Africans dropping like flies...

low oxygene ?or something in the tank been poisoned,change 70% water and cleane your filter system,thene be sure your pumps make a "mess" at the surfin...

Did you use flyspray or something similar, fish just dont drop dead like that without something majorly wrong, from this stand point it sounds like poison. Some more info on the tank, like how often do you do maintenance? Do another water change. Btw did the fish start acting like this before or after the water change?

Did you dechorinate the water? Did you add anything new to the tank? It sounds definately like the water was contaminated during that large water change. Usually its best to do more frequent smaller ones.


-Diana

50% every other day IMO is too much. I do 20% every two weeks on my tanks if I'm good, and 40-50% every month if I miss a cleaning.

I do about 50-70% water changes on my Africans weekly. I've never had a problem. And if this is your schedule from the get-go, neither will hardly anyone.

Large water changes are only dangerous if one hasn't been done in a long time. The tank water's parameters have changed too much from that of the tap water.

Since you've been doing such large water changes all along that wont be what killed your fish, but more likely contaminates that got in the tank during the water change. Did you clean the filters as well?

With africans it also depends on your stocking levels. If you have a very overstocked tank then yes more frequent water changes would be better, but 50% every other day is not nessecary. With that amount of fish in that size tank you can get away with 50% every week or two weeks. Even less. If you hold off on a water change for a couple weeks and then do a large one, it actually stimulates your fish to breed. Case in point- we just moved a 90 gallon tank, and thus had to fill it up with pretty much all new water. Within a day we had C. moori breeding, at a very small size, when usually they need to be almost full grown to breed.

The best way to determine when your tank needs a water change is to monitor nitrate levels. If they get over 40ppm then do a water change to bring it down below 20. Soon you will start to see when you need to do changes and how much you need to change.


-Diana

How big are your dolphins LuvMyKribs? When I moved my protos to my 125 with all new water thats how I got them to breed for the first time and female was only 4 1/2 inches. She had a successful first spawn and spit 10 1/2 fry.

The female is no larger than 3 1/2" and the male about 4 1/2". I dont think the female is holding anymore, but its probebly the smallest size I've ever seen moori attempting to breed.


-Diana