Help! Everything but our Mollies keep dying

penduin

penduin

Clueless but trying
Feb 18, 2007
4
0
0
51
Bristol, NY
OK, here is the situation. We have a 75G freshwater tank, no live plants, had been up and running for over six months. We have about 30 mollies (can't seem to keep them from multiplying). One common pl*co(don't understand the * thing, but ok). He has grown to about 10". We had two albino sharks (had been in the tank for several months, and doing well) two bala sharks (same thing), some smaller catfish type things, and a few other things I don't know what they were. This is really my husbands tank. We had it set up in front of a window, and if kept getting very cloudy. I am sure now that it was bacterial blooms from the light, but my husband was driving himself crazy over it. We also lost a few of the catfish, and one or two of the mollies. All of our readings were fine, but he was sure there was something wrong.

So he did an 80% water change, cleaned and boiled everything, and moved the tank away from the window. The tank has a 10 gallon sump filter with those blue ball things in it. We do seem to have to add a lot of water to the tank daily, not sure if that is related. While doing the water the fish were put in a 25 gallon quarantine tank. The mollies were only in there for a little while,as we know they can take the water fluctuations, but he didn't want to put the sharks and the pl*co back in the tank until the water stabilized, about a day and a half. After we put everyone back in they seemed ok for a day or two. Then suddenly the two balas died. We were at the LFS about a day later, and got three rainbow sharks, one albino, and two irridescent sharks. Within 24 hours all of the new sharks, and our existing albino and rainbow, were all dead. The only thing that is left now is on e of the new irridescents, and I am watching him now act very strange. Also the pl*co has been acting very strange and keeps jumping up to the surface blowing bubbles.
To top it all off, this morning the tank is getting cloudy again.:help: :help: :help:

Sorry to ramble, but we are desparate, and there is no good LFS around here (Rochester, NY) that I trust.
 
penduin said:
OK, here is the situation. We have a 75G freshwater tank, no live plants, had been up and running for over six months. We have about 30 mollies (can't seem to keep them from multiplying). One common pl*co(don't understand the * thing, but ok). He has grown to about 10". We had two albino sharks (had been in the tank for several months, and doing well) two bala sharks (same thing), some smaller catfish type things, and a few other things I don't know what they were. This is really my husbands tank. We had it set up in front of a window, and if kept getting very cloudy. I am sure now that it was bacterial blooms from the light, but my husband was driving himself crazy over it. We also lost a few of the catfish, and one or two of the mollies. All of our readings were fine, but he was sure there was something wrong.

So he did an 80% water change, cleaned and boiled everything, and moved the tank away from the window. The tank has a 10 gallon sump filter with those blue ball things in it. We do seem to have to add a lot of water to the tank daily, not sure if that is related. While doing the water the fish were put in a 25 gallon quarantine tank. The mollies were only in there for a little while,as we know they can take the water fluctuations, but he didn't want to put the sharks and the pl*co back in the tank until the water stabilized, about a day and a half. After we put everyone back in they seemed ok for a day or two. Then suddenly the two balas died. We were at the LFS about a day later, and got three rainbow sharks, one albino, and two irridescent sharks. Within 24 hours all of the new sharks, and our existing albino and rainbow, were all dead. The only thing that is left now is on e of the new irridescents, and I am watching him now act very strange. Also the pl*co has been acting very strange and keeps jumping up to the surface blowing bubbles.
To top it all off, this morning the tank is getting cloudy again.:help: :help: :help:

Sorry to ramble, but we are desparate, and there is no good LFS around here (Rochester, NY) that I trust.
Click to expand...

Welcome fellow Rochestarian. Aqua Shoppe-Pet World (located in greece) is a good place to purchase fish.

On another note, what are your levels exactly (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph)
How about the temperature?
Do any of your fish have noticeable disease symptoms?

Also, the tank may be overstocked, leading to stress.
 
We are over on the southeast side, but I think we are going to have to make the trip, I have heard some other good things about them.

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5
ph, we are out of the tester, but typically it has been on the high side around 8
temp 76

They aren't showing any disease symptoms, except they maybe acting like they are not getting enough air, but we have two bubble walls in there.

My husband also added a carbon filter two days ago, I almost think he is overfiltering if that is possible
 
pretty sure that there is no such thing as overfiltering. Are you doing 25% water changes once a week? Are you dechlorinating the new water that you put back in the tank?
 
how many GPH does your filter put out? if you do not know, what type of filter does he have, and what size?

albino sharks will get very aggressive with each other and other fish in the tank, so that may have contributed to the deaths.

the cloudy water was caused by the tank being in front of the window- loads of extra light will lead to extreme algal blooms

if you boiled everything it probably destroyed all of the bacteria. your tank could be going through a cycle.
 
we have well water that has no chlorine in it, it is pretty hard though. I don't know what the GPH is, so I don't know what the filter does. We have a 10G sump that has those blue balls in it, and a cascade 300 that says it is for up to a 100G tank. I would think between the two we are definitely filtering enough. He doesn't do the water change every week, but probably a 30% ever other, and we have a lot of evaporation, so we are probably putting in 5 to 6 gallons of new water every week.
 
Hello jsut a quick question I live on a farm and use well water. do you use a water purification system. or anything to soften the water or are you just using it straight from tap

my problem I had was to many metals in water iron and such clogged the filters alot and hardness was never the same..

no pro just thought I would ask thanks
 
so this tank has an overflow and sump is under the tank?
which return pump do you have? the return pumps are rates gph at a particular head height.
you shpoul dprobably add pwoer heads or use the casecade to get flow to the dead spots in the tank.

I have a 75 with a 15-20 gallon sump..I use bioballs..this provides more than adequate biological filtration..there are few filters that match the sumps for bio filtration..but sumps tend to be nitrate facories..good for a planted tank. and if set up correctly will not gas off much CO2

what is your maintenance shedule like? does it include heavy vacing?
 
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