Up And Down 5 Days

dnn3 · Jun 9, 2008

in the last 5 days i have lost 2 fish in my 30 gal,2 in my 60 gal and this morning my blue rams have laid eggs for the first time.i guess you just have to take the good with the bad.seeing those eggs this morning put a big smile on my face.

JenCliBee · Jun 9, 2008

comiserations and congrats at same time hope they all hatch for ya

Colin_T · Jun 9, 2008

Have you added any new fishes or done a water change on the tanks recently? If so the new fish might have introduced a problem or the new water might have caused the deaths. Water changes will often stimulate fish into breeding.

dnn3 · Jun 10, 2008

i was in the middle of a water change in my 60 gal when my female swordtail just started swimming erraticly and then died within minutes and my dwarf gourami was already acting weird.she died sometime in the night.i was hoping the water change would help it.as for the 30 gal were the eggs are,i introduced a rubber lip plec 2 weeks ago and he died 2 days before my male swordtail.

Colin_T · Jun 10, 2008

Sounds like there could be a water quality issue. If the female swordtail died while you where filling the tank with tap water there might have been some chlorine/chloramine that got to her. If the fish have been acting weird and swimming erratically before the water change there could be a protozoan infection floating around the tank. These are often caused by excess gunk in the substrate and can cause fish to simply go nuts in a matter of seconds before rolling over and dieing. Regular water changes and gravel cleans normal prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Dwarf gouramis are notorious for health issues these days. A lot of them carry a virus that knocks the heck out of them.

Catfish are pretty good indicators of environmental factors. if the water is good they are good. If the water isn't 100% then they tend to be the first ones to succumb to any problems.

Have you checked the filters and made sure they are running properly? Also check the water quality, if there are high nitrates that could be an indication you need to do more frequent water changes.