I agree it's not your nitrates. High nitrates cause chronic problems, not sudden acute ones - like death. Dirty filter media, mulm on the substrate, and overfeeding (and overstocking, of course) can all be the cause...it doesn't sound like slack water changes are really your problem.
Dirty filter media? How often/how should I clean my filter? I just replaced one side of the filter with a new cartridge, but I didn't rinse the filter itself out. Do I need to? It's a marineland biowheel 400.
Cutting back the feeding to just once a day, period, would probably be the easiest way to lower your nitrates, or you could break it up into two very small feedings. Fish don't need to eat much at all, they just like to, the same way we doThey don't spend any calories keeping themselves warm, like mammals. They are evolved to go after food whenever it's available, since in the wild food is scarce...so they will eat all they can whenever you give it to them. Best to just keep it to once a day, or twice with very tiny feedings. Frozen food is great to feed, but if you don't sift the "juices" out of frozen bloodworms or frozen brine shrimp, that adds a lot of pollution. I feed whole cubes myself, but I don't feed it often...just about once a week.
Last night I didn't feed anyone, but starting now I'm feeding only once a dayHow should I sift out the juices? Should I cut back my frozen food feeding? It's just that my kulhis and cories love it, and I was told to feed Anya, my blood parrot, only the frozen food because of her mouth.
If fish are just disappearing, it's very hard to say what they're dying from. I would just keep doing more water changes than usual and not add anything to the water besides Prime, at this point. Until there are symptoms to treat, medication isn't very helpful.
This morning, I found a dead blue tetra

Could of it been the shark? I got the 55 gallon set up (up til 3:30 am, but it's done!), I moved Anya in there, along with the shark, just in case he's the culprit. And the gold gouramis, they were getting bullied by the blue ones a lot last night (it's after dark I noticed it). And the synos and Roxanne (bn pleco) just because if it is the water.
I know I should of waited to put everyone else in, but Anya has showed no signs of illness, and I was hoping maybe by moving the gold gouramis, shark, synos, and pleco, then that would help and maybe the fish would stop dieing if it was due to incompatibility issues.
So far, so good though. The blue gouramis have seemed to mellow out with the golds gone, they aren't really chasing each other much! Like the female swam by the other one, and nibbled at a leave, next to the other, and NO CHASING!!!

