How often do fish die in your tanks?

[Hyperfocal22]

I have a bit of die off in my tank and I think it is down to the store. At one point I was having nearly a 100% fail rate for any fish other than angels. For some reason my angels always seem to go well, I have several over 2 years old now.

My last re-stock (4 weeks ago) consisted of 4 rosy barbs, 3 silver sharks and 4 mollies. Within 2 days I lost the mollies, and a little later 1 barb and 1 shark. All seems well now

 

[SJInverts]

Yesterday morning I was getting my oldest daughter ready for her last day of school when I looked at the 30g.

To my horror I noticed that every single fish in the tank was dead.

It seems that a few fish died that I didn't catch which may have caused an ammonia spike. The other possibility could be that I noticed that the plug for my power strip was not completely pushed into the outlet, which maybe caused the filters to stop working.

Needless to say I am taking everyones advice and rebuilding my tank properly. It will be planted and NOT heavily stocked.

As soon as I get the tank sanitized and re-assembled I will be posting in the classified ads for some plants.

Any suggestions on some plants that would be great background plants on a tank that is 24 inches tall?

Thanks everyone for your past and future advice/opinions.