Help!

[lildavpot]

hi ive had my tank for 7 months now, and in the last 3 weeks ive had 4 fish dying, with no obvious signs of disease, my levels seem fine, i first of all thought it was old age, but surely not 4 of them? my ph is 7.2, ammonia 0 nitrate 100 nitrite 0. does anybody have any ideas?

 

[Christine1014]

If you can give us all the info below, that will allow us to help you better.

Tank size:
pH:
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):

Volume and Frequency of water changes:

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:

Tank inhabitants:

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):

Exposure to chemicals:

Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[lildavpot]

hi
ammonia is 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 100
kh?? is 3-6 d
water hardness 6-10d
ph 7.2

previous to 3 of them dying i hadnt added anything new eg fish plants etc, decorations currently in the tank include a ceramic stone thing and 3 live plants and coloured gravel, im only keeping mollies plattys and tetra, did have a loach however that was one of the dead. theres no signs of disease, all dead look fairl healthy... well as healthy as a dead fish can look! the only thing abnormal they do is start hiding in the plants, however they are still able to swim, around, (dont think its a swim bladder problem) i did a partial water change 3 days ago, do one every 7-10 days, i cant think of anyway it could have been contaminated as i do have a cover over the tank... im just a bit confused?

forgot to mention i do use an aquarium salt, dont use as much as stated on the box, as it seemed alot. i also added a dose of melafx when i did my water change, just out of desparation.

 

[Puffdaddy]

Nitrate is too high. I would do a 50% water change now and then 25% every day until nitrate is below 40ppm. Then do 30% water change every 7 days or less.

 

[Christine1014]

As stated above you're nitrate is WAY too high. Do you vaccuum your gravel? That's where most of the junk is that's causing you're high nitrates. I'd recommend a gravel vac with 25% water change every week (or if more water ends up coming out while you vac, that's fine too. Many of my weekly changes end up being 50%).

Also, I don't think you should be adding aquarium salt with tetras.

 

[Rooster]

Nitrate is too high. I would do a 50% water change now and then 25% every day until nitrate is below 40ppm. Then do 30% water change every 7 days or less.

Agree
Do you do regular water changes ? If so, do you use a dechloronator ?

 

[lildavpot]

hi yeah i use a syphon gravel cleaner, just did a 50% change moved everything around to get as much muck out as i could.. but think my favourite molly is dying now mind you hes cheated death once... so hopefull he can do it agian! thanks!

 

[-germ-]

Try adding Seachem Prime as a dechlorinator,
Or just adding a couple of capfuls.
Honestly, just try it.....
Seachem prime.<---link

 

[vinylman]

What size is your tank?. That could influence how often you need to do a water change.

 

[lildavpot]

What size is your tank?. That could influence how often you need to do a water change.

its a 28 litre tank only small.

 

[Christine1014]

Oh, that's only about 7 gallons... you said you had 4 fish die... were they all in there at once (and were there even more than 4)? You were probably way overstocked, I'm afraid. The general rule of thumb is 1 inch of fully grown fish for every gallon of water. And platties are kind of messy fish anyway, so you probably would need to do more than one water change a week to keep up with their mess and prevent an ammonia spike.