Starting Up Again...

Hi,

So I had 2 x 5 gallon tanks (one was my sisters that she disowned) for over a year. The entire time I would have african dwarf frogs and 1 or 2 guppies, although that changed due to losing some over time. Initially I lost a few fish due to a poor cycling job (I knew nothing back then), but then everything stabilized and I had no water quality problems thereafter. For the next year I would lose multiple guppies and 2 frogs out of the blue. Water quality was good and everything should have been fine. In early January though, I went away for a week and came back to a dead fish and frog. Water quality was a little poor, but nothing that should have killed my fish (I think). Anyways, all said and done, I lost everything and put the tanks away to take a break before attempting to restart. I'm not sure what happened. Some of the fish looked really ill when they were dead (bloating, dropsy), but I never knew what was happening and didn't know any way to find out.

Anyways, so now I want to start up again. Probably with just a betta and some frogs though as I realized after that my tanks are too small for guppies. Is there anything I should do differently this time? I checked and changed the water weekly, cleaned the tank, added the bacteria supplement and conditioner. Am I missing anything? Or were my fish just sick or maybe old? Also, is there a problem mixing the frogs and fish together - do they carry some kinds of disease that could hurt fish?

Let me know your thoughts. I'm a little nervous getting back into it as I don't want to kill any more fish, but love the hobby.

Thanks!

 

There's a very deadly fungus called chytrid going around that kills ADFs unless caught in time and treated. If you bleached everything there shouldn't have been an issue with contamination from one stock to the next, however. I can't think of anything that could cross-contaminate between species, but if anyone else knows of anything hopefully they'll chime in.

Do you happen to remember your water parameters last time things went wrong? What temp do you keep the tank at, and how did you acclimate your fish and frogs?

 

I know people put the 2 together but fish and frogs do best in separate tanks for a few reasons. First frogs are pretty bad at finding food so they are easily outcompeted. Second the frogs can mistake fins as food and bite off chunks as well as fish mistaking their feet and toes as food.

 

I second what david1978 said. It shouldn't cause problems keeping them together in terms of spreading disease from one species to another, but there are other reasons that he mentioned which factor into why species-only tanks are best for frogs. That being said, I do keep frogs and guppies together, but I need to take a few extra precautions and if given the chance to start over (or money to get another tank), I'd separate them. If you still want to keep them together I can give you a few tips though.

 

Thanks everyone! I never had problems with feeding or nipping with my guppies, but that might be a concern I should look out for with a beta.

As for the parameters, I can't remember. The nitrate was a bit high I think, but the ammonia and nitrites were 0. The temperature was usually 78 (a bit high for guppies, but good for the frogs). It could have been a fungus. The thing that troubled me most about how I lost my fish or frogs was how it was over time with long periods between deaths. I think if it was some kind of sickness they would have died all at once, right?

 

Chytrid fungus can take up to 2 months to show symptoms and can live in water without a host for many weeks, not sure if it was longer than that between the deaths of the frogs? I'm not sure what's going on with the fish either. Are you getting water from your tap? Is there any chance that there could have been a random and sudden change in hardness or anything, or traces of other chemicals in the water? I feel like I'm grasping at straws here but I'm not really sure what it could be.

If you wanted to start again, I suggest thoroughly cleaning everything with bleach, 1 part bleach 10 parts water for glass tanks and 1 part bleach 20 parts water for acrylic tanks. If it was a disease or fungus that killed your fish and frogs previously, the bleach should take care of it. Be sure to rinse until you smell no bleach and then soak everything in 20x dechlorinator.