fish suddenly dying

[hysterical]

ive kept a few fishs in my 20L tank
got a few corys,swordtails,guppies and rummy nose.

they were fine ever since i placed the driftwood in.

ive boiled the wood for 3 days and place it in.

2days later my guppies died and now my swords.
my corys seem really ill.

need help~ i recently water change, but i think i did some nitrate spike by moving my gravel around.

is there anything i can do at this stage to prevent more death?

[jm1212]

how long has your tank been set up?

how often do you do water changes?

what are your water parameters?

what is your stock list, including the fish that have died?

[hysterical]

tank been up for 3months about

stock is 2 rummy nose, 5 corys, dwarf gourami, 3 guppies, 2 tetra, 2 swordtails.

2 days ago they were prefectly fine then.

i came home today they just died.

my gourami is currently breathing at the surface.
my tank is medium planted, so i water change about 1-2 times a week.

[tanker]

More water changes!! Also take the DW out to see if that is causing you the problem.

[bazil323]

Just to clarify, is that 20 liters or 20 gallon long?

What is currently left for stock, just the 1 gourami, 5 cories, and 2 rummy nose? Is that right?

It sounds like you were overstocked, and this caused too much ammonia/nitrite buildup. I would keep doing water changes and testing my levels until both ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and nitrate is less than 25. Then you can back off to a 25-50% water change weekly if it continues to be stable at those levels I just listed. When you said you moved your gravel around, was this because you were vacuuming it really thoroughly or did you change your gravel to another substrate? Either one could cause a spike, especially combined with the amount of fish were in there. I try to just pick up the surface debris at every vacuum (weekly) and then thoroughly vacuum only one side (about half) of the gravel at that time. The next week I thoroughly vacuum the other half as well as picking up that surface stuff all over the gravel.

[hysterical]

oh sorry 20gal
i got 2 tetras/2 rummy left
i moved my gourami with into my flowerhorn tank which is 150gal.
last night he was half dead, now hes swimming lively again. but hopes of his survival with the giant flowerhorn is pretty slim ><

ive water changed my smaller tank a removed that new driftwood.
i found 3 dead corys inside. so i think my wood had some bacteria which infected the fish.

i think i mightve caused a spike while using the gravel vac. i should be more careful next time cleaning my tank.

[bazil323]

Yeah, it's possible that something was carried in with the driftwood. Was it that stuff that you can get at some LFSs where they keep it in their tank with fish so that you don't have to waterlog it yourself? That stuff I'm leery about since you never know what their fish are carrying. Combined with a possible spike from a thorough gravel cleaning, that might be your trouble. Since you took it out already, I would soak it in a slight solution of bleach for a day then rinse it really well with freshwater and then let it dry out completely and wash it again, just to be safe. Then you could add it back to the tank and nothing should be left that could harm the fish.

Have you checked your levels since the WC? I would put the gourami back into the 20g so that he's not eaten by the flowerhorn. Once everything is stable again, I would bring up the numbers of the tetras and the rummies up to 6 each so that they are more secure. They need a school to feel safe, and the absolute minimum for a school is 6. Oh, btw, what kind of tetras? If they are a larger one, you might not be able to get that many.

[MTiffany]

What kind of driftwood? I mean, was it store bought or something you found? If store bought, what kind of store, pet store, garden center, etc...