im this close to throwing away this hobby.

Post your water parameters? (even though you said you didnt want to)
Do daily/every other day 25-50% water changes. (even though you said you didnt want to do water changes)
Clean your filters out in tankwater at least once every so often. (even though you say you wont)
Buy a master test kit (instead of buying fish that will soon die)
Stop buying fish until your problems are sorted out (so you can stop wasting your money)

what buckets do you use to change your water? are they the same buckets that someone in the house may use for cleaning? you may be introducing some sort of toxin into the tank with your water change. fish (like humans) dont like ingesting bleach, ammonia, and other household cleaners.

Exactly how long was your tank set up before you started to have all of these problems? How did you setup your tank? how did you cycle your tank?

Did you make any major changes to your tank besides adding fish to the the tank? (eg: a major cleaning that day or day before or after, decoration scrubbing, etc...?)

do you have a sand substrate?

just trying to get more background informaiton from you so that i/we can help you
 
1 the bacteria that breaks things down in fw doesn't like salt too much... if you poisoned your fish you probably lost some of that too.
2 as you lost fish you lost food for your bacteria... then some died off... you cannot just put back that initial fish load immediately
3 without a q/t tank and your inexperience and the stock you've been getting as well as stocking tons of fish at a time tells me it's never gonna work out for you... do your research and listen to good advice!
4 has your food ever got wet or left open... if so toss it it's no good
5 to keep fish healthy you have to change their water... 25% a month is way too low with the stock you have to rid yourself of nitrates which you admit you have no test for.
6 to back up #5 i must add that i did 2 to 3 50% w/c's a day for almost 3 weeks on my q/t and coupled with treatment it cured my fish... sometimes it's necessary... and cleaner water NEVER hurts! that's 100% to 150% DAILY W/C!
7 7 hours to acclimate fish from no salt to a tablespoon per gallon could have been the demise of many of your fish... especially your tiger barbs and tetra (who needs friends anyway)
8 nitrate at zero suggests a problem
9 it is about that time of year again when water filtration plants start changing things around again. it is not uncommon to have problems when they do this. it is called bi annual something or other and can tend to cause issues for fish owners.
10 if you are not q/t ing fresh stock expect this to happen whenever you get new fish.
11 if you do not own all the correct testing equipment for your setup expect this to happen whenever for whatever reason and always when you least expect it!
12 if you like fish more than you like testing and caring for them expect them all to die and stress you out constantly... also if you're not going to care for them correctly maybe you should leave them at the store where someone who's not gonna kill them can buy them.
13 test your tap water... especially when there's an issue!
14 clean out 1/2 or less of your filter media every week with TANK WATER, NOT TAP WATER.
15 i don't care what the what works for me thread says... you need to do what's right... that thread is there for those who know they've done wrong and lucked out... and those who don't quarantine either have had problems and admitted it or had them and wont admit it... read it again!
16 DO NOT PUT A FILTER FROM YOUR TANK ON A Q/T! EVER!!! you can use some extra media from your tank but don't take a whole filter off. take a trip to walmart and get you a powerhead with venturi air and a heater for your q/t. then take a trip to your lfs and get a sponge for the bottom and jam it on there to keep your fish from becoming filter snacks.
17 if ich is the problem you now have to treat that tank... you cannot rid ich from a fish... just from a tank! afterwards w/c's are a must even with the salt method... different water params can equal different bacteria... so old bacteria dieing and new colonizing can throw things off for a bit.
18 "Indeed. It's a myth that pH changes harm fish. They don't. Fish are largely insensitive to pH. Big changes in TDS (total dissolved solids) are harmful, but that only happens if the tap water changes in consistency, or if water changes have been seriously neglected over a long period of time, or you are purposely messing with the tank water chemistry."
posted by karlth... i will have to agree and disagree to a point. most fish can handle swings in ph pretty well although swings too far outside their ranges can kill them. also swings in tds seem to be the same deal. i find it matters more what is dissolved than the size of the swing and believe what causes the difference in ph should also be suspect. i have changed my gh from a low 4 to over 13 almost instantly without issues then again with my tap water going from 4 to 6 has killed fish... it's all what's in the water!
19 you have not posted any of your levels... all of them are important at this point and i am afraid the api kit just might not give us everything we need. in any case you have provided us enough proof of your negligence to point the finger at you and not your water... you might want to post those params IN FULL DETAIL and be a little more willing to do what's necessary.
20 WOW that's a lot i am going to have to agree with madding. you are going to need a hobby that doesn't consist of CARING for something and KEEPING IT ALIVE.
 
When i first came into this hobby i made the same mistakes as you did, and many making the same mistakes as you. But I kept getting help from people i knew, the LFS, and other people and site such as AC, I got through and now keep successful aquariums, touch wood.
Keep at ir, its a great hobby to just throw away :)
 
irmuddled said:
I'm sure you still got bacteria in there, but by changing the water so often you're making the conditions in general unstable. PH always goes lower/higher when the water is settled, so the PH rate has been changing with each water change. Rapid PH changes are very stressful on fish and is a common cause of death... that's why it's recommended that you don't change too much water often. Stress also makes fish weak and susceptible for diseases, so assuming they were sick before, there's STILL a possibility of ick around the tank (ick is invisible when it's not leached into your fish yet, but it's still there), and/or they can contract other diseases by stress.
Click to expand...

I agree with the others in that you can't do too many water changes.
This old myth originated from when people would change their water once every couple of months, then do a 80% water change and wonder why their fish were stressed out.

I'd do a 10% wc weekly as a minimum... I do a 50% wc every 2 days for my 55 using heavy buckets of water. If you can get a python I'd definitely buy one. I can't since it doesn't work with my archaic faucet and they won't let me change it.... :uhoh:

It sounds like something is burning their lungs, so it might be the ich or maybe some other kind of poisoning. If your fish feel sick right after a water change, then there's probably some soap in your bucket. Since your tank is now contaminated with the additions of your new friends, I would do a general medication treatment including ich while raising temperature and adding aeration.

Also, never buy fish because its on sale. Wait at least 2 weeks minimum for the fish to be at the LFS for the weak stock to die off. Some more sensitive species like rummynose probably died not because they were weak, but because the LFS employees didn't introduce them correctly in the new water. All fish should be introduced through drip acclimation.

Lastly, pathogens can be dormant in fish. Stress can cause a huge outbreak when their immune systems become weak. The best thing to do is to qt your fish to reduce your chance of "plagues." Good luck.
 
In my opinion it can not be external sources such as too many water changes stressing the fish to death, because it is happening far too often and there should be some fish that make it through that.

My guess is it must be something either in the tap itself, or in the tank. I don't think it is a bacteria because of the rapidness that it is hitting new fish with. More likely the water itself is poisoned, either because of the bucket he is using, the stock itself, or the tap-water being contaminated.
 
Adding new fish to a sick tank is just plain stupid!
I don't mean to be harsh but I feel I have to to get the point across.
Get yourself a qt tank or every time you add fish to your main tank you risk losing fish you probably grew attached to.
Also no need to feed twice a day once a day is enough, take a day off for feeding once a week.
 
1. its not that i refuse to clean my filters.. its just that i just dont? if i should clean them off monthly in my dirty tank water, i will but i didnt think they get that "unusable" that fast. i cleaned off one of the sponges on one of the filters like awhile ago

2. this is where this site posts conflicting info. one says to change water, another says not to. what do i do? my water parametes..theres not much to post, i only have two kits. ammonia and nitrite. both are 0. my temp is like 78 degreez.. cant give much else till i go to petsmart, which ill be going to soon so ill make a new post aobut all the parameters.

3.the bucket i use is a 5 gallon pickle bucket i got from my workplace over a year ago, that hasnt given me any problems. it does sit in my bathroom though waiting to be used.

4. i had a 20g tank i had set up for like 6 months to a year. i then got a 55g tank. i put my filter in the 55, and my gravel, and put my fish in the tank, all was well for atleast 3-6 months then this happened.

5. i dont do anything major to my tank before/after adding fish. only thing ive done is add more decorations in there. when i do WC ill gravel vac the gravel atleast a few spots. there is wood that ive properly taken care of (given help of info on this site) that i found, and put in my tank.

6. i care a lot for my fish, im not negligent at all. i keep up on feeding them, i test my tank with what kits i have all the time, and i do routine/weekly water changes. just because i cant afford to buy a 26 dollar test kit, a 30-40 dollar filter, and a 20-30 dollar heater doesnt mean i dont care for my fish. just at this point money is really low and like any smart person, you need to prioritize what you spend your money on. yeah, i bought more fish instead of a test kit. dont think that just batch after batch i just keep buying new ones. the first batch that died, i waited a couple weeks before i added any new fish. the second batch that died, i didnt wait too long cause i figured they were just a bad batch cuz of the sale. and the third batch is still alive and just give me little scares, so maybe im just paranoid about them.


7. no type of metal that i could think of being in my tank

8. im posting this cause last night my fish were showing early early effects of what ive seen before. but i woke up today, with lights still off and they dont really seem to be showing the same behavior. its kind of an off/on thing i think. im just real paranoid now and worried lol. should i treat my tank with medication? i have ick clear, i could put that in there. i dont think there is ick cause im guessing at this point id be able to see the visible stage of ick on the fish by now, but maybe its still dormant or something in the gravel?

my tank has two filters. and two heaters. like i said, i'd set up my 20g for a QT, but i dont want to use my filter cause im scared the bad stuff is sitting in the filter, but if you guys give the ok for it, i could do that. one filter is rated for 50 gallons (although its some "whisper air" filter i got from walmart) and one is a aquaclear 20-30gallon.
 
went to petsmart

the lady said all my levels were perfectly..perfect. everything was 0. ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, chlorine.

my ph is at 6.4 i think she said.
 
It is interesting that all of your numbers are 0. Did the lady test your water with a liquid or strip test? Having 0 nitrate typically indicates that your tank is not cycled, or that the test was inaccurate. How long has your tank been set up before you had these problems?
 
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