Fish dying no reasoning

[Sid]

Hello everyone,

So I have a dilemma - fish are dying and no one knows why. I have been to several different aquarium shops and no one has any idea as to why the fish are dying.

Most of them have all done this weird behaviour a couple of days/just before they have died:
- stayed at the top of the tank
- not moved much (just stayed in the same position with dorsal and pectoral fins moving a little bit)
- some have hid behind the filter where there is no water flow.

I have had at least 8 guppies and platies die but none of the other inhabitants ( lace Gourami, angelfish, 13 angelfish and 3 juvenile bristlenose)

I tested the water yesterday and the results were great:

Ph - 7.0-7.2
Ammonia- 0
Nitrate - 0
Nitrite - 0

I do 1-2 water changes every week but recently I have had a bit of algae so I've been doing about a 35-50% change every day for the past 3 days.

By the way, my tank was cycled for about 5-6 weeks before I got fish



Someone please help!!!

 

[meegosh]

Hey there,

A couple questions that will help us get you better advice... What size tank are you running? 13 Angelfish is a lot. What are you using to test your water? You should have some detectable amounts of nitrates, especially with the stock you have.

Do the guppies that died have any torn fins or chunks missing? How big are your angels? My angelfish had no problems eating adult guppies whole.

Best of luck!

 

[V227]

If the water is fine, and your Guppies and Plattys had no outward signs of disease other than the listed, IMO intestinal bacterial infection. Likely a bad batch from your LFS. As noted above, Angels and Guppies probably not a good combination.

 

[Sid]

Hello everyone
I'm so sorry but I have only 1 angelfish... I don't know how 13 got there! It is small and doesn't even go near the guppies. The tank is 70 litres and I use the "freshwater master test kit".
The guppies that died had no chunks or tears, in fact, some of them even died the day after I got them.

Sorry about the inconvenience!!

 

[meegosh]

Hey Sid, thanks for clarifying! You still have quite a few fish for a 70 litre, even with the angel being small. You said you cycled your tank for 5-6 weeks. How did you cycle it? Did you ever have ammonia or nitrite readings?

 

[Angellove78]

If your water is fine and angel is fine. And the other fish are dying off. My question is: how are you putting them in the tank when you get them home. Do you let the bag float 10-15 mins.? And add alittle of your tank water in the bag little by little? They will go into shock if you just dump them in. A big Temp. Change and different waters will shock a fish.

 

[Mebbid]

Something in your water test isn't right. A cycled aquarium should never have 0ppm nitrate unless you regularly change out 100% of the water. Are you sure you're preforming the nitrate test correctly?

Assuming you're using an API master test kit It's VERY commonly done wrong which gives a false reading of 0ppm. The primary thing done wrong is that the vials / bottles are not shaken for long enough. Use a timer app on your phone to make sure it's being done long enough.


If you're not using API liquid test kits then I would take a water sample into the LFS tomorrow as soon as possible to have them test it.

 

[coralbandit]

Something in your water test isn't right. A cycled aquarium should never have 0ppm nitrate unless you regularly change out 100% of the water. Are you sure you're preforming the nitrate test correctly?

Assuming you're using an API master test kit It's VERY commonly done wrong which gives a false reading of 0ppm. The primary thing done wrong is that the vials / bottles are not shaken for long enough. Use a timer app on your phone to make sure it's being done long enough.

^^ I agree ^^
For API liquid nitrate test you need to shake the living daylights out of the #2 bottle for 30 seconds before adding drops...Many do not do this and think their tank has zero nitrates only to find out something quite the opposite upon testing correctly...