Dying fish!

Hi Guys

I need a little help. I started with 10 neons in January/February and when I counted last night there are 8. The ends of their tails are jagged white. I think the pleco must be eating the bodies because I've found no dead fish? It's that or they are escaping somehow/somewhere.

My guppy female became solitary the other day which I assumed meant she was pregnant again but alas, last night she died. Not sure if it's related.

This could all be related to my overstocked tank which I'm trying to sort out.

I removed approximately half the water last night and I use Tetra Aquasafe, Nutrafin Cycle and Nutrafin Aqua Safe. I use these products on a weekly basis and do water changes every 1 - 2 weeks. I also use tank salt at 1 spoon per gallon.


Help!!!!

 

Please list all of the fish in your tank.

 

@Jimmy - 8 Neon Tetras, 2 Large Female Guppies, 15/17 Baby guppies (difficult to count) and a 12cm common pleco. As I said before, please don't shoot me down for the fact that these are all in a 25/30l tank. I am in the process of buying a 100l tank.

 

Do you test your ammonia levels? It might be a culprit in overstocked tanks, especially with fish that eat as much as live bearers do. Pleco's are also kind of messy.

 

@DigiGram - I must be honest and say that I have not checked any levels since I moved a month ago and my dying fish problem started at this point. I am moving to my new house in about a week.
I lost my male guppy a few days after the move and the neons got sick at about that time. Not sure if there is a problem with the water in Tokai.
I will try to test this evening and see what happens. I have a Serra Nitrate kit and a Daro Ph kit. Need to get the rest of the test kits but I've been relying on the additives mentioned above to control everything.

 

This sounds like ammonia... more frequent water changes and get that bigger tank soon... just a question on the salt you use... is it a teaspoon per 4.5l or do you add a tablespoon? if it is a tablespoon per 4.5l it is a bit too much for esp. Neons - round about 5kg/1000l....

 

@azurekoi - I'm adding a teaspoon per gallon which equates to 6 teaspoons for my tank. I tend to only add 3 - 4 teaspoons because of the Neons. I will try and get an ammonia test kit today. I have been doing frequent water changes but the last two changes were a mess. The water was too warm in last nights water change (accidently pushed the temp from 25 to 33 degrees and the change before I dropped the temp to 19 degrees. Oops! :embarrest:

 

Well - there is your answer! Fish do not feel temp in quite the same way as we do to them a one degree change is the equivalent of a 5 degree change to us.... Also at 33 degrees,your water held virtually no available oxygen for your fish....

Salt at the levels you are using is fine and quite benificial in an overstocked tank... but be carefull - without a acurate salinometer,it is difficult to maintain these levels acurately...

 

@azurekoi - The cold water change was a week ago and the hot change was after my guppy died so still not sure. Probably a water quality issue.

 

Yup Temp stresses over past week + ammonia not a good combo mate...

 

What are the best test kits to use because i have found it difficult to take the readings off each chemical test and comparing it to the ranges it must met.
I have seen tests that test the water in unit of gram per litre. How do you take your readings and compare it to the ranges calculated by the APSA calculator?
I would like to buy test units of the following:

Nitrate No3
Calcium Ca
Iron Fe
Phosphate po4
Magnesium Mg

 

@MarcHawke is there now way that you can perhaps temporarily house the fish in a bigger tank somewhere until you sort out the bigger tank? perhaps a friend or even a lps can help?

here is the best advice i can give you if you cannot house them somewhere else temporarily:

instead of doing very big water changes every week or 2, rather do a 10% water change every 2nd day or if its possible every day, these smaller, but more frequent water changes mean that there are no drastic changes to temperature or ph of the tank that comes with large water changes and this will also take care of excess ammonia and nitrites in the tank on a daily basis and make sure that the ammonia and nitrate leves do no peak at any one point because you are constantly keeping them low.

then once you have your larger tank you can revert to 20% water changes once a week and you will be sorted out. (once the new tank is cycled obviously)

 

just google g/l to ppm and you will get more than enough converters.
I like my new Sera test kit, but I am a Chemical Engineer so the Chemical part of me likes the titration, while the Engineer part of me prefer having a digital instrument

Can one buy the Sera tests separately? I do not use all of the tests in the kit, so only want to replace some of them. I'm also working on a colour checking system for the other men out there for whom all the greens on the chart looks the same

 

ppm = mg/L

 

Just to clarify if you want a 5ppm solution you weigh 5 mg into 1L of water.
1L of water = 1 000 000 mg

 

Sorry TheGrissom I'm not used to the Cape folk yet, up here 1L of water weight much less than 1kg, thus 5mg whatever + 982 000mg water (@1800m alt) = 5/982 005 which is almost 5ppm. True, it is close enough for this purpose I guess... Just being an engineer about it I guess

 

I am an analytical chemist so I use that conversion often but we take RO water and filter it even more to get MilliQ water which is what we use. But as you said it is close enough.

 

Obviously way off topic, but my small sum was based on MilliQ water, we only do density on MilliQ water, so I can't be too sure about the density of our dirty tap water