prisoner1572
Aquarium Advice Regular
I have a 45 gallon tank that I set up in February of this year as a planted tank. I had been fertilizing them with Flourish, Flourish Excel, Phosphorus, Nitrogen and Potassium. I've haven't been very successful with them until I increased the Flourish Excel to daily and then the plants started to improve a little. I've been working on making a co2 system.
In mid-October, I purchased some fish from a show: 1 betta, 5 synodontis catfish, 3 guppies. The betta died the next day from a fungal infection. The other fish were fine but over the next two weeks, I lost all three guppies and one catfish. The guppies were lively then each one after the other started to get listless, hang at the top and then die. The one catfish just showed up dead one morning without any noticeable changes in the previous days.
I had gotten my water tested several times at pet stores before and after purchasing the fish and they said the test results were all zero except for nitrates which were still at a low level. pH is above the 7.6 maximum of the test kit. At the end of November I felt comfortable enough with the tank that I bought three more guppies and a dwarf blue gourami at Petco. In the last two weeks, I lost one guppy with the same symptoms and am currently in the process of losing at least one of the other two. The four remaining catfish and gourami appear fine for now.
The guppies were very active when I bought them and they ate well, but have now been swimming slowly and hanging at the surface, but not surface breathing. The worst one has started to become bloated.
Filter is a Eheim canister filter at 250 GPH which I slowed halfway thinking this was too strong for the fish.
I do 5% water changes every other week.
Fish were acclimated with the bag floating in the tank and adding water over the course of an hour.
Temperature is stable at 75.
I am feeding a variety of food: two different types of flake, mirco pellets, larger pellets, sinking wafers, brine shrimp and blood worms. All of these are in small amounts.
Thanks for any help you can give.
In mid-October, I purchased some fish from a show: 1 betta, 5 synodontis catfish, 3 guppies. The betta died the next day from a fungal infection. The other fish were fine but over the next two weeks, I lost all three guppies and one catfish. The guppies were lively then each one after the other started to get listless, hang at the top and then die. The one catfish just showed up dead one morning without any noticeable changes in the previous days.
I had gotten my water tested several times at pet stores before and after purchasing the fish and they said the test results were all zero except for nitrates which were still at a low level. pH is above the 7.6 maximum of the test kit. At the end of November I felt comfortable enough with the tank that I bought three more guppies and a dwarf blue gourami at Petco. In the last two weeks, I lost one guppy with the same symptoms and am currently in the process of losing at least one of the other two. The four remaining catfish and gourami appear fine for now.
The guppies were very active when I bought them and they ate well, but have now been swimming slowly and hanging at the surface, but not surface breathing. The worst one has started to become bloated.
Filter is a Eheim canister filter at 250 GPH which I slowed halfway thinking this was too strong for the fish.
I do 5% water changes every other week.
Fish were acclimated with the bag floating in the tank and adding water over the course of an hour.
Temperature is stable at 75.
I am feeding a variety of food: two different types of flake, mirco pellets, larger pellets, sinking wafers, brine shrimp and blood worms. All of these are in small amounts.
Thanks for any help you can give.
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