What is wrong with my water?!

[jackk-cavanagh]

Over the passed 2 months I've been absent in looking after my tank twice. However I've had family look after it for me. Just feeding and checking up on the tank. This would only be for a maximum of 6 days.

I've had 4 bristle nose plecos die for unknown reasons. The first two were the first week I was absent. I then bought the other two a week before I left again. One of my veiltail mollies is swimming with her two front fins instead of her tail fin as well. And recently I've just had a different mollie die of dropsy.

It's a 12 gallon tank, moderately planted. Ammonia is 0 nitrites are 0 and nitrates are 0.25

If anyone could please give me some insight to what is going wrong, because my tank was running like clock work a few months ago


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[Brookster123]

I don't suppose you change the water every so often?

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[jackk-cavanagh]

Yeah, I keep the water pristine whilst I'm at home. When I've returned from being away I try my best to return the water quality to what it was beforehand


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[Brookster123]

Maintaininh optimum water quality with one pleco in that size tank, let alone 3-4 is going to be near impossible.. what's the current stock and how often do you change water. That's the equation for success, throw in a couple other variables like frequency - volume of feeding..

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[jackk-cavanagh]

I was able to have quality water and a nice community tank. However in November I left for a week and left family to watch the tank. Once I returned I found 2 dead bristle noses, which I had kept for 6 months prior. They were also perfectly happy before I left. I feed the fish as much as they will eat within a few minutes. At the moment I have 2 mollies a platy. This is all I have now due to a series of unknown deaths as well as fish jumping out of the tank.


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[jackk-cavanagh]

Change water 3 times a week. I'll do a 50% water change and then 2 25% water changes


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[Brookster123]

Sounds like the fam may ha e over fed a bit?? Did the plecos look bloated?

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[philipraposo198]

Sounds like overstocked and overfed. What's the rest of your stock like. Keep in mind 12g is tiny and not suitable for most fish.

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