Fish Tank

[David Morris]

Wondering if someone can help. I’ve recently stocked my tank with Mollies and a couple of Dwarf Gouramies.With in the last week I’ve lost 1 gourami and 5 mollies.Ive followed all the shops advise and I’m getting very frustrated .Thanks

 

[Essjay]

Can you answer a few questions, please, as that will help us work out what is going on.

How big is the tank, both volume and dimensions?
How long ago did you get the tank?
How long after getting the tank did you put the fish in it?
Did you cycle the tank first - in other words did you add ammonia to the tank until it grew two colonies of bacteria?
What are the readings for ammonia and nitrite?
How hard is your tap water? Look on your water company's website for hardness - we need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.
Did the dead fish become sick before they died? Any symptoms?


The first lesson in fish keeping is don't believe what a shop tells you. So many shop workers don't know or don't care, all they want is to make a sale. Always research for yourself.

If you didn't cycle the ank with ammonia before getting fish, it is likely there is a high level of ammonia and/or nitrite in the water. If you don't have a test kit, can I suggest you get one asap - you need to be able to test for ammonia and nitrite at the minimum - and until you have testers, change 75% of the water every day. As long as you add dechlorinator to the new water and warm it to roughly the same temperature as the tank water, this will not harm the fish.

I asked about hardness because gouramis are soft water fish while mollies are hard water fish. One or other will not be happy in your water, and this will weaken fish so that they become sick more easily.
Dwarf gouramis are commonly infected with an incurable disease by the time they arrive at the shop - it is possible that this is what killed the gourami.



Any information you can give us will help.

 

[David Morris]

Can you answer a few questions, please, as that will help us work out what is going on.

How big is the tank, both volume and dimensions?
How long ago did you get the tank?
How long after getting the tank did you put the fish in it?
Did you cycle the tank first - in other words did you add ammonia to the tank until it grew two colonies of bacteria?
What are the readings for ammonia and nitrite?
How hard is your tap water? Look on your water company's website for hardness - we need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.
Did the dead fish become sick before they died? Any symptoms?


The first lesson in fish keeping is don't believe what a shop tells you. So many shop workers don't know or don't care, all they want is to make a sale. Always research for yourself.

If you didn't cycle the ank with ammonia before getting fish, it is likely there is a high level of ammonia and/or nitrite in the water. If you don't have a test kit, can I suggest you get one asap - you need to be able to test for ammonia and nitrite at the minimum - and until you have testers, change 75% of the water every day. As long as you add dechlorinator to the new water and warm it to roughly the same temperature as the tank water, this will not harm the fish.

I asked about hardness because gouramis are soft water fish while mollies are hard water fish. One or other will not be happy in your water, and this will weaken fish so that they become sick more easily.
Dwarf gouramis are commonly infected with an incurable disease by the time they arrive at the shop - it is possible that this is what killed the gourami.



Any information you can give us will help.

Thanks for that. The tank has been set up for nearly 3 years it’s a Juwel 125 .

Can you answer a few questions, please, as that will help us work out what is going on.

How big is the tank, both volume and dimensions?
How long ago did you get the tank?
How long after getting the tank did you put the fish in it?
Did you cycle the tank first - in other words did you add ammonia to the tank until it grew two colonies of bacteria?
What are the readings for ammonia and nitrite?
How hard is your tap water? Look on your water company's website for hardness - we need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.
Did the dead fish become sick before they died? Any symptoms?


The first lesson in fish keeping is don't believe what a shop tells you. So many shop workers don't know or don't care, all they want is to make a sale. Always research for yourself.

If you didn't cycle the ank with ammonia before getting fish, it is likely there is a high level of ammonia and/or nitrite in the water. If you don't have a test kit, can I suggest you get one asap - you need to be able to test for ammonia and nitrite at the minimum - and until you have testers, change 75% of the water every day. As long as you add dechlorinator to the new water and warm it to roughly the same temperature as the tank water, this will not harm the fish.

I asked about hardness because gouramis are soft water fish while mollies are hard water fish. One or other will not be happy in your water, and this will weaken fish so that they become sick more easily.
Dwarf gouramis are commonly infected with an incurable disease by the time they arrive at the shop - it is possible that this is what killed the gourami.



Any information you can give us will help.

Hi

 

[PheonixKingZ]

What are your water parameters? If you don't have a test kit, you need to get one. For now, you can just go to your LFS and ask them to test your water. Make sure they actually tell you the exact parameters.

You also need to answer the questions @essjay asked, for use to properly help you.

 

[Essjay]

The answers so far are

How big is the tank, both volume and dimensions?

125 litres; if that's a Rio, it's 81 cm wide x 36 cm deep x 50 cm tall.

How long ago did you get the tank?

3 years

How long after getting the tank did you put the fish in it?
Did you cycle the tank first - in other words did you add ammonia to the tank until it grew two colonies of bacteria?

As the tank is 3 years old, it should be cycled by now. I needed to know if it was a brand new tank which hadn't been cycled.

What are the readings for ammonia and nitrite?
How hard is your tap water? Look on your water company's website for hardness - we need a number and the unit of measurement rather than some vague words.
Did the dead fish become sick before they died? Any symptoms?

These questions have not been answered.

If something has happened to the filter bacteria there could be ammonia and/or nitrite in the water which would affect the fish. Whenever fish get sick or die, the first thing is always to test to water to eliminate ammonia and nitrite as a cause.

Mollies are hard water fish and they get sick easily in soft or even middling hardness water. We need to know how hard your water is to eliminate that as a possible cause for the mollies' deaths.

Did the fish just die or did they show symptoms before death? If there were symptoms it will help us diagnose the cause. For example, dwarf gouramis are commonly infected by an incurable disease. If yours had died from this there would have been definite symptoms of the disease.




A couple more questions.
Were all the fish that died in the tank since it was set up?
Have you added anything new within the last month? Fish, plants, decor, anything.
Did anyone used any spray, air freshener, scented candle etc in the room shortly before the deaths occurred?

 

[David Morris]

Hi,Hope someone can help I’ve have a Juwel Rio tank125. It’s been set up for almost 3 years, over this time I have little success losing fish on a regular basis.Over the last few months I have stock it with mollies and a couple of Gouramies. I have now lost 6 fish including 1 dwarf gourami.When dying they isolated themselves spending a lot of time lying on the bottom of the tank.At the moment all seems well in the tank.The water hardness is soft 1.26 nitrite reading is 0. Ive just ordered an ammonia test kit to test for that.No sprays have been used near the tank.I am doing 10%water changes every 7 days using water safe. Hope someone can help.Thanks

 

[seangee]

If your hardness is 1.26 degrees (dGH) it is unsuitable for mollies or any livebearers and unfortunately they will die on a regular basis. We need to know more about what is in the tank before advising as increasing the hardness to a suitable level for mollies will cause health issues for soft water fish - such as gouramis. Can you confirm the hardness reading as well as the unit.

At weekly changes of 10% I would also expect your nitrate readings to be fairly high (google old tank syndrome). Fish live in their own waste and the end product of this is nitrate. The only way to remove this is by diluting with clean water and 10% simply is not enough as that means you are leaving 90% of the bad stuff in the tank every week and the concentration will keep climbing. I do a 75% change every week and recommend a minimum of 50%. Nitrate does not kill fish immediately as ammonia or nitrites do but do cause issues in the long term which is consistent with losing fish on a regular basis.

 

[David Morris]

If your hardness is 1.26 degrees (dGH) it is unsuitable for mollies or any livebearers and unfortunately they will die on a regular basis. We need to know more about what is in the tank before advising as increasing the hardness to a suitable level for mollies will cause health issues for soft water fish - such as gouramis. Can you confirm the hardness reading as well as the unit.

At weekly changes of 10% I would also expect your nitrate readings to be fairly high (google old tank syndrome). Fish live in their own waste and the end product of this is nitrate. The only way to remove this is by diluting with clean water and 10% simply is not enough as that means you are leaving 90% of the bad stuff in the tank every week and the concentration will keep climbing. I do a 75% change every week and recommend a minimum of 50%. Nitrate does not kill fish immediately as ammonia or nitrites do but do cause issues in the long term which is consistent with losing fish on a regular basis.

Hi. I have 1 female gourami and 1 bristlenose plec all the rest are mollies. Water readings are Hardness Clarke 1.26 Aluminium <30.3 Calcium 5.05 Chlorine 0.86 Copper<0.0349 Iron<14.7 Lead <0.400 Magnesium 1.36 Manganese <1.36 Nitrate <1.61 Sodium 18.4.Hope This helps

 

[Essjay]

Hardness in Clarke degrees is not a unit used in fish keeping - it converts to 1 dH and 18 ppm (the two units which are used in fish keeping).
Your figures show your tap water nitrate is very low at <1.61 ppm. We need to keep tank nitrate below 20 ppm, and with such a low level in your tap water, this should be easy - provided you do large water changes to remove the nitrate made by the filter bacteria.



You have very soft water. Mollies need hardness of over 250 ppm, while yours is just 18. It is probably the reason for the deaths of the mollies. As you don't have an ammonia tester yet we don't know if there is any ammonia in the water but this would just add to the mollies' problems. And if you are only doing small water changes, your nitrate could be quite high, as seangee says, which would also add to the problem for mollies.

Did the dwarf gourami look any different before it died? There is an incurable disease which most dwarf gouramis bred in the far east suffer from, and this disease often kills the fish within a short time of purchase. It has definite symptoms, and if your gourami showed these symptoms we can say that is what the gourami died of.



Going forward, you have two options.
Keep only soft water fish. Before buying any fish, look them up on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ This site gives the hardness range for every species in their database. Some profiles give the hardness in dH and others in ppm - I converted your hardness into these units at the beginning of this post, just compare them to the range in the profile. Read the other information in the profile as well to see if the fish you want is compatible with other fish you have or want.

The other alternative is to add Rift Lake salts to the water and keep hard water fish. The salts would have to be added to the new water outside the tank at every water change, and the same amount of salts added every time to keep the hardness of the tank water constant. This is the more complicates option; keeping soft water fish in unaltered tap water is easier.

 

[JuiceBox52]

I agree with @essay and @seangee you will have to choose between livebearers (mollies, guppies, platies, swordtail) or soft water fish and adjust your care accordingly
I personally would say soft water fish because it is less work with your naturally soft water.

 

[Retired Viking]

There are a lot of soft water fish to choose from like tetras, barbs and cory.

 

[David Morris]

Are angelfish suitable with mollies.Ive done some research think my water parameters are ok not sure the male mollies will object.

 

[Essjay]

I'm afraid not. Angles are soft water fish while mollies are hard water fish. And a Rio 125 is too small for angels. [81 cm wide x 36 cm deep x 50 cm tall though the water depth is less than 50 cm. That's 32 x 14 x 20 inches]

 

[Byron]

Are angelfish suitable with mollies.Ive done some research think my water parameters are ok not sure the male mollies will object.

Essjay answered, but on the mollies, how many do you have now? Earlier you said five died; your water is much too soft for mollies so they are not going to last long.

 

[David Morris]

Essjay answered, but on the mollies, how many do you have now? Earlier you said five died; your water is much too soft for mollies so they are not going to last long.

Still got 8 mollies in the tank at the moment they seem happy I’m hoping they may adjust.They have been in the tank for about a month.I was hoping just add soft water fish now and keep it like that.