Crisis

[BatBox]

I've been running a Rio 180 for about 8 months now. I try to keep it planted though the fish seem to uproot or eat most of the plants. I do regular water changes, 20% every week, and test for ammonia (0), nitrites (0), nitrates (25-50) and pH (7.6). Hair algae has been a problem but it's not too bad atm. And in the hot weather it's been hard to keep the temperature down below 29C. From what I've read here I suspect I may overfeed them sometimes as they always give the impression of being hungry..

Over the first few months I gradually added 6 zebra danios, 6 celebes rainbows, 4 peppered cories and 1 flash plec (L204). Two of the rainbows died between two and four weeks after they were added and one of the danios simply disappeared. A few months later another of the rainbows died and in the last few weeks two of the cories have died

Now we *really* hate it when a fish starts looking peeky and get even more upset when one dies. To the extent that it's now crunch time - I think I should get a few more cories to keep the remaining two company but I'm worried about killing them. In which case I think we're probably too soft-hearted to keep fish and should give up

 

[rob newland]

Ok well firstly stop over feeding them, to keep the water temp down try turning the thermostat down on the heater firstly, or secondly try floating a pop bottle of icy water in the tank - should cool it down a treat.
Two cories should be fine on their own - I kept a pair of peppered cories until some jewels killed them and they looked fine. My advice would be to leave it a while and if possible try a different lfs - sometimes they can be the source of the problem as I discovered long ago. Losing 6 fish in total is not overly extreme for a new tank, my advice is try to get used to it - it's most likely gonna happen alot during your fish keeping life. Also if your plec is doing okay then you must be doing something right as they can be difficult - mine always die without fail.