My Fish Are Disappearing And Dying!

[jugong]

Help me please, my fish all seem to be disappearing or dying one by one!

I got a new tank last week Clear "something" I cant remember what the person in the shop said it was. I know it measures 24" x 12" x 12"

I bought a Interpret 2x36 T5 starter unit and fitted it to the plastic cover of the tank.

I then put about 3" of garden soil in the tank and filled it with tap water then left the tank to settle for 24 hours so the water had time to clear.

At the weekend I went and got some fish, I bought 4 red-tailed sharks, 4 angel fish, 12 tiger barbs, 10 neon tetras, 10 guppies, 3 uarus, 3 convict cichlids and something the guy in the shop called a "snake fish"

Since then all my neon tetras, guppies and tiger barbs along with 2 of the red tailed sharks have all disappeared. Where are these fish going?

The other problem is that my angels and uarus all seem to be at the surface of the water "drinking" air all the time, what is wrong with them and why are my fish dying?

 

[drufly]

My advice would be to take all the fish you have left back to where u got them. No way should the lfs have let you buy so many fish at once. For a start you would need to 'cycle' your tank first, then add a few fish at a time.

Red tails can only be kpt 1 to a tank as they fight like mad plus the tank is not big enough for most of what you bought.

The angels def not far to big
Tiger barbs will eat the tails off the guppys
Convicts will eat most of what you have for lunch

Your lfs sounds like most all they want is your money. Df take everything you have apart from the guppys or neons. neons will nip guppys all day jus cause of the fins they have.

 

[chipper_222]

garden soil?

Interesting!

 

[bricko]

Oh dear jugong!

I don't know where to start really, So I will just highlight a few issues below

1. Garden soil is probably full of chemicals and would not make a good substrate for a tank, so I assume you are taking the P!$$ aboiut this.

2. You have not cycles your tank by just adding water, please read this post on tank cycling
http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/

3.You are massively overstocked for that size tank, even with all the enevitable casualties.

4. You have fish that will far outggrow the size of tank you bought unless that is a typo,

5.You have very incompatible fish, which WILL NOT tolerate each other in most tanks let alone the small confines of your tank.

Suggest you take drufly's advice and return the stock to your lfs, then proceed down this list, performing research at each of the above steps and take it from there.

Good luck

 

[waterdrop]

Hi there jugong and welcome to TFF!

There are two good things here! Number one, you are interested in the tropical fish keeping hobby! Number two, you have stumbled across perhaps the best forum for learning about the hobby! The members here can help beginners a lot, I've found.

Unfortunately, just about all the other things in your post sound like a worst case scenerio. You didn't have a chance to learn about substrates for beginners (garden soil is sometimes used by very experienced aquarists who are working specially on planted tanks, but is rarely attempted by beginners I believe) and you didn't have a chance to learn about water chemistry for tropical fish it doesn't sound like.

As mentioned above, the stocking choices are also quite bad, being way too large (too many fish) for the tank and consisting of fish that shouldn't be put together probably.

Hang around and keep asking questions, though and the members will no doubt get you sorted out and going on the right track! In your case you may need to do something radical, like taking all those fish back, cleaning out the tank and simply starting over -- a difficult situation, but probably in the end easier than trying to keep going with something like this!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Athena]

When I read things like this and see how ill-advised people are about tank stocking and compatibility, it really annoys me. I mean, I had a few minor issues when I first started out but nothing on the scale of this!! Those people working in your LFS obviously do not care about fish very much if they were prepared to sell you all those very incompatible fish to put in a 2ft tank. I suppose they are only interested in making sales and seeing someone new to the hobby is an easy target for them.

So sorry you've had to learn this the hard way - but all the previous posters are right in what they have said. Definitely too many fish - some of those will grow to vast proportions, too.

A good tip to remember when adding new fish to your tank is the fewer you add at one time, the better. Adding lots in one go just causes a massive ammonia spike once they start urinating and doing poopsies! And that means fish deaths will result becuase your filter just won't be able to handle these high stat levels.

For beginners, good old-fashioned gravel is often the best substrate to go for. Wouldn't recommend garden soil unless you're an expert, anyway - you never know what chemicals are in it! Most garden soil is contaminated with one thing or another - e.g. think of all the pollutants that are rained down on it year after year - plus in some cases cats urine & faeces, bird poops etc (sorry!).

Best bet is to start again, I think. Decide which fish are your favourites (pick species that do not grow large - e.g. guppys, mollies, platys, german rams, tetras, oto's etc - then come back on here with your list and check whether the fish you've listed are compatible for a community tank before spending any more of your money). Then when you've got a list of the fish you are going to stock your tank with, just purchase a couple at a time - and build the level up over a few weeks.

You will also need to decide if you are going to do a fishless cycle of your filter or a fish-in cycle (there is more info on these subjects in the forums).

Regards - Athena

 

[drufly]

Couldnt have put it better myself athena, it's just typical of lfs's not to give any advice to begginers. When i started i bought my tank, filled it and the next day bought 2 adf's 1 rtbs and 2 bolivian rams. Sadly to say only the rtbs and 1 adf survived, its all good now though thanks to the advice of members of this forum.

Best thing to do with lfs in my opinion is not to listen to them, come here 1st with any queries.

 

[martyn21uk]

***PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL***

 

[Athena]

***PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL***

I'm confused - what does that mean?

Athena

 

[minxfishy]

Yep I did think that when I read the OP - is this really serious??? If it is, then frankly, Im speechless, which is something that doesnt happen very often

 

[Athena]

Yep I did think that when I read the OP - is this really serious??? If it is, then frankly, Im speechless, which is something that doesnt happen very often

Oooh - is a troll something like a fake post then? Wow - if it is all a lie then how sad is that? Someone obviously has a very boring life!

It does all sound quite unbelievable though, have to admit. I was gobsmacked when I read it!

Athena

 

[minxfishy]

Check the other posts Athena by the poster

 

[Athena]

Check the other posts Athena by the poster

Thanks Minx - LOL, ok, so only 3 posts since June and no replies to anything and a similar thread to do with overstocking a tank with the wrong sort of fish.

Hmmm - as Queen Victoria (I think) would say "We are NOT amused!"

Thanks for enlightening me, I shall be more wary from now on before replying to a post like this.