Still Learning

[Hayls]

Hi everyone my name is Hayley Mills, we've had over a dozen fish in the past 2-3 years, every now and again we keep losing them and don't know why, we have upgraded our fish tank, been advised to have snails and algae eater which we need to feed everyday

 

[Aiken Drum]

Hi Hayley

Welcome to the community. Im looking forward to seeing and hearing what you are getting up to.

As to your fish deaths can you give some more details? What fish are they? What size tanks? Filters? Any visible signs of ill health? What sort of water parameters do you get? Are you aware of the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle a tank? What is your tank maintenance routine? How much how often are you feeding?

Anything you can think of that might help people dig into your issues.

 

[Hayls]

Still learning about Fish

They are goldfish, Not sure what size tank, it's a filter where it sucks up the fish food, No signs of ill health, we clean the filter twice a week, we are feeding them once a day

 

[Aiken Drum]

Measure the tank dimension. Length, width, height. We can get a tank capacity from that.

Im going to make some assumptions here. Please correct me if im talking out of turn, but first off we need to determine your tank size and how many goldfish you are trying to keep in there.

Goldfish are very messy, get big, and live decades. They need big tanks. If the filtration isnt sufficient, if you arent changing lots of water etc they will be living in their own waste. If they arent in suitably sized tanks they cant grow and get stunted, but their internal organs dont stop growing which causes ill health and early deaths.

Im going to leave this link regarding goldfish and tank size.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/foru...uire-big-tanks-visual-perspective-265871.html

 

[Hayls]

It's either a 30L or 52L tank

We had 3 goldfish in there
1 sucker fish
2 snails

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ok. Well the bottom end for a single goldfish would be 80 litres. 120 litres would be better. For 3 goldfish 180 litres would be good. A pond would be even better.

Im also going to throw in the suckerfish. There are different kinds of sucker fish. Some are small (they all start small) and some get huge. A common pleco will grow to over 60cm in length and need at least 400 litres, 500 litres would be better. Can you post a photo of the sucker fish?

You need to make some changes if you want to keep fish healthy. Either get an appropriate size tank for your fish, or keep fish that are more appropriate for your tank size.

 

[Hayls]

The fish didn't grow much in the time we had them, as for the sucker fish it was a small one

We had the fish for a month

 

[Aiken Drum]

Ill go back to my post #2. Are you aware of the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle a tank? In an uncycled tank you will start to lose fish after a couple of weeks.

This is a link to some articles for new fishkeepers. Have a read through and we can elaborate on anything you need more explanation on.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/foru...ou-get-started-with-your-aquarium-154837.html

Any ideas on what you want to do now? Bigger tank or smaller fish?

 

[Hayls]

Did water test

PH Level:6.0

High Range PH 7.4

Ammonia level:4.0

Nirite level:5.0ppm

Nitrate Level:10.0ppm

 

[Aiken Drum]

Did water test

PH Level:6.0

High Range PH 7.4

Ammonia level:4.0

Nirite level:5.0ppm

Nitrate Level:10.0ppm

You arent cycled. Do you have any fish in there?

 

[Hayls]

No, only snails

 

[Aiken Drum]

I would just leave it running for now. The ammonia will get your cycle started. Dont put fish in there though.

Back to deciding on how you want to go. Bigger tank or smaller fish? How to move forward will depend on that. Let us know when you've made your mind. Might also be useful to get a water test of your tap water. Thats really acidic water. If thats coming from your tap you might need to raise the pH some.

 

[Hayls]

We haven't had the tank for long at all, the water we used for the tank is filtered rain water