5 Dead Today

[kidjatt]

im gna do that right after ive eaten my chinse. Just noticed that bubbles are floating at the top of my tank, it has never done that before.

Also by small changes, how much would that mean in my tank? 50 litres?

 

[WILDER]

No not that much about 30 litres.
Good luck.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

its a 5 foot tank, 60x18x15 i think its 224 litres i think its 60 us gallons
Fish tank contains; 8 neon tetra's, 3 cardinal tetra's, 8 flame tetra's, 2 Tiger barbs, 2 green Tiger barbs, 2 gold tiger barbs, 3 Clown Loaches, 2 sword tails, " algae plecs, 1 Red tail shark, 1 Silver shark, 2 Gouramis (not sure what exact 1s, 6 Guppies, 1 silver molly, 1 female siamese fighter betta. i think thats it.

I will invest in a kit though.
A blue gourami that died did have laboured breathing i think, it died really slowly

Dimensions 152 x 46 x 38cm/60" x 18" x 15
Surface area 0.7 sqm/7.53 sq ft/ inches sq in
Volume 266 l./59 gal. (70.27 US gal.)
Probable volume 239 l./53 gal. (63 US gal.)



I would say that its not so much that your tank is overstocked, but your stocking is not ideal. You have some fish which will outgrow your tank, while a lot of fish which aren't in the right numbers for their particular species/types.


8 neons
3 cardinal tetras

In a 60gallon tank (or more or less 60gal tank), i would advise having a minimum of 10 neons and 10 cardinals and 10 flame tetras. A lot of people recommend having at least 6 of each, but in larger tanks (i.e. 50gals or more) i would advise a minimum of 10-12 of each, and a minimum of 15-20 in tanks 140gallons or more.
Small shoaling fish like neon and cardinal tetras shoal in the wild as a form of defence against predators. This behaviour is firmly rooted in their brains/instincts, and naturally in the wild when they are in shoals too small, they tend to get easily picked off by predators, so naturally such small tetras feel a lot more secure in larger groups. Even if there is no apparent threat to the tetras, they will still feel stressed in groups too small, so it is important to make sure that you have at least the minimum recommended amount of them for a shoal.
All shoaling fish have minimum recommended amounts of their own kind to be kept together because of this; shoaling is also a defensive behaviour, if your shoaling fish constantly shoal, then it is also a sign that they do not feel at ease and so you should look into things like the fish you are keeping with them and the actual amount of fish you have in each shoal etc to find the cause of then un-ease, and then sort the problem out. The larger the tank, the more fish you should aim to have in each shoal (as long as you don't overstock or over-crowd the tank of course) as for example a group of 6 neons would feel rather defenceless in a big, large 63gal full of strange fish etc.

2 Tiger barbs
2 green Tiger barbs
2 gold tiger barbs

These tiger barbs are all the same type of barb, they are just different colour variations produced by selective breeding (like how you can get red tailed and blue tailed guppys produced by selective breeding, but are the same fish, just different colours etc). So you could have green/emerald tiger barbs mixed with ordinary tiger barbs and they would shoal and act together normally and technically count as the same type of fish.

Tiger barbs are active, nippy and relatively aggressive fish. Many people face problems with tiger barbs nipping the fins of other fish they try to mix with the barbs. But the barbs are always ultimately more interested in each other and the easiest way to help reduce their aggressive/nippy nature towards other fish is to increase the size of the tiger barb shoal. At the bare minimum, you should aim to have 8-10 tiger barbs in a shoal, but in a tank such as yours I would aim to have around 12-15+ tiger barbs.
Even so, increasing the size of their shoal will not completely restrict their nippy nature towards other fish, so regardless of how big your tiger barb shoal is, it is advised that you do not mix fish like fancy or long finned strains of fish (like fancy guppys, long finned danios, bettas/Siamese fighting fish etc) with tiger barbs and slow swimming fish which occupy the same areas of the tank as the tiger barbs and also fish which have long feelers like gouramis etc- all of these fish are prone to being picked on by tiger barbs and all of these fish will have no defence against tiger barbs if the tiger barbs do choose to harass them.


2 sword tails

Swordtails are sociable fish and belong to the common livebearer family group of fish. They are pretty prolific breeders (females can produce over 40fry every 1-2months) requiring no special conditions to breed, and the males have very high sex drives. They are generally very peaceful towards other fish, but can face issues with each other if care is not put into their own stocking.
Male swordtails are very aggressive towards each other when there are females around (unless there is an exceptional amount of females per male like 15females per male). At the same time, you need at least 2-3females to a lone male (although the more females the better). Because of the males high sex drives, if you do not have enough females to a male, he will constantly and over-harass a female, so this is why you should have at least 2-3females to a male to help spread his attentions among the females and help avoid him concentrating on any one female too much (which would make her very stressed).
Females can be kept in all-female groups of at least 3females, but as far as I am aware the success of keeping males in all-male groups is more risky with swordtails, I would advise having at least 7males in an all-male group to help spread the aggression out amongst them and help prevent any one male getting too picked on. Personally I would either advise having a mixed gender group of swordtails, or an all-female one.

algae plecs

What type of plecos do you have do you know? There are hundreds of types of plecos, some of which grow to 3inches, while others which can grow to 3ft long. They also vary a great deal in dietry requirements, even the algae eating plecos often need some protein in their diet- also a lot of plecos can also become very territorial as they mature towards each other.
So for these reasons and more, you need to find out the exact type of plecs you have so you can look after them well.


1 Red tail shark

Please see my post on the last page of this thread, there is a lot to know about keeping RTBS (red tailed black sharks, or red tail sharks) and I'd rather not have to write it all out here;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...p;#entry1627904



1 Silver shark

Your tank is too small for silver sharks (also known as bala sharks), they are also shoaling fish- the absolute bare minimum recommended amount of gallons is a 75gallon long tank, but ideally at least a 100gal long is much better as these active, skittish sharks can grow up to 12inches+ long.


2 Gouramis (not sure what exact 1s),
6 Guppies,
1 silver molly,
1 female siamese fighter betta


You obviously need to find out the exact type of gouramis you have as there are many types, the index for labyrinth fish may be of help to you in ID'ing your gouramis as it has many profiles for many types of gouramis with pics of the gouramis in its profiles;

http/www.fishforums.net/Labyrinth-f39.html


Do you know the genders of your guppys and your mollys?
With guppys and mollys, they have quite similar requirements to each other in keeping them. With their high sex drives and all, its advised that you have (with either guppys or mollys) at least 2-3females per male (unlike swordtails, you can safely keep more than one male with guppys and mollys as long as you have at least 2-3females per male), or an all-female group of at least 3females, or an all-male group of at least 5males.
The female betta should be fine on her own, but bettas are slow swimming fish and may find difficult in competing for food with the more active and competitive fish like the tiger barbs.



Ultimately, I think you need to do more research on your fish before you set your heart on buying them, I have written down some basic info for keeping your fish, but there is a lot more to learn about them, so I would encourage you to even now continue researching your current fish- there are many more aspects to keeping your fish like habitat and tank decor, feeding/diet, substrate, filtration etc.

If you sort out your tank stocking, your fish will feel less stressed and more secure and happier, this will help prevent disease/parasite outbreaks amongst your fish (as non-stressed fish are less likely to fall ill) to a large extent.
Personally I would change your tanks stocking to either;

10 neon tetras
10 cardinal tetras
10 flame tetras
15 tiger barbs (whatever colour variations you go for doesn't matter as before explained)
3 clown loaches
1 Red tailed black shark/RTBS
7 swordtails (1male 6females, or just 7females)
7 mollys (1male 6females, or just 7females or 7males).


And re-home the silver/bala shark, female Siamese fighter, gourami's (and possibly your plecos depending on what type of plecos they are exactly) and guppys- either that, or move them to tanks with tanks mates more suited to them and which has enough space and gallons to keep them permanently in.
Or have;

10 neon tetras
10 cardinal tetras
10 flame tetra
3 clown loaches
1 Red tailed black shark/RTBS
7 swordtails (1male 6females, or just 7females)
7 mollys (1male 6females, or just 7females or 7males)
7 guppys (1males and 6females, or just 7females or 7males etc)
5 female Siamese fighting fish

(How many gourami's and their genders you have depends on the exact types of gourami's you have).
And rehome the silver/bala shark, tiger barbs and plecos (depending on what types you have) etc.

Both of these fish stocking mixes suggestions could potentially leave some space for new different fish or critters depending on what they are, and would either way be a lot more suited to the fish that you already have. But personally I would choose between one of these stocking suggestions and just keep it to that for a while; re-homing some of your fish and gradually building up on the numbers of your other fish will take quite a while (as even in a cycled or established tank, its generally advised you don't add too many fish at once, just a few a week is good etc).
I would advise have at least 2 filters in a tank such as yours, as although it is not a particularly large tank, it is a rather long one and even if your filter can filter the gallons of your tank with ease, it will have trouble with the water current shifting the waste from one end of the tank back to the other- so having 2 filters to deal with both ends of the tank would be beneficial .
How often do you do water changes on the tank and how much do you take out on average?

 

[kidjatt]

wow thanks for that info, ive got to admit i did very little research on the fish. Basically i knew that i couldnt keep angel fish with tetra's, that was about it. I just chose the ones i liked and it worked for a while, but its all gone tits up now. Ive done a water change and we will see what happens in the morning, im not very hopeful, but lessons have been learnt. Thanks for the info on what type of fish i should keep, i shouldve read more or asked before these 7 fish died.

Also a question about the water conditioner, it say's that it was for all types of goldfish, would this have been ok for my tropical fish?

ive only had the tank about 3 weeks, water changes are done every week, and about 60 litres or so.

Ive got to say that the local fish shops are not that helpful or knowledgeable. I asked about the silver shark and he said its more than enough, the 5 ft tank. Another also said that i could get away with keeping 2 red tail sharks in a tank like mine. Cant trust anyone nowadays

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

wow thanks for that info, ive got to admit i did very little research on the fish. Basically i knew that i couldnt keep angel fish with tetra's, that was about it. I just chose the ones i liked and it worked for a while, but its all gone tits up now. Ive done a water change and we will see what happens in the morning, im not very hopeful, but lessons have been learnt. Thanks for the info on what type of fish i should keep, i shouldve read more or asked before these 7 fish died.

Also a question about the water conditioner, it say's that it was for all types of goldfish, would this have been ok for my tropical fish?

ive only had the tank about 3 weeks, water changes are done every week, and about 60 litres or so.

Ive got to say that the local fish shops are not that helpful or knowledgeable. I asked about the silver shark and he said its more than enough, the 5 ft tank. Another also said that i could get away with keeping 2 red tail sharks in a tank like mine. Cant trust anyone nowadays

I'm glad to help .
If the tank is only 3weeks old the water quality will still be pretty unstable at this point, so when adding any new fish to the tank i would only add a few at a time and then wait another 2 weeks before adding more.

With the water conditioner, what does it claim to remove from the water ?(a lot of products sold under the name of "water conditioner" can treat or not treat a great deal of things i.e. like one may remove chlorine but not heavy metals from tap water, or one may remove nitrates, ammonia and heavy metals from water but not chlorine etc).


With the petshop knowledge thing, yeah its a shame, but its the same situation in a lot of petshops. Petshops don't tend to pay very well, so most staff tend to be students or people doing a part time job at the petshop- there also isn't really any standard training petshops are oblidged to give their staff when teaching new staff about the fish section in the shop either. These two factors tend to result in people working at the shop, who don't seem to have any real idea about the requirements or basic care of the fish they are selling, but who are staff who are told to do what they can when it comes to off-loading fish onto the customers. In a lot of shops, its the fish tanks and equipment and fishkeeping accessories etc that tends to make the most profit, so the more fish staff can sell, the more likely they are to be able to sell the real money-making goods etc.
A lot of people also go to petshops looking for advice, who having seen their nice clean tanks with vibrant-looking fish, and so assume that the staff must know a lot about good and successful fishkeeping. But apprearances are deceiving, and as beforementioned, the staff at petshops tend to know very little at all about fishkeeping- in my experience, petshop staff seem to spread more myths than facts about fishkeeping.

So its always good to do your own research and not rely on shops to tell you what to buy, always be wary of people trying to sell you stuff.
When i first started out in fishkeeping, i made the same old mistake as others and went to petshops to ask for advice when choosing and buying new fish for my tank/s. I did get some pretty bad advice back then and i'm very lucky i didn't go a whole lot more wrong with my fishkeeping than what i did back then, but after one disaster after another, i joined a fish forum (i didn't find this one, the better one, until later) in desperation, and once i started to get some proper sound advice and had easier access to better places to research fish and fishkeeping, i've been getting better at and more knowledgeable on fish and fishkeeping ever since .
This forums got a pretty good crowd here and there are many very knowledgeable people on many areas/aspects of fishkeeping, there's almost always someone who can answer stuff on fishkeeping here or wants to discuss it etc .

 

[WILDER]

Well done tokis excellent post as usual.
In good hands with tokis.

 

[kidjatt]

Didnt sleep well last night, kept thinking all the fish would be dead, but they are not, looking alot better i think, just 1 dead guppy stuck in a plant.

As forthe water conditioner, its made by tetra Aqua - Aqua Safe, claims to neutralise chlorine and heavy metals. [rotects against wounds, abrasions and infection, also reduces stress. contains vitamin b1.

It says on the bottle to mix it in with water before adding, i put it in straight in to the tank, could this have been a big mistake?

oh and will get the water tested today, what do i look out for? or should i just post my findings on here? Also what tests do i get done? Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, any others

Thanks

 

[kidjatt]

oh i forgot to mention i have 4 fish , they are 1 1/2" long, golden colour, quite thin.

 

[moey23q]

did you dechlorinate the water when you added some? try some melifix.

 

[kidjatt]

i didnt dechlorinate the water, i think i put too much in in the first place maybe. Im off to getthe water checked and to get some aquarium salts.

 

[WILDER]

API Freshwater Master Liquid Test Kit
A Complete Kit for Testing Tap Water & Aquarium Water

Fast : Easy : Accurate : Over 700 Tests

The latest Kit now contains the following tests:

• : pH (6.0 to 7.6)
• : High Range pH (7.4 to 8.8)
• : Ammonia
• : Nitrite
• : Nitrate

(The hardness tests are no longer included : Nitrate having been added instead)

The Kit Contains :


Step by Step instruction booklet
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Four glass Test Tubes with snap-tight caps in holders
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Made in the USA

 

[kidjatt]

Just got back from the lfs,

GH 140 mgl
KH 40/45
PH 7.0
No2 0.0
No3 20 - 25 ppm

What do these results mean?

Thanks guys

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Didnt sleep well last night, kept thinking all the fish would be dead, but they are not, looking alot better i think, just 1 dead guppy stuck in a plant.

As forthe water conditioner, its made by tetra Aqua - Aqua Safe, claims to neutralise chlorine and heavy metals. [rotects against wounds, abrasions and infection, also reduces stress. contains vitamin b1.

It says on the bottle to mix it in with water before adding, i put it in straight in to the tank, could this have been a big mistake?

oh and will get the water tested today, what do i look out for? or should i just post my findings on here? Also what tests do i get done? Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, any others

Thanks

Aqua Safe is a good dechlorinator/water conditioner, i use it myself . With dechlorinators/water conditioners, you want them to remove/neutralise chlorine and heavy metals in the tap water- you don't want them to remove things like nitrates, nitrites or ammonia though (as removing these things from the water can mess up the stability of the water quality, the best way to remove nitrites and ammonia, or excessive nitrates, is via water changes). Some dechlorinators like StressCoat will help improve the recovery rate of fish when injured, which is fine/good .

Just got back from the lfs,

GH 140 mgl
KH 40/45
PH 7.0
No2 0.0
No3 20 - 25 ppm

What do these results mean?

Thanks guys

It basically means that your nitrites (NO2) are 0 (which is good/ideal) and your nitrates (NO3) are also good at around 20-25. Your ph is pretty neutral (which is fine), and as far as i am aware things like KH and GH basically refer to the buffering capacity of the water (only really important to know when you want to change things like the ph of the tank).
You need to get a test result for ammonia though, as this is one of the most important stats to know in young tank set ups.

oh i forgot to mention i have 4 fish , they are 1 1/2" long, golden colour, quite thin.

Could posibly be golden wonder panchax (a type of killifish);

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=34983

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=232

?





With the state of your fishes health, are any of the fish (particularly the guppys, swordtails and mollys) producing white/stringy looking poop?

 

[kidjatt]

the poop is white and stringy, it has been for a while. What does this mean?

Also is the ammonia test result not in there? whats the symbol for it? I asked them to do these tests and they gave me the five results for nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, ph & water hardness

and the fish i found out were danio's i think, they had them at the lfs but in a different colour

 

[kidjatt]

Found 5 more dead fish just now, 1 silver/white molly, 2 guppies and a danio and a cardinal tetra. Wats going on in my tank? have noticed that tails and fins are not in the best condition, is this due to the barbs?