Please Help! Sick Bala? Pleco Not Eating ?

[cyndi.bohn]

Hi everyone. I'm new and haven't had a tank long. Maybe 2 months. We have a 90 gallon. It took a few weeks before the water was ok and we added 3 zebra danios. They're all good. After that we added 3 bala sharks and a Pleco. A little more than a week later the Pleco was dead. I had never seen him eat the algae tabs i put in so I assumed that's why he died but I don't know. We went and got a new Pleco. He is much more active but the tabs still just sit on the bottom of the tank. What does he eat? Also when we got the new Pleco we got an angelfish and a snail.

The day after we got the new Pleco we lost a bala. He jumped out in the middle of the night and died. So we now have 3 zebras. 2 balsa. A Pleco. An angelfish. And a snail. Now today one of my balas is laying on its side in the gravel. It's alive but I have no idea what to do! I don't want to lose him too.

Also. In general I've only ever seen the danios eat. I put in the flakes and they go nuts. No one else does. I've never witnessed the balas or the angelfish eating. Or the Pleco. The balas and angelfish also hover around the heater all day. The water is 80 so I don't think they're cold? And I tested the water and everything looked fine. The ph was about 7 and everything else on the strips looked ok.

So my emergency is my poor bala. What do I do? And why do they all hover around the heater. And should I be feeding something besides the flakes and algae tabs?


Thank you!

 

[phoenixgsd]

you dont say what your water stats are? you should invest in a liquid based test kit, strips are very inacurate, i think your temp is a tad high too

 

[cyndi.bohn]

you dont say what your water stats are? you should invest in a liquid based test kit, strips are very inacurate, i think your temp is a tad high too

I'm not sure I dont have it with me anymore. I'll have my husband run out for a liquid test kit now. And I can turn it down. Like 78?

 

[BerryAttack]

i would say that 76 is usually better.. if the temp is too high it will make your angel's life shorten. also my angel fish when i was starting out would hang by the heater and then die..

this may sound silly, but it works.
angel fish are like love birds, you buy one they both die because they are separate from each other. now when buying angel fish you have to make sure that they are not too small because then the stress is too much..
when looking to buy one make sure that all his or her fins are in tact and are swimming around. not floating there just treading water.. the store where i buy my angel fish is call Big Al's Aquarium. i find that they are cheaper than petsmart hah and the fish are unbelievably healthy. all the fish that i got there, maybe just one died out of 10. and none of my angel fish ever acted strange.

and why type of pleco do you have? sometimes there is wood eating ones.. etc there are tons out there.

 

[phoenixgsd]

I'm not sure I dont have it with me anymore. I'll have my husband run out for a liquid test kit now. And I can turn it down. Like 78?

like berryattack says, 76 would be better