Fish dying... Mean loach?

[DaveAndLiz]

Hi.

We have:

3 Neon Tetras
2 Black Neon Tetras
1 Albino Catfish
2 Black Mollys
1 Balloon Molly
1 Zebra Danio
1 Leopard Danio

lost over the past couple of months:

1 Albino catfish
3 Balloon Mollys
1 Black Molly
2 Black Neon
1 Zebra Danio *
1 Leopard Danio *
1 Male Siamese fighter

(Those with a * are the first fish we had so we've put there loss down to old age.)

What is the most likely explanation for our loss of fish?
Possibilities we have noticed:

a) our golden loach seems to spend his life chasing round the other fish. Previously he has caused scale damage on Catfish and recently he's been getting more and more aggressive.

b) We recently moved and changed fish supplier. The new shop provided the Balloon Mollys and Black Mollys and we lost two after less than a week. Could this be that we have a disease introduced (about a month ago we had a case of white spot disease which was affecting the black neons, but we bought a remedy and it seemed to work). We also have very hard water in the area we moved to. Could this be an issue?

c) we have a large snail population. since we moved we have started noticing a different type of snail in the tank. can snails cause any problems? how is the best way to get rid of them?

Anyone have any ideas about this?

How long should these sorts of fish live? We really have no idea!

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

[FishLover14]

Golden loach i really am not to familar with them could you tell me a little about them.

If you have a snail porblem buy a yo-yo loach the love snails!
Must like the crunch.

Dan

 

[MarkLehr]

Generally, fish like you name will live 3 years, maybe 5.

I can't say why the fish are dying from what information you give. What size tank? What maintainance? Water tests? Tap water test compared to old water supply? A lot of variables here.

To rid tank of snails for free:
Take a tupperware lid. Put a slice of cucumber, etc. on top of lid. Place lid in take over night. In morning the lid will be covered with snails. Repeat as needed. Remove excess individuals by hand.

Loach's will usually eat snails & keep in check if you oinly have very small numbers. The occasional baby snail makes a nice snack for the loach.

 

[rubysoho]

Welcome to AA!

First, how long has your tank been set up? Have you been testing you water? If so, please give us the reading for pH, nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia. Do you have proper filtration? It is possible that the loach is behind this, but other factors may be involved.

a) our golden loach seems to spend his life chasing round the other fish. Previously he has caused scale damage on Catfish and recently he's been getting more and more aggressive.

Loaches like to be in groups of three or more. This way they pester eachother rather than the rest of the fish. Two will not work because three are needed to alliviate amount of aggression evenly. Do some research on your loach to see how big it will get and if you can have three in your tank. If not, I'd suggest taking him back for store credit.

b) We recently moved and changed fish supplier. The new shop provided the Balloon Mollys and Black Mollys and we lost two after less than a week. Could this be that we have a disease introduced (about a month ago we had a case of white spot disease which was affecting the black neons, but we bought a remedy and it seemed to work). We also have very hard water in the area we moved to. Could this be an issue?

Mollies do better in a brackish environment. However, I doubt this is what caused their deaths. Perhaps too many fish were added at one time and they died from ammonia or nitrite spikes. Also, Ick (the white spot disease I believe) would have shown up on the mollies if that had been a factor.

c) we have a large snail population. since we moved we have started noticing a different type of snail in the tank. can snails cause any problems? how is the best way to get rid of them?

These guys aren't the problem. However, you can either get some yo-yo loaches (which stay small, and remember, 3 or more) to take care of the problem, or pick them out by hand. Hope this helped!! And keep us posted

 

[BrianNY]

Mark, excellent advice on removing the snails

 

[Toirtis]

'golden loach' as in dojo/weather loach? They can be reasonably aggressive towards other fish, and will eat whatever they can...including small fish.