One Fish Dead - Other's at Top by Filter

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lindsayndan

Registered Member
Jul 10, 2006
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I would appreciate any help. I've had this tank a year and a half. It has been relatively problem free. I realize I don't take care of it as I should. However I'm here now. I'd like to take care of any problems.

Here's what I know.

55 gallon tank
2 red belly Pacus - Yes I know I shouldn't have bought these - they are huge
2 Oscars
1 catfish
1 plecostomus

The fish that died was a goldfish. Yes I found out later you shouldn't put goldfish in there but it seemed to be going ok

I have honestly only been doing a 50% water change about every month.

I had a problem with cloudy water a couple months ago. I did a water change and added carbon to the filter. It seemed to take care of it.

About a week ago, it was cloudy again. I did a water change and removed the carbon. No effect whatsoever.

next day fish swimming at top of tank by filter

next day put carbon back in

next day gold fish died

next day fish still swimming at top of tank by filter

today - no change bought c-100 to try that also bought an ich treatment

don't know what to do

I'm sorry I don't have any test strips to test nitrates, ammonia, etc.

A. What more than likely is the problem and

B. What can I do to take care of it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I promise I will be more responsible with my fish if you can help me.

Thanks
 
Oscars and Pacu could kill goldfish your water change schedule is way off
WC should happen 20% Weekly with a 45-50 bi-weekly and your tank is overstocked
 
Also, I would never medicate fish for ich unless they have symptoms, White small spots like sand sticking to them
 
are you running just a plain filter?
what kind of filter media do you have in there?
is you filter big enough?
just to let you know you are WAY overstocked, loose some fish(sell em, trade em)
the cloudiness could be two things, on an algea bloom, put some water in a jar and place a white paper behind it, if it shows greenish then its an alge bloom, if it is clear than you have a harmless natural bacterial bloom that will subside.
you should perform weekly water changes until you can get you fish exchanged or bigger tank.

get a test kit for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and do some reading on cycling a tank if you need to. a cycled tank should have zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and very low nitrate of no more than 30ppm.

don't wash your filter media in chlorinated tap water, this kills beneficial bacteria.
 
I don't know if this will help you out or not, but if you live in a climate that gets hot, there is a good chance that your water is warmer than it should be. Fish try to gulp air when they aren't getting enough oxygyn.

I would make sure that you have adiquate surface movement from your filters, or (although it can be a problem with temp sometimes) you might consider adding some sort of bubble maker to keep the water surface moving.

I can't remember where I read that, but anytime I've had fish go to the surface on a couple occasions, and adding a bubble maker has helped.

Other than that you might consider cleaning your filter, (not the bio media) but the housing might have too much organic matter which isn't getting filtered out.
 
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