Help pls...

Hi all... so when i returned to my house i had lost 5 fish and the tank is looking a bit dirty and green for my liking how can i fix this before i lose more? i did do a major vac and water change for the fish . i think the loss of the fish was because the person i asked to look after my fish didnt really do anything for them...

 

Sorry for the loss man. You allready did good by cleaning and a water change. Get a test kit and test for Amonia, Nitrates. Do a few regular small water changes for a few weeks so you don't stress the fish more. This will put good clean water in the tank and the fish will be back to strength in no time. Remember your thread about leaving for a couple of weeks. Eish man. Hows the Gourami's?

 

I lost my orange one im holding fingers for my blue one he looks ok i can see hes lost a bit of his feeler , but with the lack of competition he should start to do better in the tank. and slowmo do you have any suggestions for algae eating aquarium creatures

 

I'll just jump in because I can Otocinclus is very good and so is Ancistrus (They apparently get lazy when they get bigger) and I believe the Siamese Algae Eater is also good (Make sure you get SAE and not chinese algae eaters or flying foxes).

 

yea i had one ancistrus and he was also a cassualty while i was gone , dunno how i lost him

 

+1 @SloMo.00. I agree that small water changes and filter cleaning over the next few days will be essential to getting your fish back to health.

+1 @KillerBunny on the algae eater options. Ottos are the first choice then SAEs and then Ancistrus, but everything should clean up with the water changes.

Sorry for your loss, but good luck in getting the tank back to full health again...

 

are ottos easy to come across? o and one more thing since i lost my shoal of guppies , wat would be another good idea for a small schooling fish?

 

My local LFS got me 5 (and then killed 4 in their filters), so they re-ordered. Will take a few weeks as they are coming from the US. I know Dorry Pets had some recently as well. From what I've seen they aren't that easy to find, but they are around if you ask enough people.

That would depend on what else you have in the tank. Tetras are always popular, but some of them are fin nippers. I prefer cherry barbs or harlequin rasboras, but they don't really school together that closely.

 

May i ask what fish you had in the tank and how many of each?

 

@mydummyname currently only 4 cory cats and one dwarf gourami , i was hoping to add 1-3 algae eating creatures and then a shoal of about 5 tetras, would this work? but this being in the future as the tank needs to get back into the swing.

 

also the rasboras / cherry barbs also look like a good idea , im just wondering if they would be ok in the tank

 

I'd like to know what you had in the tank befor they died. Trying to figure out what went wrong..

 

i had 3 guppies and 1 bushy nose pleco and also another dwarf gourami

 

Were both gouramis males? If this was the case then Most likely one gourami harassed the other to death, and with this dead fish in the water for days, it probably fouled the water, killing the other fish. Does this sound possible?

 

well the guppies died off first... the strange thing tho is the dominant male gourami died and the smaller one is still alive . i can see the smaller one clearly had a rough time but i can say for sure it certainly wasnt peaceful while i was away

 

Very strange. I wouldnt easily add more fish till you sure the tank's settled and the existing fish are all Ok.

 

Here is a great learning opportunity for all. Look at the focus to the problem put forward! People, let us start by thinking things through before writting about things that aren't relevant to the question asked.
I would like to know how long the tank has been up and running, the amount and type of filtration, the number and species of fish before the problem occured.
How long had it been in the care of the other person? Was a water change done prior to going away? Did you do some water tests on you finding the problem when you returned?
Only then can one start to try and help give information that will be of help.

 

As Scotty said, we need to know more information before we can jump to conclusions about anything =D As your said, Kenny, a lot of times the people we ask to take care of our fish don't really do the best jobs and don't follow the exact directions as you give them. From personal experience, maybe the fish care person over fed causing waste food or a lot of waste from the fish, therefore increasing the Ammonia and Nitrate levels. Depending on how long you were gone the levels could have become toxic and killed off some of the fish.

 

well, so far we can only draw conclusions from the information given to us, we know that the tanks were left unattended for a period of time, we dont know for how long.

we also dont know how long the tank has been running or if it is in fact cycled properly. (ok from the other thread below - we know the tank has been running for at least 4 weeks - so its not new tank syndrome)

what we do know is that there were incompatible fish in the tank, i.e. 2X male gouramis - known to be aggressive under certain conditions and guppy's which also are not compatible with gouramis due to the gouramis tend to pick on more peaceful fish, especially if they are incited to aggression by other gourami in a tank, they will go for other fish as well when in this state of territorial aggression.

now, one of the major reasons for fish losses in the home aquarium tends to be incompatible tank mates, after new tank syndrom and of course poor or incorrect water conditions.

barring any other information forthcoming, this would tell me that the first thing that happened was fish loss due to aggression, and with no one tending the tank and removing any dead fish, this lead to toxic water conditions which wiped out whichever were the weaker of the fish.

in fact, now that i think about it, we've had a bit of a discussion about this tank not so long ago, and we were speaking about the aggression that was occurring between these very 2 gouramis, and this even more than anything leads me to think that that something along those lines occurred.

ok i found the thread http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?13338-General-questions-)

 

i know i had a ammonia level that i wasnt happy with before i left but i did tell my carer to do water changes but he didnt really i think he only did one while i was gone and that was cause of evaporated water , but i think it is very right to assume that the gourami had a good go at the guppies and each other. its very clear to see there was agression as the survivng gourami who i think is much happier seems to have much shorter feelers now , but i think ive learnt a good lesson on gouramis they are really not as innocent as they appear. so with much care and research ill carefully chose what i put in my tank next