Live Bearer Probs

[stevereade]

Having trouble in my 32 litre nano, had guppies and platys and they just keep dying. They're ok for a while and breed and then randomly attach themselves to the bottom of the tank and cant swim up, they'll stay that way for weeks even months and eventually die. I originally thought it was swim bladder probs, so treated that but still keeps happening, even once they were all gone and new stock was added after full clean out and restarting the tank. Its well planted, has dozens of cherry shrimp and its only ever had a max of 8 small live bearers in it, but like I say they all die eventually. Even had tetra in this tank for ages and they were fine and I used to have 2 Green Spotted Puffers in it so it just seems to be live bearers, any ideas?

 

[OldMan47]

It sounds like maybe you do not have appropriate water for common livebearers. Tetras and neocaridina do fine in much lower mineral content water than typical common livebearers. It would surprise me if any puffers did well in that water though.

 

[stevereade]

Yup had green spotted puffers and dwarf pea puffers with gobys in the same water? Any other ideas?

 

[OldMan47]

If it is not water issues, guppies and platies are much easier fish than tetras or puffers.

 

[stevereade]

I know lol its mad as i've kept pretty much everything at some point pretty successfully and the only thing that I cant get right is live bearers, do you think it could be due to people interbreeding them? All my supplies come from pretty much one place and every single one dies eventually after welding themselves to the sand/gravel for weeks first.

 

[OldMan47]

I get my livebearers from almost any source, including some from big chain stores and far more from private breeders. They all seem to prosper so any failure I have means I have done something wrong with the particular fish. I did run into some trouble with my "green goodeids" that was only solved by a large water change and changing their diet completely. I am not sure which one worked but the breeding colony has completely recovered. The water chemistry looked fine before the change but I was out of ideas so I tried it.

 

[stevereade]

Tried it already