I thought my tank was almost perfect!!!

[sholi]

One question, why did my male lyretail die?

My tank is 10g
2 java ferns
5 fake plants
1 hiding rock (can fit 3 guppies)
gravel=substrate

Water parameters:
ph: 7.5
temp= 82 (seriously, thats the lowest i could go).
nitrite, nitrate, ammonia= 0
Liquid master test kit

Daily, weekly, monthly doings.
On sundays, tuedays, thursdays i feed them flakes
On mondays and fridays, i feed them boiled unsweetened peas.
On wednesday i feed them freeze-dried bloodworms.
On saturday i dont feed them at all.
Everyday i turn on the 6000k 10watts light for 8 hours.

Every thurdays i gravel vacuum 10% of the water. (it is reccomended i do 20-25% but i did 10% and the tank is as clean as ever with no little particles except the bubbles).

Monthly i clean the filter. (scrub tubes, swish filter cartige in warm dechlorined water). The next month i change filter cartiges.

I have a top fin 10 filter, i wouldve bought a better one but knowing how well this filter cleans my tank, i might just stick to it.

6 guppies. (well now my lyretail died, 5 now).
2 male (now 1) and 4 females.

My lyretail was happy and eating normally plus he was swimming normally as usual. There was no aggression, and he had just started growing his tail back from the tank he used to be nipped in, from petco.

There was no tracks of any parasite or sickness, and i cleaned those parasite successfully from internal parasites (pooping stringy white poop) with parasite guard 3 weeks ago.

I got my lyretail 4-5 weeks ago.

I mean i could tell the tank was healthy, because my tiger male guppy is just starting to grow his black snake coloration near his dorsal fin. SO i was thinking that the tiger (maybe i should say snake tiger now ) was still pretty young to just start growing its new coloration.

I said that because i don't think the lyretail died from old age. The lyretail is smaller than the tiger guppy and the tiger guppy is at his full length. While the lyretail is only 1 inch.

Does this mean lyretail guppies are naturally smaller than fancy guppies?

So i've told every details about that i could and is there anything that could've happened to my lyretail that i didnt know about?

 

[Aces11]

Did you cycle your tank? It could have dies from old age if your water is good and there were no signs of illness. Guppies, I've heard, have relatively short life spans.

 

[librarygirl]

I wouldn't change the filter cartridges; cleaning them in old tank water or dechlorinated water is fine, you shouldn't need to change them out unless they are literally falling apart and then you would run the new filter pads with the old for a while to seed them.

Also where are the nitrates? Or are those readings just after a large pwc?

Your filter is probably just enough for the tank, if not insufficient. I'd get another to run alongside it.

Not sure why the fish died since if the ammonia and nitrite have been consistently 0 it wasn't the water. Could just be an unexplained thing. I'd keep an eye on your current fish to make sure they are OK.

 

[sholi]

Did you cycle your tank? It could have dies from old age if your water is good and there were no signs of illness. Guppies, I've heard, have relatively short life spans.

Yes, i definetly cycled my tank.

 

[sholi]

I wouldn't change the filter cartridges; cleaning them in old tank water or dechlorinated water is fine, you shouldn't need to change them out unless they are literally falling apart and then you would run the new filter pads with the old for a while to seed them.

Also where are the nitrates? Or are those readings just after a large pwc?

Your filter is probably just enough for the tank, if not insufficient. I'd get another to run alongside it.

Not sure why the fish died since if the ammonia and nitrite have been consistently 0 it wasn't the water. Could just be an unexplained thing. I'd keep an eye on your current fish to make sure they are OK.

Readings are on saturdays 2 days after the pwc and the day i do not feed them. And i change the filter because the carbon is constantly falling out of the filter cartige (due to my fault) but now i know how to handle it. And i know its not because the carbon keeps on falling out, only 3-7 rocks fall out.

 

[alex07]

Readings are on saturdays 2 days after the pwc and the day i do not feed them. And i change the filter because the carbon is constantly falling out of the filter cartige (due to my fault) but now i know how to handle it. And i know its not because the carbon keeps on falling out, only 3-7 rocks fall out.

Just take out the carbon

 

[sholi]

But top fin don't sell seperate carbon from the cartige. The carbon is in the cartige. So you have to buy the cartige along with the carbon directly in the cartige. So if i took out the carbon out of the new cartige, and put the carbon in the currently used cartige, the new cartige is useless so theres no point of taking out the cartige.

 

[alex07]

But top fin don't sell seperate carbon from the cartige. The carbon is in the cartige. So you have to buy the cartige along with the carbon directly in the cartige. So if i took out the carbon out of the new cartige, and put the carbon in the currently used cartige, the new cartige is useless so theres no point of taking out the cartige.

Just cut a slit on 1 of the sides and take it out. Most of us just use carbon to remove medication

 

[Ziggs180]

the most probable cause was the guppies carried a disease from the LFS, which started to grow in your tank when you introduced them.

 

[sholi]

Okay, this is very scary now, my silver female guppy now has red spots all over her body when i came back from school (shes naturaly silver) and her spine is as deformed as ever. I mean, she has a little spine deformation problem when i bought her (VERY hard to noticed she had a bad spine) it was JUST very little. She's still swimming, and yesterday i fed her freeze-dried bloodworms. Now shes a bit active, but not as active as she used to be. OMG!!! WHAT SHOULD I DO!! Luckily today is the pwt change, should i use the parasite guard i have??? Help!!! i need help!!!

 

[KGotschall]

The tank is overstocked for the amount of filtration you have. It is unwise to ever 'clean' the filter, I always leave at least half the media untouched at any one time. I also do not maintain the filter in conjunction with gravel siphoning.

With that little filtration and the maintenance schedule your tank may be cycling every month when you clean your filter. This will cause stress on the fish. Also, feeding too much is, I believe, a leading cause of fish loss.