My Fish Won't Eat!

[Discovery86]

Hi,

I have a fairly new tropical fish setup. I have a 30 gallon tank with 4 Bleeding Heart Tetras. I had 4 mollies, but they recently died. I have not seen the Tetras eat in a week or two. I feed them flake food, and occasionally frozen brine shrimp. One or two of them ate some brine shrimp when I put some in a few days ago, but I have not seen all 4 of them eat for quite a while. When they do eat, it is only one or two pieces of food. They stay at the bottom of the tank, and only eat food that sinks to the bottom. They used to be more active and come up to the middle and grab all the food they could get.

I've been testing my water weekly, and the Ammonia and NitrIte are at zero. The NitrAte has been going up. I started doing water changes once a week, and the level came down to 20, but I can't get it lower than that. I think uneaten food is part of the problem.

So, question #1: Why aren't my Tetras eating, and what can I do to get them to eat?
And #2: Do I need to get the NitrAte level back down to 0 before I can get more fish?

tetragirl86

 

[jungle king]

putting some live aquarium plants will help use up some of the nitrates as for the eating I'll let someone more knowledgeable answer that

 

[consp]

I wouldn't say I'm more knowledgable but I'll have a stab at it anyway...

Even though your fish are not eating make sure you only feed them once - twice a day at a scheduled time. By scheduling feed the fish will know exactly when it is time to eat and are more likely to do so. Aso make sure you only ever feed them in one spot for the same reason... Fish are like kids in the sense that they need routine. Routine also allows you to notice when someting is wrong.

Stand back and let them eat/ignore their food. As soon as their 5 minute time is up remove it. Don't attempt to feed them again until the next scheduled time. They are more liekly to learn this way.

Whatever you do don't interfeer with their food at the moment (eg: stick in your hands and push it about or get it closer to them) as this is likely to scare them and make them want to swim away rather than eat.

If they begin to become ill then you may need to seperate them (a livebearer breeding trap with a small fake plant for the to hide in will do) and you can moniter them more closely.

They are most liekly getting food but without you seeing them do so.

Hope this helps

 

[Discovery86]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[dwarfgourami]

The NitrAte level will very rarely be 0, unless you have a very heavily planted tank. Nothing under 40 is likely to do your fish any harm. Mine comes out of the tap at around 40.