All Good But Dieing

[newhue]

Hi all.
reading theses forums I have established a 240lt tank with a Ph 7 to 6.8, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10. Stocked it with around 50 2.5cm or smaller fish all with passive personalities; guppies, platies, neons, clown loack's etc.
My LFS suggested I feed the tank sparingly but twice a day, however many suggest on this fourum sparingly up to every 3 days.
Recently discovered some Platties chowing down on a Claud Neon, and after a head count found I have 7 neons instead of 10. I have been educating the fish from LFS 2 x daily feeds to 1x daily feeds, with an end goal of 1 x 2nd day daily feeds.
Do reportedly passive fish simply become instinctual if they are hungry? Do I have a natural attrition thing going on here? What's your thoughts....

thanks

 

[JustKia]

"Sparingly" is open to interpretation.
I think most fish will eat another if there is a dead one - maybe it died of natural causes, or something.

 

[Colin_T]

If the tank doesn't have an established filter running on it, then only feed every couple of days. If the tank has a fully functioning filter, then you can feed the fish several times a day. The more food you put in the tank, the faster the water will go off and the more water changes you will have to do to keep the tank clean.

Small fishes like neons and guppies do best on 2-3 feeds per day, but will also be fine on one feed a day. If the tank is established (and only if established) then offer the fish a small amount of food and wait until they eat it all. If they finish the food in less than a minute you can give them some more. Keep offering small amounts of food and wait until it is all gone. When the fish are no longer racing up to the food and scoffing it down, then stop feeding them and syphon or net out any uneaten food.

If a fish dies in the tank then everyone else will probably try to eat it. It is preferable not to let the other fishes eat a dead body because the healthy ones can pick up any diseases the dead one had. Therefore you should try to remove any dead fish as soon as you see them. Obviously you won't always be there to see a fish die and often you will come home to a half eaten body. There is nothing you can do about that other than remove the remains.
If you are losing fish then perhaps post a pic or some info on what the dead fish look like.

 

[newhue]

If the tank doesn't have an established filter running on it, then only feed every couple of days. If the tank has a fully functioning filter, then you can feed the fish several times a day. The more food you put in the tank, the faster the water will go off and the more water changes you will have to do to keep the tank clean.

Small fishes like neons and guppies do best on 2-3 feeds per day, but will also be fine on one feed a day. If the tank is established (and only if established) then offer the fish a small amount of food and wait until they eat it all. If they finish the food in less than a minute you can give them some more. Keep offering small amounts of food and wait until it is all gone. When the fish are no longer racing up to the food and scoffing it down, then stop feeding them and syphon or net out any uneaten food.

If a fish dies in the tank then everyone else will probably try to eat it. It is preferable not to let the other fishes eat a dead body because the healthy ones can pick up any diseases the dead one had. Therefore you should try to remove any dead fish as soon as you see them. Obviously you won't always be there to see a fish die and often you will come home to a half eaten body. There is nothing you can do about that other than remove the remains.
If you are losing fish then perhaps post a pic or some info on what the dead fish look like.

Thanks for that.
The tank is established I think, it's been running for about 10 weeks now with fish after several weeks of fishless cycling first. The fish appear to be healthy enough. I have had a small outbreak of white spot after the introduction of some new fish, but this has cleared up. I have plucked out two white platties on different occasions recently that got arthritis or so it seems and died. They were swimming around dragging their tails and sitting on the bottom a fair bit, so I ditched them before they contaminated anything else like you said.
I guess fish just die, it seems odd however. You buy new fish and expect to get some milage out of them, not have them for a few weeks and then croak.
I bet I'm not Robinson Cruso there though.

 

[LauraFrog]

Check the water stats... neons are notoriously weak, largely due to their mass production for the aquarium trade.

Just so you know, the vast majority of the fish in that tank will NOT stay under 1 inch. Platies will comfortably reach 2 inches/5cm, guppies are about 1.5 and the clown loaches will be eight inches if given enough room to grow (which they probably have in a 240L tank). It sounds as though you might have underestimated the adult size of some of your fish, so you could be overstocked. Have you got an accurate list of what's in there?

The platies did not have arthritis, it sounds like either parasites or TB, or the parasite/bacteria complex that often affects livebearers... the symptoms of that are slowly losing weight, lethargy, the belly becoming a flat horizontal line and finally the resting on the bottom or hovering at the top, then dying, occasionally with symptoms of columnaris or finrot appearing but not fully progressing a few hours before death.
This is the standard 'livebearer malady' and it happens all the time... if you can pinpoint the cause and treat it, often it goes away. I have had success recommending people treat with antibiotics and antiparasitics at the same time (or antibiotics first and then antiparasitics). This worked for me and apparently for some other people too. My theory is that the parasites weaken the fish so that a bacterial infection takes hold and if you can kill both before the fish dies, it will recover. But I could be wrong... it wouldn't exactly be a rare occurrence.