Why Are They Dieing?

[basboi85]

Im not posting this as a emergency as there is nothing that can be done now

Guys and girls can any of you help me work this out

Before you ask I know my water stats are perfect as I've had my lfs (swallow aquatics Rayleigh very respectable been around since I was young) do a water test on my water with about 8 different tests as I've had 2 fish that have died from them
As they wanted proof its my fault and it wasn't.

he said my water is perfect and my ph was 7.0 so im dead in middle of gourami preference and didn't say what the other results was.

I'm buying one of their kits that they have for sale which is £80 !! Because it had everything and looks the dogs nuts as well lol

My water temp furthest away from my heater is and has sat at 26.c. ( I even tested it tonight and put it under hot water to see if it was faulty and its working fine
I don't have any weird smells from the tank.
There's no marks/ fuzz / sores on the fish I made sure of it before I walked away with them and inspected the other fish


This morning before I went out (11:50am) all my blue gourami's was swimming around together happy as pig in muck then I come home at 6 pm from my wife's nan's and I've had yet another gourami laying dead on the bottom ( so could have been only dead within a couple hours) and now I've got another gourami from the same shop dieing !!!!


What the hell is going on


Is this common for gourami's to die like this ???

tank is ( rio 400 )
Filtration eheim 2213 & 2217
And have 2 air stones running and spray bar
Temp dead 26.c

Stock
20 adult Molly's ( x3 are large)
9 Mickey Mouse platys
2 new fancy guppies bought yesterday from same fish store
And ATM 4 alive gourami's 2x 1.5 inch and 2x 2.5-3 inch gourami's and all female

My daughter who's 6 saw the first one dead and it upset her and now she's seen it again and they was supposed to be her fish ( secretly mine but she's none the wiser )

I'm going to be phoning them tomorrow as I'm am not impressed with what's happening.

Please someone tell me its not me causing this and its somehow the lfs fault

 

[Spurry]

Before you ask I know my water stats are perfect as I've had my lfs do a water test on my water ok i no you said this BUT
a good start is to post what the stats are so please do
it is a good idea to have your own test kit £80 tbh i would not pay that what ever its test for
A api master test kit £25 would do most things you will need

ok so please post the water stats ?
how long has the tank been set up ?
how do you do your water changes ?
what gourami are they ?

and lastly is it only the gourami that are dying ?

 

[Jam Jam]

I have just been reading up on gourami myself as I plan to buy two.
Read the gourami section on this forum is very interesting! They do seem to die very quickly when buying from the Lfs it said due to interbreeding ect and being farmed not from the wild so not a hardy fish?

In the wild state, they are. But dwarf gouramis are bred on farms, where antibiotics have been used freely to minimise losses. Once shipped to the retailer, the dwarf gouramis no longer receive antibiotic medication, and the internal bacteria can then start to cause problems. Inbreeding for colour varieties has probably lowered their intrinsic hardiness as well.

I know this refers to dwarf but it may affect all these species?

 

[WILDER]

I had no luck either when I bought some honey gouramis years ago. They all died one by one.

How long did you climatize the new fish for?
Did they look pale or darker in colour?
Were they able to maintain balance in the water?
Were any of the gouramis resting for long periods, leaning to one side?
Did the act listless and lethargic.
Did you notice what colour there waste was when they went to the toilet?

 

[elmo666]

Answer Wllders q's if you can, he knows his stuff. Hopefully, tho, I can put your mind at rest. It's highly likely that your tank is fine. Over the years I have been involved with a couple of large aquatic outlets, and losses of gouramii are big! One big water garden used to order in double what they wanted, I used to collect them fri morning from manchester airport (ben-air) so they could be shifted over the busy wknd. Sad, yes, but that's business unfortunately., Anyway, I digress.. They certainly are not hardy and the poor little sods pass over all too often when stressed. It's always upsetting when the kids get attached and bothered by their passing. Don't buy any that haven't been in the lfs for at least a week, and then leave off the lights after releasing them until the following day. If you can set up a slow drip into the bag to acclimatise them before release all the better.

 

[basboi85]

I cant do a water test on anything as my lit has run out and i dont have enough of my other tests so would be invalid

Both times I've left them in the bag for 20 mins to acclimatise then add a bit of water every 10 mins up to a hour since they first went in to the tank.
I even left the lights off for 2.5-3 hours to try and not scare them and I even covered my tank with a thick sheet as I have young children and all they'll do is be up at the tank ) if I was a fish I'd prob be scared of their ugly mugs lol)

They all could balance fine and they are all resting for a long time besides my 2 big spotted.

They are/ was blue gourami's. aka blue spotted ect ect

When I bought them they had dark colouring like opaline colouring and the one I have left that has a blue colour has lightened up but is swimming around happily eating and going up for air like all gourami's do like I've read up on through the gourami section.

I still have a gold coloured one that is fine eating happily ect ect.

The ones I had did hide a lot when I first got them but I put that down to shock/ new environment. But they ate.

And the one that died earlier today was light in colour but the one that has died tonight had darkened in colour.

Their poo that I noticed was dark but not black.

Since I posted this I've now had 2 tetras die both are over 3 years old and 5 of my mollys are hiding with clamped fins 2 are refusing to eat. I've done a 50% water change as I'm now starting to panic.

I've never lost fish like this in the 4.5 years of running a tank and I must be lucky.

I've had the odd few die but that's from dropsy to dieing after giving birth.

I've never had ich luckily for me and I'm getting the feeling these new gourami's are going to make my tank crash and to be honest I think I'll probably freak out as I need these fish as being a ex soldier I'm a bit temperamental upstairs and when I start freaking out they help me relax.

 

[Jam Jam]

Oh dear mate sorry to hear that
I hope you get sorted and find out what it is ? Sounds like theres not a lot more you can do apart from a massive 90% water change and re test again.
Hang in there some thing will come of light.

 

[basboi85]

Well I've come down this morning and I've scooped out 9 more dead fish 1 being the other new gourami.

I spoke to the fish store and the the bloke who I've spoke to who is someone different again is trying to blame my tank water and wants me to take yet another load of my tank water to test it and his other 2 colleges saying they must have not tested it properly.

1. how can 2 of them not test it properly ?? And if they don't know what they are doing then #136### are they doing testing water ??

The old bloke who is a senior worker there quite clearly knows why he's talking about so that idiot on the phone I obv a jobs worth and doesn't want to take responsibility for his shops screw up as their fish is causing my tank to crash.

I've lost 4 of my prised Molly's which included sailfin male Molly and my copper Molly

Seriously losing my temper

 

[Aquascaper]

I would take a large sample of water in and tell them it's in their best interest to find out what's wrong with your tank water (maybe using their overly expensive £80 test kits) as if there is no problem then they will be facing the bill for replacing all your stock.

 

[Spurry]

i learned to take every thing that LFS tell you as being a load of #105### where did i learn the this forum
i test my own water, if you can not do that take a pen and right down the results so we can see them
also not that i would buy from them but pets at home do free water test and use api test kit take sum water there and ask them to test it as well
then you have 2 different test again take a pen right it down, as ive seen in my LFS them saying its ok when peoples water is not

any thing above 0 in ammonia/nitrite is not ok
get back to us when you can and good look
i got a nutrafin test kit from MH as they price match look on internet for it cheaper then take in a print of it i saved £20

 

[basboi85]

Like all typical shops that try to refuse any fish back say that the tank water is bad but when you get 2 people within a space of 48 hours both say that my water is perfect and then another has the cheek to say that his colleges must've done it wrong.

Thy use the test kits that they used on my water in their own tanks so they have not legs to stand on with test kit problems

I will be taking some water to them so they can test it and when it shows it perfect like his two colleges said I will defo be giving him a price of my mind and I'm sure his boss and colleges will as well for slating their competence as if someone said that about me I would defo have something to say about it.

And one of my females has had babies about a hour ago so sureley my water can't be that bad as if she was under stress from bad water conditions she would abort the pregnancy

Ill post back with water tests reports as I'm not letting this one lie.

 

[Primous]

I just read through and figured I'd add my two cents...

Live bearers give birth, non stop, You put them in a cup of tea and they'll give birth...

You are using lit tests? Therefore you will not have any clue as to what your water stats are. Buy yourself a nutrafin or api test kit (i'd recommend nutrafin) and you'll get a true measure of what's really going on in your tank. Lit tests are a waste of time and tank water. 9 dead fish means the problem is in your tank not the lfs so find out what it is. Although that can sound harsh rest assured 99.9% of the people on this board made the same mistake including me.

 

[Spurry]

What is a Lit test ?

So have you been to LFS and got the results of the water test to show us ?

 

[Primous]

Lit test = litmus strips/litmus paper

 

[Spurry]

Lit test = litmus strips/litmus paper

Arr thanks, not good then if he been using this type of test!