fish deaths

[Wat2Go]

Just wanted to know if it is normal to loose about one fish a week for no apparent reason. Not all in the same tank, sometimes weeks without a dead fish and then today I find two have died in two different tanks. They also don't die after a wc, or while medicating, or after I have stuck my hands in the tank...Sometimes one dies after introducing them to the tank (even though I acclimatize very slowly; and I return those in exchange for a new one) but overall I simply find them dead in the morning. Also not the same species. I have quite a few fish by now (4 kids so 4 tanks, plus my own) and water parameters are always ok. 2 tanks are about 2 months old (but were seeded from other tanks), other 3 about 5 months.

L.

 

[mellowvision]

with kids around... who knows what really happened

 

[Wat2Go]

True. But the kids are all old enough to know not to "do" anything to the tanks.

 

[mostlycichlids]

There has to be a reason they are dying. Meds stress fish which can cause death. It sounds like a stress related issue with the fish to me if your parameters are ok. What process are you using to acclimate them? Are you matching temp, PH, KH, etc. If any of these are different when adding them it will cause stress and the fish will likely die, especially if they are more delicate fish. Are the tanks overcrowded? Is there any bully fish? This can also cause stress. It sounds like stress.

 

[Fishman07]

why are you medicating them?

 

[Wat2Go]

I am NOT medicating them, now that I read my original post back it isn't clear: there is nothing I do with the tanks, the fish that I found this morning are not new fish (so nothing to do with acclimatizing them (I hardly ever lose a fish in the acclimatizing process), they were happy yesterday. All fish eat well, swim normally, don't hang near the bottom or near the top. There is nothing that I can think of that would cause any of the fish to die, but then this morning 1 dead oto in the 55 and one dead harlequin in the 29. Both have been in their tanks for weeks without a problem.
Two weeks ago a lost one female swordtail, same thing...nothing obvious.
Just wondering that if you have an established community of fish, how common (better word than "normal" I guess) it is to every once in a while lose a fish.

 

[Coler]

Can you post readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and type of test ?

One a week is indicative of problems and is not normal, even if its one a week from 4 tanks.

 

[Wat2Go]

liquid api
in all tanks amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10 to 20
PH 7.4 to 7.6
I do pwc every 10 to 12 days changing 40 to 50% of the water. Treating the new water with prime.
All tanks have plastic and real plants (vasalis, moneywort, ludwigia and something else), I do not feed the plants anything specific.
I rinse the filters but do not change the carbon unless the cartridge falls apart.
I feed fish once a day (bloodworms, flakes or frozen brine shrimp, some days a few algea pellets for the cories or cucumber) and the finish their food within 2 minutes. I fast them once a week.
For fish in the tanks see my sig. (the ten gallons never have any deaths in them, the 29 with the ram also very rarely).

Now, here is a question (and I am going to bang my head against the wall if I have been doing this wrong the whole time).
I have added prime to the tank when first filling the tank.
Now, when I do a PWC I add the prime to the new water (I use three gallon buckets so I add six drops per bucket (I use the small bottles of prime)). In another thread (http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116400&page=3, post 22)
I read you are supposed to add prime to the whole tank after doing a pwc, so should I have added 110 drops to the 55 gallon (of course I would not use the drops, I would use the capfull method) whenever I do a pwc???
Could this be the problem?

I am so grateful for your help with this, it really bugs me!

L.

 

[jm1212]

try switching to weekly instead for better health of the system overall.

 

[rhardy]

With the numbers of fish in the guilty tanks I would make sure to do PWC's at least once a week. After a fish dies do you then replace it, or are the numbers in your sig the maximum numbers of fish for each tank?