Please Help

[raverfish]

Hi,
Could someone please advise me I have 2 goldfish a plec and guppies and mollies and neons and 2 gourmet fish I have recently been losing my guppies and a neon I have been finding them cocooned with fur like stuff... I recently brought a new tank and test regular for water elements can anybody advise me please I have 2 other tanks which are fine ...

 

[CezzaXV]

Do you have a filter on your tank? Have you cycled it? I'm getting the impression that you don't and haven't, and this will be the cause. You say you test your water - can you give us the results?

Also, goldfish are coldwater fish whereas all your other fish are tropical, and unless you have a MASSIVE tank, the plec will grow too large for it.

Are you using a heater? Whether you are or not, some of your fish will be unhappy as they're incompatible tank mates.

 

[raverfish]

hiya yes i do have filter air pump and heater in my tank and sorry they are not goldfish lol as my mum put it up lol they are pearlscale orlando similar to goldfish the tank is quite big so the plec is fine i have cycled my water and my nitrate was a bit low but everything else was normal ??? thanks for replying

 

[CezzaXV]

The water doesn't cycle, the filter does, so I'm guessing you've got an uncycled filter. In a cycled tank where ammonia (which fish produce) is converted into nitrite and then nitrate, nitrate should be high if anything. Low nitrate to me, without knowing any more details, just suggests you've got low nitrate in your tap water and/or there is little to no helpful bacteria in your filter. Have you tested your water since you've had fish in it? I suspect you've got ammonia in your tank water which will be causing these deaths. Ammonia and nitrite is highly toxic to fish, so your first course of action (like, right now) should be to test and if it's present, do a large enough water change to get it as close to 0 as possible. If it turns out that is the case, we can put you onto some cycling resources to have a read of.

I'm not familiar with the pearscale orlando but a google search seems to suggest they should be okay at tropical temperatures, though someone else with more knowledge may say different. You don't say how big your tank is, but are you aware some species of plec will grow to 1-2 feet? I wasn't kidding when I said you need a MASSIVE tank to keep them.