I've got a 70l tank, had 4 tiger barbs, 5 neon tetras and 2 loaches, been running a good 8 months now without troubles. I do a 25% wTer change every 2 weeks. I feed flakes as per the aquatic shop recommendations.
In the last 2 days we had 1 dead normal looking barb, followed by a presumed dropsy death (bloated, pineconing).
I will admit that as everyone seemed fine before I hadn't water tested for a couple of months. On doing so now I had crazy high nitrates (100+) so googled etc and realised I needed to clean the gravel and glass as well as water changes. So have given tank a good cleaned, day 1 - 50% water change incl gravel pump and internal glass scrub) day 2 - 25% and day 3 -25%, nitrate levels getting less (between 5-20 now) but I don't know how to reduce them anymore.
Also, after water change fish are happy, couple of hours later all at the top of the tank. This has happened a couple of times. I questioned if the heater was working, it's not amazing, but maintaining 25 degrees.
Any clues?
Thanks everyone x
In the last 2 days we had 1 dead normal looking barb, followed by a presumed dropsy death (bloated, pineconing).
I will admit that as everyone seemed fine before I hadn't water tested for a couple of months. On doing so now I had crazy high nitrates (100+) so googled etc and realised I needed to clean the gravel and glass as well as water changes. So have given tank a good cleaned, day 1 - 50% water change incl gravel pump and internal glass scrub) day 2 - 25% and day 3 -25%, nitrate levels getting less (between 5-20 now) but I don't know how to reduce them anymore.
Also, after water change fish are happy, couple of hours later all at the top of the tank. This has happened a couple of times. I questioned if the heater was working, it's not amazing, but maintaining 25 degrees.
Any clues?
Thanks everyone x