Whats Wrong With My Swordtail?

[Bambi211]

My Swordtail has been unwell for a couple of days, Gasping for air, fast breathing, and weirdly enough its not as the top, hes laying on the bottom??? I dont understand please help

I did a quatre water change yesterday, and cleaned my filter out, and i did another small water change today.

So i dont get what it is? Im currently looking for a liquid test kit, Including ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. It seems silly buying one for each.

I do have test strips but there not accurate at all.

Im worried the ammonia levels have gone up but im changing the water so that should decrease it surely?

I added 6 new fish on sunday, 5 Leopard Dianos, and one cory.

My tank is 60 litres, i currently have two clown loaches, 1 neon tetra, 3 lamp eyes, 1 glow eye.

And obviously the new increase of fish.

Please help I hate seeing him suffereing. Cos i dont get why hes dying?

Any advice would be very much apprecated!

xxxx

 

[drobbyb]

Your tank is severly overstocked. I believe this is what is causing the problem. Clown loaches get HUGE (12+ inches.) You need to reduce your fish numbers by alot asap.

 

[Bambi211]

Your tank is severly overstocked. I believe this is what is causing the problem. Clown loaches get HUGE (12+ inches.) You need to reduce your fish numbers by alot asap.

Oh no do you really think so ??

I wanted to add so many more fish aswell How many fish would you say i can have in a tank of 60 litres?

My clown loaches arent very big...Heres a pic..

Any advice is much appreciated thank you.

xx

 

[nosoup4you]

Definitely overstocked...how long has the tank been set up?

 

[Bambi211]

Definitely overstocked...how long has the tank been set up?

But my fish are so small?

Its been set up for months, A long time

How come you ask?

x

P.s...My Swordtail passed away this morning

R.I.P

x

 

[Miss Wiggle]

for a good quality test kit look for the API Freshwater master test kit, this covers pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and retails for around £20 on ebay all the time. not hard to track down at all.

to work out stocking levels we use a general guideline of 1" per gallon of water, your tank is around 16 gallons of water so you can have 16" of fish (based on adult size, they may be small now but they will grow quickly!), you have at the moment

5 Leopard Dianos - 5"
1 cory - 2" (depends on species though)
2 clown loaches - 24"
1 neon tetra - 1"
3 lamp eyes - 3"
1 glow eye - 1"

so that's 36", it's double what you should have in there however that's taking into account the full adult size of the clowns, they will need to be re-homed, once they are taken out of the equation you are not overstocked.

however all the other fish you have need to be kept ing roups of 6+ and will not be happy otherwise so you need to sit down, asses which fish you want to keep, bump up their shoal numbers and re-home the rest. We can help you out with this so let us know which fish are your favourites.

what i suspect is that you added too many fish at once, adding the cory, swordie and 5 danio's is basically doubling the fish you had in the tank before in terms of waste production and the filter can't cope with sudden increases like this, so you've probably had a mini cycle which killed off the swordie. Now this may have passed now but it's impossible to say without test readings.

For now you need to assume the worst which is high ammonia or nitrite, so do 50% changes every day to ensure these are low, when you get your test kit through take the readings and post them up and we can then start gioving some real advice on your situation when we know what it is.

 

[foley69]

may i also add too that when doing your water change there is a bottle of little bacteria you can buy called safe water most people disagree and dont think it works but i have used it since i started and never lost a single fish plus my ammonia and nitrite are always at 0 ...add this after you have added youre fresh water from the change do this weekly to keep the bacteria topped up this will help a lot

 

[Bambi211]

Wow that really was a lot of helpful interesting information, thank you!! Ive been dying for someone to explain properly about everything and now you have I really appreicate it.

Im going to look for that test kit, is there any chance you could send me a link? If not should i just reasearch into ebay test water kits?

My Favourite fish are.....


Siamese Figthers (as my top, but i know they dont live for long)
Guppies ( but someone has told me they dont get on with siamese fighters?)
Neon/Cardinal Tetras (im worried they may nip the siamese)
Corys (Do all of the corys mix together ok?) (I currently have an albino cory)
Clown Loaches (Im only keeping them for a while, when they start growing bigger ill take them back)
Sucker fish

(I would of got a bigger tank but my room is tiny, its the only one that would fit. I mean there really my top main fish, but i know they dont really mix do they?

Ive never realised when i started how hard it really is looking after them.


Thanks again everyone.

xxx

 

[Miss Wiggle]

for a test kit i recommend the API Freshwater master test kit, I don't have a link but there's normally plenty on ebay, they go for around £20 usually.

if you're into doing some research and learning a bit more about this wonderful hobby then have a read through each of the links in my signature, they'll all help you out with one aspect of sucessful fishkeeping so take the time to read as many of them as you can and you'll start to get a much clearer understanding of the world your fishies live in.

right onto your fish choices, quick word to the wise first though, remember you have a long life to live, there is time to keep all the fish you like you don't need to have them all in your first tank, get some of the ones that you like that are suitable for the tank you have and make a mental list of what I call 'one day' fish and at some point in the future you can set up a tank suitable for them.

Siamese Figthers (as my top, but i know they dont live for long) - siamese fighters don't really go with all that many fish at all, they're really not a community fish, they work much better in a small tank (2-5 gallons) by themselves. If you want to keep one then I'd strongly recommend you try and find a spot for a little tank somewhere.

Clown Loaches (Im only keeping them for a while, when they start growing bigger ill take them back) - the problem with this method is the actual taking them back, it's very hard to find home for adult clown loaches so a lot of fish shops will not take them back when they get big, also if you don't judge the time to take them back correctly then you can stunt them and cause permanent damage to the fish from them being in too small a tank. It's definately best to wait until you have space for a nice big tank before you try to keep clowns.

Now with a 16 gallon tank you can have a nice set up with the rest of the fish that you like I would suggest

3 x Male Guppies
5 x Neon/Cardinal Tetras
4 x Corys (can get different species if you like, your albino would be happiest with other albinos but as long as he has some company he'll be fine)
1 x Bristlenose plec (theres a lot of different species called 'sucker fish' this is the most suitable one for you)

Thats a little over the recommended stocking level in a new tank, but fine once the tank is mature and has been running for 6 months or more so just build up to it slowly.

So what I'd suggest you do is firstly get the test kit and let us know what the water is like, we'll tell you if it's safe to start making changes to your stocking, if we say it is then return all the fish you have except for the cory and neon, pick up 4 more neons and 3 more cories. then after a month or so add the bristlenose, then a month or so later add the guppies

 

[Bambi211]

Bad news, both of my clown loaches have died?

I never thought they would, they looked so happy. I guess that proves i definatly cant have them in my tank hey ?

Im gonna take my leopard dianos back next week, And get 3 guppies

Im gonna go by the amount you said this time.

Also do you think it will be ok if i keep my lamp eyes? Have two of them



xxxx

 

[LauraFrog]

Personally I would suggest it is okay if the filtration is very good, the tank is mature and you do a lot of water changes (about 50% per week) to buy two more lampeyes (I know them as diamond tetras I think) on top of the stocking recommended by Miss Wiggle. The recommended absolute max is 2 inches of fish per UK gallon, with large weekly water changes and good (excessive) filtration. Personally I have gone over this, but only because of vast water changes. A lot of my tanks are 'overstocked' but the fish are healthy, active, happy as far as I can tell and the ammonia and nitrite zero and nitrate low.

If you intend to keep the lampeyes, you must get some more of them, so either switch them for one of the suggestions in MW's post, or realise you're in for a lot of tank cleaning. If you intend to overstock realise that it means more work - more water changes, closer monitoring of water chemistry and more careful maintenance of filters. It can be done - but NOT if you're always busy and will skip the odd water change, etc etc. If this is your situation I recommend you stick with 1.5in/gal or less.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, if your'e going to overstock, you have to do it slowly. Stocking any tank, but particularly if stocking it heavily, is usually done by buying all the fish as juveniles, or else adding one a week or one a fortnight.

 

[Bambi211]

Excellent and really helpful information everyone, Thank you so much.

Ive changed my tank abit..

I think im going to do the above that you advised

3 x Male Guppies
5 x Neon/Cardinal Tetras
4 x Corys
1 x Bristlenose plec

I couldnt get rid of my lamp eyes, i felt too bad Ive kept my 2 lamp eyes and my 1 glow eye, and my one neon tetra and my cory.

Is it ok to still get all of the above you said?

or will that be to overstocked? :l

Im going to SLOWL...YYY add new fish, that seems to be my biggest weakness, when i see fish i like i buy to many..

Im going as soon as i can to invest in a really good filter and a water test kit.

Thanks again everyone.
xx