How Often Do You Lose Fish?

[rodandalisonthompson]

Im quite depressed at the minute over recent fish losses. All my water parameters are fine and the fish get fed good quality food. I have always used more than enough filtration, regular water changes etc.

So....interested to know from other members how often do you lose fish - are my experiences of loosing on average 1 every 10 days (out of 44 fish) to be expected or much more than you would expect. What could I be doing wrong.

My marine tank for example has an outbreak of whitespot - the two percula clowns seem to be trying to establish dominance and a bit of fin nipping is going on.
My main community tank is just getting over whitespot - dont know what caused that. Also strangely one of my clown loaches got stuck inside an internal filter and the other completely vanished!

 

[mlawson]

My Mollie died last week, but apart from that none of my fish have died for months.
The Whitespot should clear up eventually, don't be put-off fishkeeping because of
it, most people experience a series of deaths sometime or other in their fishkeeping life.

 

[thegnu]

all your params are fine....... what are they exactly. if your clown loach has passed on this could cause a spike

 

[LisaLQ]

It might be because your tanks are very overstocked. I wouldn't keep tetras in a 20l, let alone a bristlenose I'm afraid.

Might be worth thinking of a few tank upgrades, or (once your fish are better) rehoming some of them? Stress and overcrowding can kill fish, and raise the chances of illness too.

 

[CFC]

Everyone has highs and lows with fish keeping and like any hobby which involves live animals there are inevitably deaths. I have gone months and even years with no losses and then suddenly something will happen out of the blue and i'll lose several all at once, in the time i have been fish keeping i have had four incidents where equipment failure has caused massive losses and two outbreaks of velvet have desimated my tanks, the last time i lost over 40 fish to it and only recently the heater in my fishroom blew a fuse and caused the deaths of 3 very expensive fish.

Obviously the more tanks you run and the more fish you keep the more likelyhood there is that something will die, just like with the more people you know the higher the chances are that someone you know will die.

 

[dwarfgourami]

It might be because your tanks are very overstocked. I wouldn't keep tetras in a 20l, let alone a bristlenose I'm afraid.

To do him justice, it does say a baby bristlenose. For all we know, it could be a newly hatched baby. I have been using my 19 ltr tank as a rearing tank for baby bristlies lately, currently it houses 6 small bristlies- and I do mean small.
I'd feel more concerned about all those plecs in the Rekord 70 tbh.

 

[Rhiannon]

hmm, well, I have to say, we have had about 10 fish losses in the last month, due to my new tank being new, not cycled properly and fish were added without me knowing you had to cycle. Noone told me until I came on here.

So now I dont have many fish left at all, but the ones that are left are doing very well (touch wood).

And yes it is depressing and devistating. I used to cry all the time. Now I am just used to it.

 

[mark.w.jones]

Fish loss through old age is inevitable and there is always a chance that you may have bought slightly weaeker fish or ones that have got over a serious disease in the past. These always seem to have a greater chance of catching something. My only thought on your stocking is that although you are not overstocked you don't have brillant stocking levels for certain fish. Keeping schooling fish like tetras, neons and clown loach, which are all used to living in much bigger groups, as ones or twos is stressful for them. They will not ever feel secure on their own or in pairs as they are very social fish and that is not how they live in the wild. Living under constant stress is guaranteed to shorten life expectancy as far as Im concerned.

 

[LisaLQ]

It might be because your tanks are very overstocked. I wouldn't keep tetras in a 20l, let alone a bristlenose I'm afraid.

To do him justice, it does say a baby bristlenose. For all we know, it could be a newly hatched baby. I have been using my 19 ltr tank as a rearing tank for baby bristlies lately, currently it houses 6 small bristlies- and I do mean small.
I'd feel more concerned about all those plecs in the Rekord 70 tbh.

That's fair enough - I didn't notice that it was a baby (although I still think it's too small - but my 60L tank is the smallest I'd go for any fish - baby or not, purely for space to move around in), so on that part I'll take it back. But the other other tanks are very overstocked too. The 20l tanks are 5g right? If so, the platies alone make it full (although platies really should not be in a tank that small). That 70l tank I'm surprised all the plecs physically fit in. For my 60l tank, I was recommended 5-10 harlequins and 5 cories. And that's it. So if that would have been a full stocking, these tanks are very very overstocked.

I know her fish are in good nick, and very beautiful (I seem to remember baggsying her royal lol) but stress and lack of space can definitely cause fatalities, and it's something to consider.

 

[discus dreamer]

I have been keeping fish for 8 months and run two tanks
I lost a few neons right at the start (wrong choice for a newly established tank)
I lost a zodiac loach, he was the first fish i had and I was probably doing cycling with fish without knowing it, perhaps that weakened him because he died from no apparent cause after about 3 months
I had a silver hatchet fish jump out of the small hole in the inside cover and found it dried out by the lights
I lost a beautiful betta from some kind of bloating - tried everything to no avail.
Sounds like a lot all together like that but spread over a long time it doesn't seem to dominate my enjoyment of fishkeeping.
The things that have helped the most I think are buying stock from a good LFS and the advice on this forum
So thanks
DD

 

[jamespond]

i lost a neon when he jumped out the net (when i was transfering them to the tank)...picked him up and put him in, but iwas no good...he died overnight.

but in my 35litre biube i have 4 neons, 2 danios, 1 molly, 1 betta and 4 rummys...all seem happy in fact, the neons and rummys seem to school together

 

[vinylman]

Fish loss through old age is inevitable and there is always a chance that you may have bought slightly weaeker fish or ones that have got over a serious disease in the past. These always seem to have a greater chance of catching something. My only thought on your stocking is that although you are not overstocked you don't have brillant stocking levels for certain fish. Keeping schooling fish like tetras, neons and clown loach, which are all used to living in much bigger groups, as ones or twos is stressful for them. They will not ever feel secure on their own or in pairs as they are very social fish and that is not how they live in the wild. Living under constant stress is guaranteed to shorten life expectancy as far as Im concerned.

Absolutely; there's a very good reason LFS sell shoaling fish in fives or sixes. Nothing will contribute to a fishy death faster than stress.