Dead Spots ?

[andyg81]

Hi All,

had a bit of a rough time in the past few weeks with my tank, lost 2 plattys and 1 guppies - 1 platty went very thin and stopped eating before dying, 1 i think had been attacked.
the guppies were fighting amongst themselves and I have lost one of my males his fins were gone and he would just float in the plants in the tank so put him in my hospital tank overnight got up and he had died.


So, checked water stats, all ok, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 30ish.
did a huge water change last night (approx 70% of 180 litres) and removed 2 dying plants, cleaned all tank ornaments / stones etc, and I noticed that there seemed to be a build up of fish waste and rotting plants in 2 spots in my tank (directly under the outlet pipe from my fluval filter) im wondering if with this waste build up this could be whats killed my fish ?

the area is a bit hard to get to with the gravel hoover as its behind some bogwood and a plant so to be fair probably not hoovered that bit for about 3 weeks whereas the rest of the tank gets a hoover weekly.

how do you stop (i think there called dead spots) in the tank?

 

[the_lock_man]

Those stats - was that before or after the 70% water change?

 

[BlueDragon]

I get a build up of poop at the opposite end of the filter 'cause it must push it all over to there. So I just make sure that I can clean it easy with the gravel syphon, making sure there's not much there or that things are spaced out so I can get into the gaps. And once a week I'm taking everything out of the tank, wood, plants, to give the gravel a good proper hoover too. But I don't have a particuarly busy tank so it's a bit easier for me than it might be for others.
I think, if you have hard to reach places, that you can take the big hoovery end off and then just use the hose bit once you've got it going. I've never tryed doing that though so I'm not sure. But it would make it easier to get to those little corners.

The build up of poop could be the reason for your dieing Fish, but I can't say for sure.

Male Guppies don't usually fight unless they feel rivaled by the other males. Do you have females as well? How many? You should have three or four females for every male Guppy as this will keep them all busy with their own little group of girls. They won't feel threatened by eachother. Or shouldn't do anyway.

Agree with the_lock_man. I forgot to ask that : /

 

[andyg81]

those stats was before I did the water change,
I did notice part of the mess in one area was uneaten frozen bloodworm that id dropped in the tank, most of it went inside an ornament id got and the fish must have not seen it so its just sat there rotting for about a week !

ill keep an eye on my stats daily for a while but im hoping things will calm down

need to get some more guppies definatly, I know I need more females as I have 2 male and 2 female now

 

[McCool]

Getting a powerhead for the tank may help push around the debris so it doesn't get stuck in certain places.

 

[Bugdozer]

I have the problem that the place where waste builds up due to difficult vacuuming is also the spot the fish go to hide from the gravel vac!