I know that this is a vague and probably hard to answer question. But I am having a fairly high number of unexplainable fish deaths in my tank, and I am looking for ideas. I would sure appreciate any suggestions.
My setup consists of a 90 gallon tank which is moderately planted. I run two aquaclear 500 power filters and an 18W UV sterilizer. The tank is lighted with 320 Watts of flourescent lighting.
The plants are doing great and although I am struggling a bit with algae (probably due to the high phosphates mentioned below), the tank is doing very well. When I look at the fish, they all seem healthy and are all eating well.
The tank is now about 45 days old. The tank was cycled using 10 Odessa Barbs (barbus odessa) and 10 White Tipped Rosy Tetras (Hyphessobrycon bentosi rosaceus) and a fair number of plants. During the initial cycle, the amonnia level never rose above .75 ppm. I never saw any nitirites at all.
Since the cycle ended, I have added slowly and in the following order:
1 Flying Fox (Epalzeorhynchus kallopterus)
3 Golden Algae Eaters (Gyrinocheilus Aymonieri)
3 Small Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare)
4 Black mollies (Poecilia hybrid)
1 Medium Pleco (Peckoltia oligospila??)
2 More Golden Algae Eaters (Gyrinocheilus Aymonieri)
2 Colombian Sharks (catfish) (Arius seemani)
1 Black Ghost Knifefish (new the last 3 days) (Apteronotus albifrons)
Over the past 2 weeks, I have had the following fish deaths:
4 Odessa Barbs
6 Rosy Tetras
1 Columbian Shark (the day after I put 2 of them in the tank)
2 Golden Algae Eaters
1 Black Molly.
In every case, the fish have seemed perfectly healthy with no signs of distress. I generally observe the fish eating well one evening, and dead the next morning. I generally find them stuck to the intakes of my power filters. Sometimes just lying on the bottom. It is somewhat interesting to note that it is the smaller fish that are dying. I haven't lost any larger fish.
Usually, the dead fish appears perfectly healthy with good fin condition, good color, and other than being dead, the fish looks great. I have not observed any agression in the tank at all, except that the Male Odessa Barbs seem to chase each other around quite a bit.
My water conditions are as follows:
Temperature: 80
Ammonia: 0 - .25 ppm (depends on when I measure)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate 10 ppm
pH 6.8 (morning) 7.0 (evening)
GH 110 ppm
Dissolved C02 17 ppm
Dissolved O2 8.2 PPM
Phosphate: about 30 ppm. I just added some Seachem PhosGard to try to fix this.
My water consists of RO/DI water with Kent Marine RO right added (at it's lowest dosage) and some Seachem Acid Buffer and SeaChem Alkaline Buffer added. I have also been adding FloraPlan fertilizer for the plants. I am using eco-complete substrate. I am also running in a little bit of CO2 from a 2 litre bottle of yeast mixture.
I am looking for any suggestion as to why these fish might be dying. I am out of ideas.
I am also curious to see if anyone has any idea where all of these phosphates are coming from. I have tested my source water and all of my additives and non of them have any phosphates whatsoever, yet it is high in the tank.
If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Don
My setup consists of a 90 gallon tank which is moderately planted. I run two aquaclear 500 power filters and an 18W UV sterilizer. The tank is lighted with 320 Watts of flourescent lighting.
The plants are doing great and although I am struggling a bit with algae (probably due to the high phosphates mentioned below), the tank is doing very well. When I look at the fish, they all seem healthy and are all eating well.
The tank is now about 45 days old. The tank was cycled using 10 Odessa Barbs (barbus odessa) and 10 White Tipped Rosy Tetras (Hyphessobrycon bentosi rosaceus) and a fair number of plants. During the initial cycle, the amonnia level never rose above .75 ppm. I never saw any nitirites at all.
Since the cycle ended, I have added slowly and in the following order:
1 Flying Fox (Epalzeorhynchus kallopterus)
3 Golden Algae Eaters (Gyrinocheilus Aymonieri)
3 Small Angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare)
4 Black mollies (Poecilia hybrid)
1 Medium Pleco (Peckoltia oligospila??)
2 More Golden Algae Eaters (Gyrinocheilus Aymonieri)
2 Colombian Sharks (catfish) (Arius seemani)
1 Black Ghost Knifefish (new the last 3 days) (Apteronotus albifrons)
Over the past 2 weeks, I have had the following fish deaths:
4 Odessa Barbs
6 Rosy Tetras
1 Columbian Shark (the day after I put 2 of them in the tank)
2 Golden Algae Eaters
1 Black Molly.
In every case, the fish have seemed perfectly healthy with no signs of distress. I generally observe the fish eating well one evening, and dead the next morning. I generally find them stuck to the intakes of my power filters. Sometimes just lying on the bottom. It is somewhat interesting to note that it is the smaller fish that are dying. I haven't lost any larger fish.
Usually, the dead fish appears perfectly healthy with good fin condition, good color, and other than being dead, the fish looks great. I have not observed any agression in the tank at all, except that the Male Odessa Barbs seem to chase each other around quite a bit.
My water conditions are as follows:
Temperature: 80
Ammonia: 0 - .25 ppm (depends on when I measure)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate 10 ppm
pH 6.8 (morning) 7.0 (evening)
GH 110 ppm
Dissolved C02 17 ppm
Dissolved O2 8.2 PPM
Phosphate: about 30 ppm. I just added some Seachem PhosGard to try to fix this.
My water consists of RO/DI water with Kent Marine RO right added (at it's lowest dosage) and some Seachem Acid Buffer and SeaChem Alkaline Buffer added. I have also been adding FloraPlan fertilizer for the plants. I am using eco-complete substrate. I am also running in a little bit of CO2 from a 2 litre bottle of yeast mixture.
I am looking for any suggestion as to why these fish might be dying. I am out of ideas.
I am also curious to see if anyone has any idea where all of these phosphates are coming from. I have tested my source water and all of my additives and non of them have any phosphates whatsoever, yet it is high in the tank.
If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Don
