keithbrown53
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- Joined
- Feb 25, 2009
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Hi all
Looking for some advice.
I have been running a tropical biube tank since Jan 2009. It's only nine gallons / 35 litres in capacity.
I've generally has about 8 small fish in there at any one time (rummy nosed tetras, cherry barbs, dalmation mollies, etc).
Things have been generally stable for a long time.
I used to check the water quality with a test kit quite a lot, but became a bit complacent about it in recent months, as the fish looked fine, and the readings were always OK. I have had deaths, but nothing beyond one every few months.
I generally do about a 25% change once every couple of weeks.
Now to the problem. My dalmation mollies kept on having fry (which presumably indicates the environment in the tank was OK). I gave a few away, so had some space in the tank for new fish. So, I went to the local shop, and got a few neon tetras. Everything looked great for a few days.
Then, one by one, the fish started swimming upside down. And one by one, they died. Last one went, quite literally, belly up this morning.
So, what have I done wrong? Once I'd introduced the tetras, I only had 8 small fish, so overpopulation seems unlikely.
Was I unlucky, in that the new neon tetras had some disease they passed onto the other fish?
The only other change I have made, is to put my wireless broadband router right next to the fish tank. I'm not sure if this is likely to be the problem - seems unlikely, but who knows.
I'd like to know what went wrong, because if I'm going to start again, I don't want to kill all the fish!
And with regards to starting again - presumably I should empty out the water, clean the plants (artificial), and possibly sterilise the gravel / filter, etc, as much as is possible?
Cheers,
Keith.
Looking for some advice.
I have been running a tropical biube tank since Jan 2009. It's only nine gallons / 35 litres in capacity.
I've generally has about 8 small fish in there at any one time (rummy nosed tetras, cherry barbs, dalmation mollies, etc).
Things have been generally stable for a long time.
I used to check the water quality with a test kit quite a lot, but became a bit complacent about it in recent months, as the fish looked fine, and the readings were always OK. I have had deaths, but nothing beyond one every few months.
I generally do about a 25% change once every couple of weeks.
Now to the problem. My dalmation mollies kept on having fry (which presumably indicates the environment in the tank was OK). I gave a few away, so had some space in the tank for new fish. So, I went to the local shop, and got a few neon tetras. Everything looked great for a few days.
Then, one by one, the fish started swimming upside down. And one by one, they died. Last one went, quite literally, belly up this morning.
So, what have I done wrong? Once I'd introduced the tetras, I only had 8 small fish, so overpopulation seems unlikely.
Was I unlucky, in that the new neon tetras had some disease they passed onto the other fish?
The only other change I have made, is to put my wireless broadband router right next to the fish tank. I'm not sure if this is likely to be the problem - seems unlikely, but who knows.
I'd like to know what went wrong, because if I'm going to start again, I don't want to kill all the fish!
And with regards to starting again - presumably I should empty out the water, clean the plants (artificial), and possibly sterilise the gravel / filter, etc, as much as is possible?
Cheers,
Keith.