My fish are dying and i don’t know why- can you help me?
Ok, first off, let me tell you the basics of what we’ve got for an aquarium and fish:
- we have a 10 gallon aquarium with florescent ( excuse my spelling) lights and one of those filters that pulls the water through the rocks and up a tube and out again into the aquarium.
we have rocks, 3 plastic plants and one of those little castle things for decoration.
the chemicals we use in the tank are the stress coat and the stress zyme, nothing else. we feed our fish once a day with tetra food.
we have a therometer that sits in the rocks, and the temp always stays right at 70. we don’t have a heater. ( fish lady said we didn’t need one cause summer is coming)
we started out the tank 3 weeks ago. we waited a week before we put fish in, followed the proper procedure for introducing the fish into the tank, and everything was fine for a week. we started with 2 mollies, 2 ploy, 2 striped barbs. one molie died and one ploy died. we changed 2/3 of the water, leaving the water out overnight to reach room temperature, and we treated it with the zyme and the stress coat. we then bought 4 more mollies, 6 neon tetras, and a algae sucker. ( actually the fish lady replaced our dead fish for free, she is pretty good about that!)
first, a mollie died. it was weird because it floated to the bottom and then it started swimming again like nothing was wrong. it acted fine, then, we found it hours later dead at the bottom of the tank. another one died a few days later. Then, we bought more mollies and 6 tetras, and 2 days later all the tetras were dead.
we are going to change the water and siphon the gunk from the rocks and see what happens. there isn’t much gunk in there, but the water is starting to get a little cloudy. i noticed white fuzzy stuff on the rocks in some places, not sure what that is. i don’t notice anything else except fish poo and some food particles. we shut the lights off at night and turn then on first thing in the morning.
ok, does anyone know what is wrong? we are new to this and i want to figure this out soon before the others die. Thank you for your feedback!
if i take the fish out to clean the tank, how do i do that? do i just get a clean pail and put the aqarium water in there with the fish? how do i scrub the tank and clean the rocks properly?
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Throw out the food you’re giving them, go to a different store and buy a new package of food, check the expiration date, preference go with the longest expiration date. Make sure your tank is no where near electrical devices or anything that creates electrical or magnetic waves.
Hope this helps!
ok, the only thing that i can think of is that you neeeeed a heater…it doesnt matter what the lady says the water is wayyy toooo cold fo rthe fishies, you need to have a heater even if the summer season is coming. The water should be 75 – 80 degrees, get a heater and then email me after you get the heater going and everything for at least a week, your fish should be able to be healthy when you get the heater. Well, tell me how it goes!
Hope I Helped!
Did you test the water to see if the Ph, Nitrite, and Ammonia are good? The Ph should be 7.0, the ammonia and nitrite should be zero.
Ammonia is very toxic to troprical fish. I would see if the petstore has any testing kits there and buy it. Or maybe some store do water testing there free of charge. The petstore I work at does the testing for free.
For tropical fish, you do need a heather. It doesn’t make a difference if it’s summer or winter. They need the heater.
Hopefully it will work out and you guys can get to the bottom of all the deaths. Good luck!
once my fish died because i had some turpentine in the air and it went with the air thing into the aquarium and they “inhaled” it and died:(
so check if you don’t have something in the air.
its probably the ammonia acting up. this is what happened to me. if you go to a pet store theres ammonia tests. thats how you will know if the ammonia iz very high. be carful uz they die very easally. good luck! =]
It sounds like you tank has not cycled yet you need to test you water and make sure it is at a safe level. But the very first thing you need to do it stop buying fish. Every time you add more fish to the tank it is going to throw the chemical balance off. You are probably going to loose a few more fish during the cycle, it is just to hard on any fish to live through. Do daily 10% water changing to make it a little easier on the fish.
The white fuzz you are seeing is uneaten food that bacteria is growing on. When you see this it is a hint that you are over feeding. The less waste you have in the tank the better during this time.
You will want a heater, all you fish are tropical and need to be kept in a tank around 75-78 degrees.
You did follow all the tank “rules” about cycling which is nice to hear! But sometimes it just takes a little longer which is perfectly normal. Just give it some time the tank will straighten out.
Best of Luck!
ok thee white stuff could be mold. what i would do is take all the fish out that tank imedditly. what might be happening is there is some sort of disease thats in the water causeing these fish to die so quickly. what i would do is after taking all the fish out scrub the tank really good the theremometer filter and even the plants. get all the white stuff off. Do you use aqua safe that makes tap water safe for fish. if not then you should put some in to help prevent water diseases. another thing you should do is by this chemical for fish called, RIdIch disease treat ment this will prevent fish from getting diseases. after you take the fish out seperate the sick ones from the well ones. One other aspect of this problem might be there are to many fish good luck:)