At The Bottom

[jbrierleytj01]

all my fish are at the bottom of the tank any ideas?

 

[kizno1]

What are your water stats?
How big is the tank?
What fish and how many are in there?
What filtration?
What temp?

 

[waterdrop]

Two things come to mind: One, many fish claim the bottom as their natural home, so that's normal for them (cories, plecs, some ciclids etc.)

Two, if you are new to the hobby and the information about how to prepare a "biofilter" (it takes a couple of months usually, before the tank is ready for fish) has not been shared with you properly then you may be observing the fish being in "stress" (sometimes a precursor to them dying.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jbrierleytj01]

the tank is 160 litres not sure what the filter is called. the tank has come from a family member so already had the bacteria in the gravel and filter.

unsure about the stats of the water
temp is at 21 at mo

unsure about the name of the fish lol 3 are moors i think and the other 1 is like a gold fish but called sumit like orlanders

 

[waterdrop]

OK, Welcome to the forums jbrierley,

Are you new to the hobby?

If you are referring to black moors, a type of fancy goldfish, then it sounds like there may be 4 fancy goldfish overall in the tank. The tank sounds to be about 40 US gallons, making it about at the borderline for 4 of these. The recommendation is 20G for the first fancy goldfish and 10G for each additional one, making 3 goldfish the perfect number for a 160l (this can be shocking to newcomers as goldfish are really better as pond fish than as fish taking up big tank space, but some like it.) With good maintenance however, a 160L should work out ok perhaps.

Its possible that you urgently need huge water changes (with good technique, which means using a gravel cleaning siphon for water removal, using a good conditioner such as Seachem Prime for removing chlorine/chloramines from the return tap water and rough temperature matching with your hand on the return temp) since you do not have a testing kit and do not know your water parameters.

Its very important as a second priority to obtain a good testing kit (for learning as well as results and actions) and most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit for this purpose, but there are other liquid-based test kits also.

Deep gravel cleaning will disproportionately help to remove nitrites and nitrates during the water change and they can often be quite high in goldfish tanks. Nitrite is of course a poison for the fish, causing permanent nerve damage even in quite small amounts and ammonia causes permanent gill damage in similarly small amounts. The crossover guideline we use is 0.25ppm for these worries.

Let the members know more about your situation.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jbrierleytj01]

i take out 36 litres daily and i use a gravel clenaer to take out the water

 

[waterdrop]

OK, that's a little less than a 25% daily water change or maybe even more than a 25% considering that gravel is taking up some of the 160L volume. That's an excellent start on your maintenance. Do you have a feel for whether the maintenance was pretty good prior to you getting the tank (how long have you had it?)

We don't know how effective the filter is. You don't think the filter media has been cleaned in tap water or replaced, has it? That could mean not enough of the beneficial bacteria.

Ultimately, a good liquid-reagent testing kit is going to be a great tool for you. I don't picture most fancy goldfish hanging at the bottom all the time when they are happy and healthy. They usually wiggle all about the tank, checking the surface every now and then, although its true that some goldfish can decide to just sit about sometimes and I think that's a perfectly healthy behavior at times too. They vary.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jbrierleytj01]

weve had the tank for 2 weeks or so and yea the filter has been cleaned in tap water only been rinsed tho, i didnt know about the tap water thing.

the filter is rather powerful and makes a good current in the tank

 

[waterdrop]

Well that suggests mixed possibilities then. The fact that the biomedia was exposed to tap water does mean the colonies may have been killed, however the fact that you've described it as a rinse and presumably not and thorough wringing out of the sponge or other material could mean that a lot of beneficial bacteria survived the tap water. So the three possibilities are that the bacteria are mostly totally killed; are partially killed and you are experiencing what we call a "mini-cycle" that they will come back from; or that they are actually still ok and its just fish behavior.

By all means keep up your good gravel-clean-water-change actions and unless its a financial hardship I would be trying to get my hands on a good API kit - if you are in the UK, most seem to find a discount on ebay somewhere.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jbrierleytj01]

i will have a look cheers 4 ur help

 

[danny_sims]

is 21 degree not to low?

 

[waterdrop]

He's fish-in cycling an all-goldfish tank, so we'd expect the temp to be low I think. WD