Something Fishy

[RandomTask]

I have a 10 gallon tank that I have had for about 6 months.

I lost one guppy and one platy from poor water conditions about 3 months ago.

Current fish include: 3 platies - 1 male and 2 female; 1 otto, 1 red danio
Water parameters are: Amonia - 0ppm; Nitrie - 0ppm; Nitrate - 0ppm; PH - 8.4

Problem - I had one other platy that I though was originally a female, but turned out to be a male. Both myself and the guy at the LFS though it was a female. Everything was fine until about 1 week ago, then it started to be anti-social. It hid under the rock, and in the corner, and didn't eat very much at all. No signs of any disease or anything either. I get home from work one day, and it is laying on the bottom of the tank on it's side dead. I don't know what happened, my wife said that she saw it alive just a few hours earlier. No other fish show signs of disease either, but for some reson all o fthe fish seem to be clicking off. The danio hangs out by itself, one (original)male play and one female platy hang out together, and the other female(original) hides in the corner all day. When I come over to the tank they all come up to see me, and when I feed them they all come to eat.

They used to swim together. The two original platies don't hang out anymore and that is worrying me that something is going on. The otto seems to be juts fine.

I did have a nitrite spike of .25ppm the other day so I did 30% water changes everyday until it was gone. I also have a lot of algae, so I used a tank buddies algae control tabblet. I don't think my otto liked that very much it started swimming really fast all over the place.

I'm looking for help to get all of my fish to play nice again, and to make sure that there is not a disease I need to take care of.

Also, how do I add salt to the tank. I bought some but I don't know how to administer it. How much do I put in? How often?

Thanks

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Why do you want to add salt to the tank? Salt should only be used as a med, or if the fish can't live without it, but all your fish are non-brackish or marine fish, pure freshwater.
The reason why your platy died is because of the nitrite spike, not only that but it was probably getting harrassed by the other male platy at night- you should get 1-2 more female platys to balance out the gender ratios as you need to have 1 male per 2-3 females .
The danio needs to be in a much bigger tank, you should rehome it unless you want to upgrade to a 20gal+ tank anytime soon, they also need to be in schools/shoals of other danios. You should get 2 more oto's minimum as they are very sociable fish, although if you have salt or water quality issues in the tank i would leave getting more oto's for now as they are very sensitive fish .
Your tank has been set up for months now, and shouldn't be cycling, what is you tank cleaning regime on average and how do you go about it and how often?

 

[dwarfgourami]

Why do you want to add salt to the tank? Salt should only be used as a med, or if the fish can't live without it, but all your fish are non-brackish or marine fish, pure freshwater.

He may be wanting to add salt to make the nitrites less toxic. I'd go for more water changes instead, for the oto's sake.

 

[RandomTask]

Usually do a 20% water change every 1.5 - 2 weeks. I'm sensing that I whould be doing 20% - 30% every week. I first fill a 2 galoon bucket of water and add the chemical remover and let it sit for at least 24 hours. After the water is ready, I unplug the airator, and pump. Then I siphon out water into a 1 gallon jug. I push the siphon all the way to the glass bottom of the tank to clean all of the rocks. Fill up 1 the jug once and dump the water out. I fill up the jug again and use that water to rinse off the filter. I put the filter back, and fill the tank up. turn on the pump and airator.

how long should I leave the light on for. I usually leave it on for 12 hours.

So one more female platy so that I have one male and three females?