Good water quality, fish keep dying

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foyan

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Apr 22, 2020
Messages
6
Hello everyone,

I'm a new member and I need some advice for my fish. I have a 25 liter (6 gallon) aquarium. I had 3 guppies and an algae eater, and for the first month everything was fine. Both female guppies had babies (23 in total) which I kept in a plastic tank inside the aquarium. But after some time, algae eater and one of the guppies died the same day.

I took some sample water to my store and they told me that levels are not good enough and advised me to do a partial water change and apply some bacteria substrate. I also gave away the babies, keeping only 8 of them.

This happened last week and this week 2 other guppies and one of the babies also died. I bought a JBL test kid today and measured water values. They seem to be good. I'm posting it at the end of the message.

Both guppies spend their last week around the upper part of the tank, gulping air. They didn't eat. There were no anomalies in their skin, but the female had its eyes turned black (I'm attaching a photo). For some time the male had some white poop that didn't go away.

Now I have 7 fries left, and I'm worried that they will die too. I'm doing partial water changes weekly and adding bacteria. I also make sure there is enough water circulation at the top of the tank. I'm still keeping them inside their plastic container inside the aquarium, worried that maybe the filter will harm them if I take them out. Do you have any other advice?

Thanks in advance.

Ph: 7.5
NH4: 0.05 mg/l
NO2: 0.1 mg/l
NO3: 10 mg/l
KH: 8 dKH
Temp: 25 degrees
 

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Just after posting the message I found out that one more fry is dead. There seems to be something really wrong, it seems like every day there is a new fish dying.
 
Maybe also good to mention, there are very small white dandruff like creatures swimming in the water. I cannot see their shape because of their small size, but as far as I see in google, they are not planaria.
 
Sounds like some sort of parasite. The picture of the female looks like she had some fin rot on her tail. Do you know what kind of algae eater you have?
Fry need really clean water to stay healthy, I reccomend doing 50% water changes a week or two 25% a week.
 
Unfortunately this morning I saw that all of the 6 remaining fry died.

If this was because of a parasite, how could I detect this earlier? Is there a test for it or a general parasite treatment?

I think the algae eater was a hillstream loach.
 
6 gallons is too small for a loach. They need to be kept in groups. Snails and shrimp are pretty much your only option for alge control in that sized tank. I reccomend rehoming him and cleaning out your tank and start fresh. Maybe do just male or female guppies to prevent breeding. A single betta would love that sized tank. If you want something different you could do a single pea puffer.

You can detect internal parasites by looking at your fishes behavior. If they are scratching themselves on decorations or have long stringy white poop there's a chance it's parasites. They could also look bloated.

Did you cycle your tank before adding the fish? We have articles on this website explaining fishless and fish in cycling if you need extra help with that.
 
Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll clean up the tank and start fresh, after doing a bit more reading on maintenance.

I cycled the tank for two weeks and got the water sample tested to the shop before adding the fish. But I think it got worse over time and unfortunately being new to this I was late in acting on it.
 
No problem don't be afraid to ask if you have more questions.
With smaller tanks it good to get in the habit of doing 50% water changes weekly.
Adding live plants can help too but if you do fake ones stick to silk. Fish can hurt themselves on plastic ones.
 
Thanks. Any suggestions for starter live plants for this size of tank? I think I'll first start with some plants before introducing fish again.
 
Anubias (only bury the roots not any part of the stem), marimo moss balls, any aquatic moss, cryptocoryne parva, frogbit (floating).
 
If you’re seeing measurable ammonia and nitrites your tank likely isn’t cycled though I’m not sure what kit can measure that low of amounts. Are you sure those numbers are correct? What method are you using to test and when you say you cycled for two weeks what do you mean? Are you still seeing measurable ammonia and nitrites on your latest tests?
 
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