How often do fish die in your tanks?

[Flying_Diamond]

the only fish i've lost since i really started keeping fish in the last two years were a molly in my 55 after a few days, i sum that up to walmart stock, an angel that never really grew and i think was always sick which i sum up to petco stock, and two kuhli loaches that i sum up to dealing bad with handling/petco stock.

and i agree that your water changes are kinda small. i do 30-50% weekly. and i know you listed all the fish that you've had in the tank, but it's possible if you had some of them with select others that there was aggression issues and that killed them because in the whole list there is a lot of compatibility issues. i hope this wasn't the problem though.

 

[saram521]

I recently lost quite a few guppies and one albino cory that I took for free from a negligent owner. There were about 30 guppies and 2 cories to begin with, and now I'm down to a little over half. They were living in thick yellow water before I attained them, and several of the adults' bellies were concave. I knew I'd be losing a few, but was hoping to save some for breeding. The 2 albino cories (now 1 cory) look very weird. They are white and translucent, not slightly pink with a golden sheen on their plates. I'm wondering if the last remaining one will make it, it looks so sickly compared to my other albino cories. I also lost my male gbr very recently to some illness I couldn't identify. I haven't lost any other fish in several months prior to these deaths.

I have been having some recent problem with losing my pea size briggs and am starting to wonder if my ghost shrimp are killing them. All the big ones, teens and tiny babies are fine but I find pea size shells once in a while. Strange.

It is very possible that your ghost shrimp are eating your baby snails. They will eat whatever they can get a hold of. Larger ghost shrimp (depending on which kind of ghost they are) can even catch small fish like neons.

 

[SJInverts]

UPDATE:

I wanted to correct something from my original post which is that I usually I do water changes of 10 to 15 gallons.

Basically, it depends on how many times I want to lug around my 5 gallon home depot bucket.

MY THOUGHTS:

1) It has been suggested that maybe I have some kind bacteria, parasite, disease, etc in the tank.

If so, maybe I should tear down the tank and setup fresh. And this time make it a planted tank.

2) I'm thinking that my 8.0 ph is probably to high for the fish I keep. I was thinking of using R/O water for this tank I know that fish are supposed to be adaptable to different water parameters. Does this mean that they are surviving or are they thriving in my water?

You could put me in Antarctica and I could survive or you could put me in Hawaii and I could thrive.

The problem for this is I don't have a R/O unit at home. I purchase r/o water already for my 10g. I would just have to purchase more. I don't mind at all if this means that the fish would be healthier, happier, and longer lived.

3) The fish in the tank are what the wife and kids want. Which means the tank has a variety of fish. The tank suffers from "collectoritus".

4) I've often read that over-filtration will compensate for a heavy fish load. However, even with a HOB filter and a canister filterI wonder if the tank is over stocked?

The 30g tall (24x12x24) is currently stocked with:
1 Dward blue gourami
2 dward plecos
2 cory cats
3 sword tails
1 angel fish
1 neon tetras (last remaining from school)
1 Serpea tetra (last one remaining this one killed off the rest)
1 Rainbow shark
3 zebra danios
5 cherry barbs
1 angel fish

5) Feeding:

I feed my fish Omega One flake food, Hikari micro pellets, Hikari algae wafers (once a day)
& freeze dried blood worms ( occassionally)

6) Quarantine of new fish. I do not do this as I do not have a quarantine tank. I also buy fish from various sources.

MY PLAN OF ACTION?

What would you guys/gals suggest? I want to do the Extreme Makeover: Tank Edition

 

[Wycco]

Have you tried taking your water to a LFS or big box store to test for you? I'm not saying you're doing it wrong- but your kit could be bad... especially if you use strips and they've been exposed to humidity.

You could have more nitrogen compounds in your tank than you think. Also, they might be able to test you for copper- lead- and other metals your kit doesn't have.



Quanrantine/hospital tank would be a very good idea. It's a little bit of a cost- but it sounds like you've spent more on dead fish than you could have spent on a QT tank in the same time period.

Still... any bacteria/parasite/virus is already in your water now... I'd hold off getting more fish until you can solve the problem of what is killing them...
... although your Danio, Cory, and Tetra are going to be stressed from not having more of their own kind around.

Usually best to have more of the same species than one or two of lots of different species.

Think about it... if they sent you off to space in a shuttle- and you'd be in the shuttle the rest of your life- would you rather be in isolation with just a dog, a cat- or would you rather another human being or two with whom you could interact with as a human.

 

[LeahK]

3) The fish in the tank are what the wife and kids want. Which means the tank has a variety of fish. The tank suffers from "collectoritus".

Please take this the right way, but maybe you could find a way to gently suggest to the wife and kids that what they really want is a tank full of happy and healthy pets
I 100% agree with Wycco that it's better to have larger groups of the same species than a random assortment of individuals. Many tropical fish are schooling fish who need to live in a social group to avoid stress. Being stressed can make fish prone to illness.
If I were you, I'd get an additional 20 gallon long tank and rearrange the fish as follows:

30g tall:
2 dwarf plecos
3 sword tails
1 angel fish
1 Serpea tetra (increase to 6 or re-home the 1)
1 Rainbow shark
3 zebra danios (increase to 6)
5 cherry barbs

20g long:
1 Dwarf blue gourami
2 cory cats (increase to 6)
1 neon tetras (increase to 6)

If you buy more serpae tetras instead of re-homing the one, then I'd move the cherry barbs to the 20, too. Either way, with your stock divided, you'll (1) have a more manageable bioload spread out over two tanks and (2) be able to provide adequate schools for your schooling fish.

But, like Wycco also said, I'd try to figure out if there's a disease first, before buying new fish. I hope you're able to work it out!

 

[DGalt]

The only fish that die on my are my neons / cardinals. And usually that only happens when I add to their numbers (I've tried to get them up to a group of 10 about 4 times, but every purchase results in a couple dieing. Go figure :shakehead

I lost my betta too, but he was just old.

Most of the fish in my tank right now I've had for over a year though :grinyes:

 

[lateinningmagic]

I've had Neons died too when I tried rounding out their numbers. I've had 4 of 10 die on me. Usually within the first day or two.

I just lost 3 guppies within the last 24 hours. One looked like swim bladder and the other two I have no idea, I wasn't hope at the time. I thoroughly vacuumed and did a 30% water change (it was quite dirty I'm afraid).

 

[247Plants]

The bigger fish are the longer they live in my tanks for some reason. I have bolivian rams that are 4+ years old and a blue gourami that is about 5 years old that refuse to die and then I got endlers where I lose about 1 a week or so for some reason or another. I have a nice amount of endlers so I figure 1 out of 100+ isnt all that bad.

 

[DGalt]

I've had Neons died too when I tried rounding out their numbers. I've had 4 of 10 die on me. Usually within the first day or two.

I just lost 3 guppies within the last 24 hours. One looked like swim bladder and the other two I have no idea, I wasn't hope at the time. I thoroughly vacuumed and did a 30% water change (it was quite dirty I'm afraid).

same thing. it's like if they made it through the first 48-72 hours then they weren't going anywhere, but there was always a couple that just couldn't make it that long

 

[Flying_Diamond]

it does seem like you have a very random, not so happy assortment. i'd do like leah said and get another tank, or rehome a lot of those fish. there isn't enough room to make them all happy in schools, and there are some compatibility issues. nothing major, but like the angel(s)? could eat the tetras and i'm not sure about the shark, but aren't they rather aggressive? could be harrassing fish to death i'm sure.