Poorly Fish - Help Please!

[Dibsy01]

Hello

We are fairly new to fish keeping and are having a problem with two of our fish.

We have a small tank - I think it is about 35 litres - which we have had up and running for about 3 months.

We have 2 zebra danios, 2 platys, 1 catfish of some description and 3 neon tetras.

We had a couple of fatalities in the first week or so of having the fish but everything has been fine since. I change 1/5 to 1/4 of the water every week or so and clean it every other week (the water that I had has 'AquaSafe' added to it). It has a filter/pump which I clean regularly. I feed the fish a little food twice a day and they seem to eat it all (flakes and pellets for the bottom feeder).

One of the danios and one of the platys are noticably smaller than the others - I thought to start with they may be different sexes but I'm not sure. They don't seem to be getting bullied by the other fish. Both of them are unwell. One is up on the surface, swims around a bit but is tilted over to one side and looks as if it gasping, the other spends most of its time lying on its side on the bottom and swims around a bit madly occasionally. Other than their size there is no obvious signs of illness i.e. no colour change, no obvious parasites/worms, no fungal infection.

Any ideas what it might be/what I can do would be gratefully received!

Thanks

Dibsy

 

[WILDER]

An Immediate water change.
How long has the tank been set up.
Stats would be good in ammonia,nitrite,nitrate,and ph.
The tank is overstocked.
The neons need a mature tank of six months and the tanks is way to small for them, plus the danio and platys all need nothing less than a 10gal.

 

[Dibsy01]

Thanks for the reply. How much of the water do I need to change - just the normal amount or more? The fish stock I have is what was advised where I got them from. The tank has been set up for about 4 months now and we have had no problems except a bit of algae which I resolved by having the light on less time each day.

I have to confess I have never tested the water - very bad I'm sure!

Dibsy

 

[WILDER]

About one gallon of water.
Do you use a gravel vac for your substrate.
Take a sample of your water to the lfs and tell them to write the readings down for you.
Or buy a master kit you can buy one for 17.99 it has ammonia,nitrite,nitrate, and ph.
Liquid test kits are the best.
Can you increase aeration in the tank.

 

[diet]

To increase the airation if u can re direct the output of ur pump so it semi-breaches the surface to cause a larger ripple etc this will help to get more oxygen into the tank

 

[Dibsy01]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have move the pump slightly so it is blowing bubbles at the surface and changed some of the water this morning. Off to the pet shop later to get a testing kit. I do use a gravel vac and have done that this morning too although decided not to clean the sides of the tank as I was worried about stressing the fish too much.

I let you know how I get on with the testing.

Thanks again.

Dibsy

 

[Dibsy01]

Well I've bought some testing strips the results are;

pH 7.2
KH 3
GH >16
N02 0 mg/l
N03 100 mg/l

On advice of pet shop have also put a bit of "Stress Coat" in the vain hope that it will help!

Dibsy

 

[WILDER]

You have a very high nitrate reading there need to get it down with water changes.

 

[Dibsy01]

Thanks for that, I changed about half the water today and was planning to do the same again tomorrow. Is that OK?

Dibsy

 

[WILDER]

I wouldn't do half of the tank to much swinging the stats to fast, which will stress the fish.
Just 25% water changes.

 

[Dibsy01]

OK, thanks again.