I have had fish tanks my whole life. I have had this 55 gallon set up with fish in it for years. In May I left on vacation for a week and my "housesitter" way over fed and I came home to a mess of a tank with about 25% dead fish. At that time I had 3 angels, 3-4 danios, a few tetras, a bunch of guppies, a cat fish or two and a rubber pleco. I had to tear down the whole tank and clean it but I know not to over clean. Since then I have tried to restock my tank with the angels and some platies. I had up to about 20 platies, 2 danios, the catfish, 1 black skirted (?) tetra, the catfish, a couple shrimp and the 3 angels. Real trouble started about a month ago when one of my angels died. Then I started having trouble with the platies but not at such a rate I was too concerned. Then both of my remaining angels died same day. I took my water in and had high nitrites. I have done 2 50% water changes. right now my nitrates look good the only thing that concerns me a little is my ph is about 8.0 which i know is a little high. I have a water softner in my house and i treat all my water with start right during water changes. It's about a week and 1/2 and I am still loosing platies. I have 3 left. 2 look like they are in a race to the death. the start looking almost emaciated although I do see them eating. then they start swimming a little funny. then the next am they are dead. The danios, tetra, snails, shrimp, catfish (a cori and a bumblebee), plecos (regular and rubber) are all fine. I don't know if I have some weird infection (it's not ich, I've seen that before) or bad fish (petco) or I just don't know. I did plant a couple plants and want continue to add plants. I run 2 power heads with a under gravel system. Uggghhh. sick of dead fish. just want to get this balanced out/figured out so I can get some fish in here
