You could do with upping your water changes in general, most perform 25% weekly, do you use a gravel vac or siphon?

1 is that on our plants and even on some of the ornaments there is green fluffy stuff. Im guessing this is algae. We have never had this before, so Im not sure why we have it all of sudden, or whether is dangerous to the fish?

If it IS algae it would normally have appeared a long time ago, its strange its just cropped up out of the blue, with your perfect water stats. Did you normally have nitrate in the past.... I'm not sure if an algae bloom can sap all your nitrates, and if it could then it'll most likely be dying off soon. Have you changed your lighting schedule at all?

2 is that one of our 4 clown loaches has got extremely big. He is triple the size of one of the other loaches. We got all four at the same time and he's just grown alot quicker than the rest. I did see him push one of our pearl gourami's around tonight, but thats the first time I've seen him be aggressive towards other fish.

Clown loaches have a heirachy and there will normally be one fish bigger than the rest, this being your dominant loach. Probably the reason why he is the one showing aggression.

Im not sure whether the sickness of our gold gourami was just a once off thing of whether we have a big problem with our tank.

Possibly, but without accurate readings or understanding your lack of nitrates then its impossible to even guess at what may have been responsible...
What physical sypmtoms did he show? Your post states he started looking unwell, if so then in what way did this manifest?

Confused...

 

[-germ-]

Oh... do you use a dechlorinator?

 

[shell685]

Nitrates have been zero for a long time. I have a liquid test kit that is about a year and a half old. It suggests the Nitrate levels should be 40ppm or less.
Considering ours is zero I thought that was ok.

Ph hasn't dropped recently. Its been pretty stable at around 6.8-7.

Im a bit confused with the gravel vac or siphon question. Ours is called a gravel vac, but it works by a siphon method.

Algae did appear within the last week to week and a half. We've never had it before.
Our lightening has changed though. One of our three lights went out and we actually replaced it with one which is a more bluey colour. We replaced the light about 3 months ago though.

Thanks for the info re the loaches.

In regards to the fish's illness. Last night he was hiding in one of decorations the whole night. He wasn't moving around much and generally just looked ill.
Tonight he was floating towards the top, then he'd swim for a bit, then float back up. When he was floating back up he looked dead, then it was like he got a bit of enery and managed to swim again.
He looked skinny, had lost colour. It sounds awlful, but it almost looked like someone had grated off one side of him. He looked white on one side.
I think the other fish may have been giving him a hard time though once he started to slow down a little.
He went downhill pretty quickly though.

With the water changes, we must of been lucky to have our tank run so well for over a year on 3 weekly changes. We will try and do them more frequently, and we will be doing one tomorrow.

Yes we use a dechlorinator when we do water changes.

We are quite confused too - we've had no problems what so ever for such a long time and now we've lost a fish and have algae all in a week.

 

[-germ-]

Re; your nitrates...
During the nitrogen cycle the ammonia produced by your fish and their waste is broken down via nitrosomonas bacteria to create nitrite (hence a correctly cycling tank has no ammonia), nitrite is then broken down via nitrobacter to create nitrate (hence a correctly cycling tank has no nitrite), nitrate is only removed via plant uptake and water changes. With you only performing 3 weekly changes you would expect there to be some nitrate, even with a well planted tank you should have some present.
Either you have some very odd cycling issues or your tester is out of date.

 

[Lynda B]

With the water changes, we must of been lucky to have our tank run so well for over a year on 3 weekly changes. We will try and do them more frequently, and we will be doing one tomorrow.

I'm not sure I understand how often you're doing changes. The way I read the above, you've done 3 water changes in one year. Is that possible correct?

Edit: Ok, nevermind. I confirmed above that it's every 3 weeks, but I see that you've been given good advice with changing that schedule.

 

[-germ-]

good advice

 

[dillowpillow]

Maybe she has a nitrate filter, or in some part of her tank the conditions are just right to harbor the anerobic bacteria that consume nitrate.

 

[-germ-]

Also do you use any form of chemical filtration, if so what?

the conditions are just right to harbor the anerobic bacteria that consume nitrate.

Maybe so...

 

[three-fingers]

Either you have some very odd cycling issues or your tester is out of date.

I'd say that's the case, I know for a fact liquid nitrate tests expire pretty fast.
At my lfs, an API liquid nitrate test that was about 2 years old gave them 0ppm nitrates too, which was leading to dying/ill fish.
The guy who was testing the nitrate during the week thought 0ppm was just very good - this lead to the few tanks he was testing to go without vital water changes. The actual nitrate reading for these tanks was 100-160ppm, taken with a brand new test kit.

If I were you I'd buy a new nitrate test kit, 0ppm nitrate is very suspicious . In your tank with plants, you wouldn't want 0ppm nitrate anyway, as it would lead to unhealthy plants and tonnes algae (though very high nitrate can at least contribute to algae as well).

 

[ArauraDiscus]

Yeah I'd say Nitrates will ONLY EVER be at zero when there are many live plants in your tank, if there aren't then your test is innaccurate, or somethings wrong with your tank.

And are you sure that they just didn't shake the Nitrate test kit well. You need to shake it for at least 30 seconds or the drops that come out will be sol dilute that your Nitrates will always measure 0.

 

[chucksmo]

Ive not seen a tank w/ 0 nitrates unless it was cycling, even on planted tanks some nitrates will always be there. I would say your test kit would be out of date. they will go bad quicker depending on temp that they are kept in and you don't know how long the lfs had them before you picked em up.

 

[shell685]

I did shake the bottles as it said to in the book.

I will get the local acquarium shop to test my water for me today.

 

[vinylman]

Get them to write the figures down for you then let us know, the more details the better. When you gravel vac, do you just do the top or do you dig right down into the substrate?. Regular water changes (every one/two weeks) are an absolute must; don't forget that your fish are constantly swimming in their own toilet.

 

[shell685]

Nitrate was 30. Nitrite 0.

So our test kit was rubbish.

With the gravel vac we push it right down to make sure all the gravel gets cleaned.

All our remaining fish are fine. The acquarium thinks there was just something wrong with that one fish that died as they said the platties would of died first.