Algae eaters keep dying WHY?!?!?

To me it sounds like you have old tank syndrome, PH should be 7+ from the tap and it decreases when you do not to water changes and the fish waste dissolves in the water. When you add new fish they come from fresher water that has a PH of at least 7. When you add them to your tank they go into shock from the quick difference. I would recommend doing small water changes.


Sorry.. Gonna have to completely disagree based on personal experience as well as about 30 seconds of research. I've lived around the nation, and have encountered tap water in a range from 6.2 to nearly 7.8.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The normal range for pH in surface water systems is 6.5 to 8.5 and for groundwater systems 6 to 8.5."[/FONT]

http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-education/quality-water-ph.htm
 
yea i live in san francisco and the water around here has a general pH of around 7.5-8.0 so it's pretty high. it's true i didnt change my tank water for a while, but i did a 10% change today and it went from being 6.4 to 7.0 so yay
 
in the future, try to keep your water changes consistent, once a week at about 20% should do just fine for you.
 
CAE can get up to 5" so they will not even work for your 30 gal mine grew 1" in a month in a 55 gal tank. For a 15 gal you're not going to be able to put much in maybe guppies, endlers, platies,...... Also I would do just males so you do not overpopulate. Remember the smaller the tank the quicker the water conditions can change. Be sure to do frequent water changes and monitor closely. For the 30 gal try ottos, but they can be difficult to stay alive without proper water conditions. Also cories like to schoal I would suggest adding 1 more if they are pygmies. I had a 15 gal with neon tetras also, that may work.
 
This is just a longshot. You could try a good size piece of Malaysian driftwood or similar. It has to be a real piece of driftwood cured by a river. Not just a piece of wood out of the yard or a rotted piece of wood in a stream.
 
Lots of rubbish is talked about pH. Fish are not very sensitive to it and take quite large changes in their stride. Changes in TDS - total dissolved solids, which often cause pH changes, can harm fish, but it's not the pH change which does it, in the same way that ice cream sales do not cause shark attacks, although both go up when the sun shines.

Do people really think that the CAE;

chineasealgaeeater.jpg


looks anything like the SAE;

siamese-algae-eater-lg.jpg


because they look totally different to me.
 
This is just a longshot. You could try a good size piece of Malaysian driftwood or similar. It has to be a real piece of driftwood cured by a river. Not just a piece of wood out of the yard or a rotted piece of wood in a stream.

Driftwood causes pH to lower somewhat, so if you're already looking at a dropping pH, driftwood will only further that.
 
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