Advice needed with fairly new tank...

[Hwhite86]

I am pretty new at this so thought I'd give a bit of a background first....

I have a 125L tank that has been set up for about 12 weeks now. It has at least 15 live plants (varying in size), nutra soil, sand and gravel. The first fish we put in after 4 weeks, was 6 red eye tetra and they have been absolutely fine. We then put in 2 catfish after a few weeks. Then went in 6 tiger barbs and last was 2 sailfin mollies. There is one tiger barb left after two weeks, some disappeared (most likely eaten) as we then found a couple more that we're half eaten and one fully intact. There was nothing wrong with the fins or body so I'm not to sure what's happened to them, though they had appeared to be harassing each other! I went to the tank this morning to find that one of the catfish has died. The water temp is 26-27, the nitrate, nitrite, ammonia is 0. The ph level is 7.0. We are doing a 20% water change very week. They are fed flake and bloodworm (tiny amount) daily. Can anyone tell me if there is something that we are doing wrong or we need to start doing, I'm starting to worry now that a catfish has died as well as most of the TB's.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hwhite86

 

[Miss.Jo]

Let me start off with the obvious questions and get them out of the way, Are you conditioning your tap water?

Second, are you testing the water you receive from the pet store(s) before adding fish to your tank.

Are you quarantining the fish before adding them to your new tank?

Are you floating the fish and slowly adding tank water to the bag and then using a net to add them to the new tank, or are you adding the new fish with their store water to the tank?

 

[Hwhite86]

Hi Miss Jo,

Yes, we're doing all of that except testing the store water. We've been floating the bag of fish in the tank for 10-15 minutes, then added our water to the bag and left it another 10 minutes, then released the fish and combined water to the tank.

Hwhite86 x

 

[Miss.Jo]

It is possible that your tetras are attacking them. They're a pretty territorial tetra, and being that they were put into the tank first it's very possible they're your culprit, have you been watching how they treat the other fish? Mollies and catfish are pretty peaceful fish so they'd be pretty easy target, the tiger barbs are semi-agressive so I'm puzzled as to how they would succumb to a tetra, but stranger things have happened. I'm also concerned that you introduced a sick fish to your tank and its disease is killing the others

 

[shellieca]

Sorry you're losing fish. From your water test readings it appears your tank isn't cycled. You should have some nitrAtes. Also you probably want to do larger water changes. I am not an expert but if I'm not mistaken it is unusual to have 0 ammonia, nitrites & nitrates. What are you using to test your water, strips or liquid? Did you QT the fish before adding them? It's possible one of them introduced something to your tank.