Fish dieing? Water seems fine

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Tttay89

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Hi, I have had my tank for a good year now
120 litres. Defintly cycled
Ammonia -0
Nitrite -0
Nitrate -15
Ph - 7.4 (due to our very hard water)
API liquid test kit

I have
10 neon tetras
2 dwarf gouramis
2 bristlenose pleco
1 rainbow shark
And...
Only 2 guppies left (from4)
Only 1 black widow left (from 3)
And had 2 rams that died in 2 weeks from purchase.
These 6 deaths all came withing around 4-5 weeks. 4 all within the last 2 weeks.

I'm now worried as my favourite (and also my oldest) fish rainbow shark didn't eat or even come out of his cave this morning... His usual routine is straight up nibble food and comes out mid day and back in at night...havnt seen him swimming in a good 2 days now. So im assuming a close death?

I know this could be a million reasons but if like to rule out water quality

The only changes I have made is adding a live plant around a month ago which seems ok.. No snails. I thought plants could only bring good . Is it possible to kill fish?

I fed them live blood worms 2 weeks ago for first time.

Could parasites be an option I heard? Where on earth do they come from?.

I've also heard turning temperature up, adding aquaroum salt can help with stress diseases any light on this?

I don't add any chemicals apart from tap water conditioner.

When my rams died they both breathed very heavily and quick.

I have just purchased parasite and white spot treatment ..brand 'lovefish' reluctant to use it being a chemical but if there's any reviews on this kind of thing that would be great..


THANKS!!
 
A lot going on here.
1. Did you quarantine the rams or last fish you purchased before adding to tank?
2. Turning up the heat will only help if they have ich. They will look like they are sprinkled in salt if they have it.
3. Don’t use ich med unless you see ich. Really no reason for meds if ich, just turn heat to 86F and leave it there for 2 weeks. Increase the temp slowly, about 2 degrees each hour. Vacuum the substrate every couple of days. You can add aquarium salt to help keep bacteria down and reduce stress in fish.
4. If the fish appear to be wasting away or getting skinny then they could have parasites.
Do a large 75% water change and see if they perk up. If so, it is a water quality issue. Do you test for PH, GH, KH? How often do you clean your tank and go water changes? How much water change?
 
Is it possible to get a pic of fish and tank?
 
I've also heard turning temperature up, adding aquaroum salt can help with stress diseases any light on this?

It depends upon the issue. This might work for some problems, but not others. Generally, water changes, being more frequent and larger volume, can initially help in the majority of cases. If there is a pathogen responsible, that is something else and identifying it is often very difficult for most of us. But make sure you know fairly reliably what the issue is before treating with medications, chemicals, etc, as they all stress fish no matter what and when they are not going to help, can make things worse.

I have just purchased parasite and white spot treatment ..brand 'lovefish' reluctant to use it being a chemical but if there's any reviews on this kind of thing that would be great..

No, further to my comments above, and echoed by others members while I have been typing. Colin is better with disease issues so I am just cautioning you on not rushing into this or that.

Live bloodworms might introduce disease, I would only use the frozen from reliable manufacturers like Hakari. Not saying this was the issue, only for the future. And bloodworms should be fed no more often than once a week.

There are some possible/likely issues with the fish listed in post #1. Black Widow Tetra are notorious fin nippers, and Rainbow Shark can be depending. Rams wold not fare well with either of these. Rams also need warmth, no lower than 80F/27C which is too warm for some of the other fish (neons). While something like temperature would not likely kill them as you describe, it would weaken them so they are less able to deal with other issues, so it is important to have parameters (GH, pH, temperature) suited to all species in the tank. You mention very hard water, the rams may have trouble here too.
 
No I didn't quarantine the rams before they went in I do only have the one tank, I just slowly introduced them over the course of an hour and didn't let any of their water in.

Cant see white specks or ich? Just the rapid breathing and sometimes stress discoloration at times (colour comes back after feeding).
All the fish seem to be growing ok apart from the dieing ones who do tend to look skin and bone right before their death.

Our water hardness is extreme.
GH 310
Kh- 200
Resulting in 7.4 -7.6 pH

Water change once a week around 30-40% cleaning 1/6,th of the substrate each time. I didn't ever want to go too high with the water changes due to temperature change and even more stress? (Advise)

Ok I'll leave the parasite medicine.
My black widow is actually pretty calm and leaves everyone alone aswell as the rainbow shark.
The gouramis seem to be the most viscious one actually killed a guppy early this year !

Ok so it could be adjustment to the water hardness?
Just seems crazy to all be in such a short time frame.
Would you advise removing the plant? Maybe a coincidence but the deaths have risen since that went in . I'll attach pictures soon of the tank and shark
 
Tank
 

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Plants obviously may introduce disease/pathogens if they come from tanks with fish, but even if this were the case (and I am not suggesting it is) removing the plant now wold not benefit, only make things worse, and plants do benefit water quality.

Water changes benefit. Provided the parameters are reasonably the same, change 70$ when you see anything like this, and another 70% tomorrow cannot hurt. Same parameters means GH, pH and temperature. There is absolutely nothing more beneficial to fish in an aquarium than water changes. On a regular basis, changing at least 50% and up to 70% once each week is advisable for any aquarium, again assuming parameters are close. Vacuum into the substrate all over, except where plants are rooted or under wood/rock, these areas are best left alone.

Rams will not fit in here as previously noted, and they are delicate fish. I will not guess on disease issues, only point out recommended "prevention."
 
The last picture of the rainbow shark
 

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How the shark has been for 2 days
 

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Beautiful tank! I don’t see anything on the shark. I feel it has to be a water quality time issue. Try the large (70%) daily water changes for a week and see if things improve. I know that’s a lot of water but it really can be all you need. I do 75% twice a week in all 7 of my tanks. One is 55G and one is 45G so it is doable. I use s Python syphon and water changer to make it easy.
 
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Cheers haha.

Ok I'll leave the plant .
Regarding large water changes and having the same parameters. Temperature is obviously really cold I have a spare heater to warm a bucket a time up?
And pH from the tap is 6.8 but after 24 hours is 7.5 ISH. So adding all this freshwater in will be an instant pH shock or?
As my ammonia and nitrite are 0 what would these large water changes be removing?
 
Also the shark does look chubby today in the second I saw him and is breathing rapidly. Could something be lodged in these fishes gills?
 
Obviously we can't rule out disease or some pathogen. But it is worth noting that if your GH is over 300ppm (you never specified the unit so I am assuming that's what you meant) the only fish in your tank that can remain healthy in such hard water is the guppies.

The others might live for a while but simply cannot adjust to water that hard. You have them now and obviously should do the best you can, but they will always be prone to disease and stress and will have shorter lives than usual. Making hard water soft is not possible using chemicals, but if you are able to mix your tap water 50/50 with RO or distilled water it will be a much better environment for your fish. It is important to keep it clean and do the big water changes and full gravel vac as others have suggested. This is because your fish will always be more prone to any illness or disease that is going.Temperature of water changes is not as critical as some people assume, as long as the new water is somewhere close to the tank water.

For future stocking livebearers (guppies, platys, swords, mollies etc) would be a far better choice.
 
Ok defintly going to get some ro water (if I have room to keep it! If I do my changes with ro water will it save my existing fish? Or is the damage already done. Well my water temperatire is always at 27 but my tap is only 12 degrees meaning a large water change like that will bring it to around 18 degrees. If my calculations are correct ?

And with regards to full gravel vac I used to do this but was told this would kill half of my beneficial bacteria and that was the reason for my ammonia spike (1ppm some months back)

I really wish I could see if shark has any marks or anything but it's just hiding

UPDATE just noticed small bristlenose pleco has white patches on it looks fungal-ish
 
Water in a fish tank is full of bacteria. Even if the nitrates are 0, your fish are still urinating, pooping, and leaving food waste in the water. This all builds up to bacteria and possible disease. Large Water changes are the best thing you can do for your fish
 

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