Every few months..

[Dirtautoguy]

I am pretty new to aquariums, I have alway been fascinated with fish ( but my mom would never let me have a tank) but now I have one . Anyway I have had my tank setup for about a year now. Except every few months one fish dies. And I'm not sure why. They just start acting funny and stop eating and then its like they lose nerve control and try to swim but not very well. All the other fish are healthy. I do about a 25-50% water change every 2or 3 weeks the water here is basically right out of the mountain not chlorinated or anything,however it is pretty hard. Now I have noticed that one of my fish has a red spot on one side of his gill but not the other side he is one of the oldest fish in the tank what could it be? He acts normal. I have 4 rasboras 4 albino cat fish, 3 ottos, 1pleco, 1 black skirt tetra( I would like more if I have room), 2 glass catfish, 4 shrimp, and 3 glolight tetras. Thanks for your help!

Ps. The last casualty was a black skirt tetra really soon after I got the one I have now

 

[PockX]

How big is the tank? Also, I would recommend to do those changes at least every week.

 

[Dirtautoguy]

29 gallon sorry I meant to say that. Also I usually change it when I can start to see some stuff building up.

 

[PockX]

Is it a common pleco? I would say you're stocked even with the pleco, and over with it. They produce alot of waste and if you're only changing your water that often and with that many nitrates and things..you'll only kill your fish off one by one like you're doing. They will get sick (could be various different problems that could happen) but frequentl water changes should be done. There are some people that change 20% of there water every other day. I do a 50% every week at least. You shouldn't be doing it only once you're able "to see stuff building up" cuz by then it might be too late and your fish has something already.

Also, they might of seemed to be rude..but I was trying to be! Lol

 

[Dirtautoguy]

My nitrites are at 0 and my nitrates stay around 20

 

[PockX]

Hmm..Idk, maybe there is something else in the water or substrate? What are you feeding them? Overfeeding could do things like that..but I doubt you do that. That's about all I could think of.

 

[Dirtautoguy]

I was feeding fish flakes and sinking bottom feeder food, however i ran out of the sinking food and got a different kind of sinking pellets that I have noticed seem to be cleaner and the fish seem to like it more. Plus a get like 2x as much for the same price.

 

[PockX]

Maybe they're just poor quality fish when you get them and you're unlucky? Usually the answer lies in the water..but if you said yours is good..then that's all I can really think of. A common pleco will overstock your tank so it could be that too. Also, the test strips aren't as accurate as the liquid (not sure which you're using).

 

[Dirtautoguy]

That's a possibility I didn't think about that, but now that I do the ones that kept dieing are the ones that I got at a local fish store that when I first started my tank the fish from there kept dieing. I think all this fish I have now except the Pleco are from petsmart/petco and the local fish store doesn't sell fish anymore haha.

 

[PockX]

That's a possibility I didn't think about that, but now that I do the ones that kept dieing are the ones that I got at a local fish store that when I first started my tank the fish from there kept dieing. I think all this fish I have now except the Pleco are from petsmart/petco and the local fish store doesn't sell fish anymore haha.

Yeah Idk haha..maybe someone else can chime in. Only thing I could else add is maybe that you didn't cycle your tank good enough when you had those first fish and it finally caught up to them.

 

[Dirtautoguy]

Yeah and so far everyone seems to be pretty happy now that all the fish are petco/petsmart fish