5 dead fish in a mtter of 6 hours

A bit more info might help people top assist...
How long has the tank been cycled?
What are tanks reading at the moment, Ammonia, Nitrite & Nitrate?
What tanks temp?
Obvious question but did you decholiriante the water beofre adding the salt?
What volume of salt did you add to what volumeof water?

fishfreaks said:

last night before bed, i realized our honey gourami wasnt looking all that great. when i woke up 6 hrs later, the honey gourami, pearl gourami, bulldog pelco, elephantnose, and clown loach, were all dead. we have been having a slight ich problem the last week or so...we have been treating with salt.we also did a 25 % water change yesterday, we mixed the salt dosage into the bucket of water before adding fresh water to the tank. these fish were in a 15 gallon tall tank. any idead as to what happened here? we are totally clueless. any help you would be willing to give would be greatly appreciated.

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Overstocking is an issue here, that's WAY too many fish for a 15g tank. On top of the fact that your tank may have not been cycled.
How much salt did you dose? and what kind?

The tank is definitely overstocked with those giants. The amount of waste made by those guys could easily cause an ammonia spike and poison your fish, especially if the tank was not cycled.

Did you remember to dechlorinate the water?

anonapersona said:

Did you remember to dechlorinate the water?

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With that kind of overstocking it wouldn't matter, and unless there was an amazing amount of chlorine in the water it would take longer than 5 hours.

Smaller tanks need smaller fish. New tanks in a fishy cycle must be way understocked so you can keep up with the toxins. These are a couple of the important points. The honey is fine in that size tank. Even a pearl maybe. But you are pushing it with things like a pleco and a clown loach. I wouldn't even put them in my 50g, but maybe that's just me

with a 15g (well, we have a 16g) you really need to stick to the honey gourami, some tetra maybe, guppies perhaps, cories even... preferably fish that are 2inch and under at their max size...

Now you can get away with 'overstocking' in an established tank with really good filtration and good tank practice. All tanks are really overstocked compared to 'real life' conditions, and with a tank you just stock to the point where you can get away with it and keep up with the bioload and not stress the fish from overcrowding. This depends on the type of fish to a great extent. The inch gallon rule is no real indication. Sometimes you can have a few more fish than that with success, and other times you need less. And less stocking is often easier to manage...

It is over stocking and next time try using a Bio Wheel filter to help with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.