Help?

[cassidyrolen]

Forgive me if this is in the wrong place, this is my first time posting here. I'm kind of new to fish keeping, but I 'inherited' a fish tank two years ago and I've had it since. I'll give you a brief history and then tell you what my problem is now. I believe it's a 30g tank. When I got it there were 4 mollies and a pleco. All three mollies died off at random times, and if I added any they would eventually die too. I've had some babies, all of which were either eaten at birth or shortly after, or died off. For the past year or so, I've had one mollie (one of the originals) and the pleco. I decided to purchase a few more mollies for the tank, and also a mystery snail. All of the mollies I purchased subsequently died, which again left me with the original mollie, the pleco, and the snail and that was it for about 7 or 8 months (times are guesses) so we went to Walmart to purchase more fish and the guy there gave us advice on what to buy. We ended up with 5 glofish, 3 tiger barbs, a betta, and three additional mollies. This has been maybe 3 weeks ago. Well last week I noticed a glofish was missing, not sure of its fate. Then two days ago there was a dead glofish. Today when I left for work the betta was dead along with another glofish and all of my tiger barbs. I think thats the right timeline, it could be off, but now I'm left with my original mollie, the pleco and mystery snail, and two glofish. All the rest of the fish are dead. What on earth could this be? I'm thinking maybe they weren't compatible as tank mates? I'm out about $50 in fish now and I'm just wondering if the guy at Walmart gave me bad advice? Or what else? My original two plus the snail have made it through all this. Help??

 

[Tolak]

Please fill this out as much as possible to help us help you;

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):


Yea, a million questions. If you have water tests done have them write down the numbers, fine or ok doesn't help much.

My biggest question for now is how the fish were acclimated to the tank, and how much/often water changes are done. Next would be the filtration; make & model, and how often/how maintained. Next would be if there is a heater, and what is the water temperature.

Tiger barbs need to be in larger groups, as they will get nippy with other fish when there are not enough of their own species to chase around. The betta/molly mix may or may not work, sort of depends on the temperament of the individual betta. If the plec is a common it will outgrow that tank.

 

[cassidyrolen]

Please fill this out as much as possible to help us help you;

Tank size: 30g
pH: I don't know all the details here. Hubby checked it and said all was normal.
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:79

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): Betta was hanging at the bottom and acting a little sluggish. Tiger barbs were completely normal until I found them ALL dead, glofish and mollies normal

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 25% water changes once a week

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: N/A

Tank inhabitants: 3 mollies, 1 betta, 3 tiger barbs, 5 glofish, 1 pleco, 1 mystery snail

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): Had 1 mollie, 1 pleco, 1 mystery snail, added 2 mollies, 1 betta, 5 glofish, 3 tiger barbs, all of the new fish have died except for two glofish

Exposure to chemicals: N/A

Digital photo (include if possible):


Yea, a million questions. If you have water tests done have them write down the numbers, fine or ok doesn't help much.

My biggest question for now is how the fish were acclimated to the tank, and how much/often water changes are done. Next would be the filtration; make & model, and how often/how maintained. Next would be if there is a heater, and what is the water temperature.

Tiger barbs need to be in larger groups, as they will get nippy with other fish when there are not enough of their own species to chase around. The betta/molly mix may or may not work, sort of depends on the temperament of the individual betta. If the plec is a common it will outgrow that tank.

When we got home we let the bag float in the tank for about an hour then cut a hole in it and added water from the tank every 10 minutes for about an hour then released the fish. The tank is the (tetra?) starter kit from walmart. I'm fairly positive it's 30 gallons. We were looking to upgrade to a larger tank in the near future, but the only fish that live are my original three (mollie, pleco, and snail) Thanks so much for any info.

 

[Tolak]

Still need to know about water change frequency & amount, as well as filter & heater info.

 

[cassidyrolen]

Still need to know about water change frequency & amount, as well as filter & heater info.

About 25% once a week, heater is Tetra 100w

 

[KittyKat]

Please get the exact water readings (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH) using a liquid test.

If you give me the dimensions of the tank (length, height, depth), I will calculate the exact volume for you. Can you post a photo too?

Which filter do you have? How do you clean it? Do you ever replace the sponges? (If you haven't, don't.)