Neon Tetra's

[em54lee]

we recently brought our first tank, set it up and running for a week before introducing any fish then changed 20 percent of the water. we have a heater, an air pump with an air stone that covers the back wall of the tank and a stingray filter. 6 living plants 1 plastic plant a piece of drift wood and a small cave type thing.

We then introduced 5 neon tetra's, 3 sunset platy's, 2 silver mollies, 1 black molly and the big mistake was 2 red tailed black sharks.

apart from the sharks chasing each other we had no problems for about a week until we lost 3 of the tetra's and one of the platy's is there anything from the list that would have killed them off??


since then we have added 3 male and 6 female guppies, 3 more platy's (1 male 2 female).

One of the guppies has today died whilst giving birth, unfortunately she has given birth whilst we were out and we appear to have only 1 surviving fry.

we realize that we have a lot of fish that will be having live young so would we be better off getting lots of floating plants or a separate tank??

 

[Piltdownpaul]

From what i've read it seems like your bacterial system in your filters hasnt cycled fully leading to ammonia/nitrite/nitrate building up and killing your fish. Neons are particularly sensitive i find to ammonia and with you overstocking your tank early this appears to be overloading the filters. There are plenty of articles on here about cycling but do 25% water change immediately and daily and if you can move the fish out all well and good otherwise its good luck and lets hope your cycling finishes quick!

 

[WILDER]

How many gallons is the tank.
You have added far to many fish to soon.
Neon tetra need a mature tank of six months.
The reason why the fish are dying is because the tanks cycling, ammonia and nitrite are lethal to sensitive fish, all fish.
Been given bad advice.

I would take the sharks back to the lfs.
I would take a sample of your water to the lfs and tell them to write the readings down for you.

Are the fish gasping at the top of the tank.

 

[em54lee]

the fish are all behaving normally, none of them are hanging around the top of the tank they are swimming at all levels of the tank and seem pretty happy.

It is a 70 litre tank

 

[WILDER]

Take the sharks back to the lfs they need to be in 40 gallon tanks, you cannot keep two red tailed sharks together they won't tolerate one another.
Research on cycling a fish tank.
I wouldn't add anymore fish till the tank has cycled.
Invest in a master liquid test kit of your own.
Increase aeration.

 

[em54lee]

ok thanks for the advice! do i need a bigger air pump then or just more air stones/airation devices?

 

[WILDER]

No one airstone will be fine for your tank size.
If you don't rehome the sharks they will start to kill off the livebearers in such a small tank.