miaz
Member
HI guys
I hope someone out there can help me, I've spent countless hours online and have no answers yet.
I have 2 tanks both completely cycled and been running for about a year. They are very differnt set ups, one with gravel and live plants, one with sand substrate and silk plants. The live planted tank contains guppies and the sand tank contains plattties and baloon mollies. The are both 80l tanks, understocked (never more than 5 small fish in them). Both kept at 25 degrees, with GH around 15.
The issue is that I keep losing fish without explanation. NO signs of injury or obvious illness. In some cases they seem a little skinny and lethargic for a few days, in other cases they are just dead one morning. Sometimes I lose them within a few weeks of bringing them home, sometimes they last a few months. Currentlty I have 1 platty that has lasted the whole year but I have stopped buying new fish as they literally just keep dying.
Now my tap water comes out at pH 7 BUT if you leave it for a few hours it goes up to 7.6, so I thought that my water changes were causing too much of a pH shift (as I often lost fish the morning after a water change). So I switched from doing 30% once a week to 15% twice a week, including a section of gravel vac each time. I test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH every week or 2 and I have only ever had an issue once, which was a weird random pH of 8 situation a couple of months ago in 1 of the tanks.
The really stange thing about my tap water is that despite going up to pH 7.6 when you let it sit it has very low Gh and Kh so I have to add those blue conditioning salts to new water to bring the water hardness up for the livebearers. For the past few months I have been adding easy-life conditioner tonic that the aquarium store told me would help ward off disease among livebearers.
2 days ago I came home to a dead baloon molly. I'd only had him for 1 month, so ok. But now this morning I have found one of my older mollies (he has been happy and energetic living in the tank for 4 months) lying on the bottom with clamped find breathing heavily. I did a water test, no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. In fact I did my 5% water change last night.
We do not use any perfume or bleach like cleaning products at all in the house, and I wash my hands thoroughly before touching anyhting on the tanks so I doubt any chemicals have gone into the water. I also feed a variety of high protein foods, including frozen brine shrimp as well as slightly boiled spinach and once a eek I give them a fasting day followed by pea the next morning.
I am really quite devestated at this latest loss. I really love my fish, and as I stated before I have stopped replacing them as I feel that no matter what I do I'm bringing home a sweet little fish to its death.
Noting online gives me any understanding of what I'm doing wrong. Has anyone got any ideas?
I hope someone out there can help me, I've spent countless hours online and have no answers yet.
I have 2 tanks both completely cycled and been running for about a year. They are very differnt set ups, one with gravel and live plants, one with sand substrate and silk plants. The live planted tank contains guppies and the sand tank contains plattties and baloon mollies. The are both 80l tanks, understocked (never more than 5 small fish in them). Both kept at 25 degrees, with GH around 15.
The issue is that I keep losing fish without explanation. NO signs of injury or obvious illness. In some cases they seem a little skinny and lethargic for a few days, in other cases they are just dead one morning. Sometimes I lose them within a few weeks of bringing them home, sometimes they last a few months. Currentlty I have 1 platty that has lasted the whole year but I have stopped buying new fish as they literally just keep dying.
Now my tap water comes out at pH 7 BUT if you leave it for a few hours it goes up to 7.6, so I thought that my water changes were causing too much of a pH shift (as I often lost fish the morning after a water change). So I switched from doing 30% once a week to 15% twice a week, including a section of gravel vac each time. I test ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH every week or 2 and I have only ever had an issue once, which was a weird random pH of 8 situation a couple of months ago in 1 of the tanks.
The really stange thing about my tap water is that despite going up to pH 7.6 when you let it sit it has very low Gh and Kh so I have to add those blue conditioning salts to new water to bring the water hardness up for the livebearers. For the past few months I have been adding easy-life conditioner tonic that the aquarium store told me would help ward off disease among livebearers.
2 days ago I came home to a dead baloon molly. I'd only had him for 1 month, so ok. But now this morning I have found one of my older mollies (he has been happy and energetic living in the tank for 4 months) lying on the bottom with clamped find breathing heavily. I did a water test, no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. In fact I did my 5% water change last night.
We do not use any perfume or bleach like cleaning products at all in the house, and I wash my hands thoroughly before touching anyhting on the tanks so I doubt any chemicals have gone into the water. I also feed a variety of high protein foods, including frozen brine shrimp as well as slightly boiled spinach and once a eek I give them a fasting day followed by pea the next morning.
I am really quite devestated at this latest loss. I really love my fish, and as I stated before I have stopped replacing them as I feel that no matter what I do I'm bringing home a sweet little fish to its death.
Noting online gives me any understanding of what I'm doing wrong. Has anyone got any ideas?