Help - My Fish Keep Dying

[gandy1985]

Hi

I was wondering if you could help me? Whenever I buy new fish (4 max at a time and at least 2 weeks apart), I seem to find one or two of them dead a few days later. The tank was treated with Melafix about a month ago because of my new fish had popeye. Unfortunately he died a few days after treatment had ended. The tank has a water change every week and I was about to do my weekly water change when I spotted the dead fish, which was only purchased a week ago. Water readings are good.

The tank is 13 inches in height, 19 inches in width and 10 inches deep.
In the tank I have a male dwarf gourami, 3 golden honey gourami, 8 neon tetra, 2 tiger barbs and 3 yoyo loaches.
I have a water pump and 2 filters as I wasn't happy with the 'built in' filter.

Am I doing anything wrong? Too many fish?

Thanks

 

[frapadoodle]

No expert, but it does sound overstocked. And barbs can become nippy and agressive when kept in small numbers. But that is just from personal experience.

 

[gandy1985]

Hi

I did think that but I was told I could keep upto 20 fish in the tank. Maybe I'll leave the numbers as they are and just do the water change and monitor it over the next few weeks.

Thanks though

 

[mike455555]

that would be 1 fish per a L... thats not a true rule.. it should be 1 inch of fish per gallon your way to over stocked. also that tank is really to small to keep anything but a betta or some shrimp (you may want to upgrade to a bigger one )

 

[gandy1985]

Hi Mike

OH #92###!!!!! Not my day is it?

Ok so I have a 10 gallon tank, so yeah overstocked. Looks like I need to be buying a bigger tank once I have the funds!

Thanks

 

[mike455555]

Hi Mike

OH #92###!!!!! Not my day is it?

Ok so I have a 10 gallon tank, so yeah overstocked. Looks like I need to be buying a bigger tank once I have the funds!

Thanks

no problem bigger the better ( you were going to buy a bigger one anyway you just dident know it)

 

[phoenixgsd]

no problem bigger the better ( you were going to buy a bigger one anyway you just dident know it)

yeah it is addictive i started with a small 20 Lt and now i have 270Lt

 

[mike455555]

started with the same size tank as OP... with 2 gold fish won off a fair... now have 3 planted tanks running

looking into getting a massive tank (5 foot) when i get my own place

 

[Lizi_angelfish]

that would be 1 fish per a L... thats not a true rule.. it should be 1 inch of fish per gallon your way to over stocked. also that tank is really to small to keep anything but a betta or some shrimp (you may want to upgrade to a bigger one )

Don't feel bad, Gandy, there is so much crap advice out there. So glad I found this forum before listening to shops that have no idea what they are talking about. I picked up a leaflet on maintaining your aquarium in Pets at Home the other day (just to mock it, as I felt like I knew better than they did haha) and IN PRINT it recommended one fish per two litres. So that would be 30 fish for my 15 gal. It's no wonder people can get so easily misled. Their total disregard of the welfare of the fish in favour of our money is disgraceful.

 

[Axyadbad]

that would be 1 fish per a L... thats not a true rule.. it should be 1 inch of fish per gallon your way to over stocked. also that tank is really to small to keep anything but a betta or some shrimp (you may want to upgrade to a bigger one )

Don't feel bad, Gandy, there is so much crap advice out there. So glad I found this forum before listening to shops that have no idea what they are talking about. I picked up a leaflet on maintaining your aquarium in Pets at Home the other day (just to mock it, as I felt like I knew better than they did haha) and IN PRINT it recommended one fish per two litres. So that would be 30 fish for my 15 gal. It's no wonder people can get so easily misled. Their total disregard of the welfare of the fish in favour of our money is disgraceful.

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