Please help! At wits end!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Danjmcnulty

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Mar 28, 2011
Messages
3
Hi, my name is dan,

BACKROUND INFO

I own a 55 gal tank and a 39 gal. For years my mom owned many large tanks of fish fresh and salt water and never had a problem. Then several years back, she decided to give it up. I took interest about 5 months ago and figured I'd start of with a 39 gallon freshwater tank. I started by wiping the tank with a wet paper towel, then washed the substrate before putting it in, then put all the decorations in. I added the water conditioner and biological supplement and waited 48hrs before adding 3 silver dollar fish. After a little more than a month I decided to add 2 pearl gouramis and 2 powder blue dwarf gouramis. After a couple more weeks I added a pleco. after about three months of of thriving, I decided to add 5 small glass tetras. Within days I found one of my silver dollars died. I removed it adds tested the water-no problems. Days after the other two died. I tested again and the results were no different. I then bought a bigger tank with hopes that it would take awaysome stress. The fish did fine for a month so I bought a dragon gory, a blue crayfish, some angelfish and 2 snails after a few days, the gory and the crayfish were dead. The gory had mouth fungus. So I did a water change and began treating them for mouth fungus then did another water change. All four of my gouramis, my snails, an angelfish and 2 glass tetras died. A month later I decided to try once more with hardy fish. 2 mollys and 2 tinfoil barbs, both died. The two bamboo shrimp survived.

CURRENTLY IN MY TANK: 2 shrimp, 3 glass tetras, 3 angel fish, 1 pleco

CURRENT EQUIPTMENT: aquatech dual output power filter, aquafin 40 power filter, heater, rina air pump with a rock bubbler, all fake plants, fake rocks.

MAINTAINANCE: 15% water change biweekly, I've been draining some of the old water into a spare 10 gal tank then keeping the fish in there for 24hrs. I replace the old water with new tap water that had been conditioned
 
Hmmm...could be lots of things going on, but my first questions for you are...

1.) Do you have a drop type test kit, and do you have a working knowledge of the nitrogen cycle? Many of your problems could be arising from cycling issues. I see that you tested the water after the silver dollar died, but what specifically did you test? pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Test results might help us to help you better. (if you have test strips instead of the drop type, consider buying an API master test kit. The strips are pretty much useless.)

2.) Are you quarantining (spelling?) the new fish? I am not sure I understaind the last paragraph about maintainance...are you keeping new fish in a smaller tank for 24 hours, and then putting them into the larger tanks? New fish should be quarantined for at least 4 weeks, longer if possible. Or is that paragraph referring to the way you do water changes?
 
Back
Top Bottom