I have been having some problems lately with my fish dying off and cannot figure out what the reason is. The tank is a very mature 2 years old and heavily planted. I have co2 injection with a 2 week old Hagen Aquaclear filter.The deaths started a couple weeks before I changed the filter. I had some macro shrimp that were doing the killing. I got the shrimp out and replaced the neon tetra's after a few days of quarantine.
About week and a half later, I lost one of the neon tetras. the next night I lost another. I added the Aquaclear filter the third night with a mechanical sponge, the biomax media and some peat moss. I intentionally left out the carbon as I did not see a need for it. The next 4 days, I lost 4 neon tetra's. I also lost 2 panda cory's during that time.
I thought it may have been caused by the heat being turned off at night, so I purchased a second heater for the tank. I now have 150 watts heating a 15 gallon tank. That should be plenty I think. I will probably take out the 50 watt once I am confident in the new heater. I also got a glass/mercury thermometer so I could get an accurate temp reading.
The remaining occupants of the tank include 1 Betta, 1 neon tetra, 1 panda cory and 3 otto's and some ghost shrimp. They have all been fine for the last week until today.
When I got into work this morning, I noticed my Betta was not behaving normally. He is usually out first thing to greet me and beg for food. Today he was hiding under the driftwood and layign on his side at the bottom. Eventually, he did come out, but he was swimming eratically. He appeared to be disoriented, swimming up and down instead of back and forth. Occasionally he would go upside down or sideways. He was also very jumpy. normally, he is calm and does not respond skittishly when I walk by or set something on the desk near him. His breathing appeared normal and I did not see any visible problems with his fins or scales or anything else.
I tested my water conditions. my test set said my water was at the following.
PH 7.2
Ammonia 0
N02 0
Nitrates 10ppm
Kh 4
GH 10
The local fish store verified the results with the only discrepancy being they said my PH was 7.0. They said everything looked good.
They recommended a product called chemi-pure made by Dick Boyd. They said that if anything was in the water, it would help to take it out better than carbon would.
I do regular water changes every week, but only about 5-10% as that is usually all that is needed to keep the Nitrates below 10ppm. More than that actually raises the nitrate level.
Any ideas, comments about the chemi-pure, etc?
Thanks.
About week and a half later, I lost one of the neon tetras. the next night I lost another. I added the Aquaclear filter the third night with a mechanical sponge, the biomax media and some peat moss. I intentionally left out the carbon as I did not see a need for it. The next 4 days, I lost 4 neon tetra's. I also lost 2 panda cory's during that time.
I thought it may have been caused by the heat being turned off at night, so I purchased a second heater for the tank. I now have 150 watts heating a 15 gallon tank. That should be plenty I think. I will probably take out the 50 watt once I am confident in the new heater. I also got a glass/mercury thermometer so I could get an accurate temp reading.
The remaining occupants of the tank include 1 Betta, 1 neon tetra, 1 panda cory and 3 otto's and some ghost shrimp. They have all been fine for the last week until today.
When I got into work this morning, I noticed my Betta was not behaving normally. He is usually out first thing to greet me and beg for food. Today he was hiding under the driftwood and layign on his side at the bottom. Eventually, he did come out, but he was swimming eratically. He appeared to be disoriented, swimming up and down instead of back and forth. Occasionally he would go upside down or sideways. He was also very jumpy. normally, he is calm and does not respond skittishly when I walk by or set something on the desk near him. His breathing appeared normal and I did not see any visible problems with his fins or scales or anything else.
I tested my water conditions. my test set said my water was at the following.
PH 7.2
Ammonia 0
N02 0
Nitrates 10ppm
Kh 4
GH 10
The local fish store verified the results with the only discrepancy being they said my PH was 7.0. They said everything looked good.
They recommended a product called chemi-pure made by Dick Boyd. They said that if anything was in the water, it would help to take it out better than carbon would.
I do regular water changes every week, but only about 5-10% as that is usually all that is needed to keep the Nitrates below 10ppm. More than that actually raises the nitrate level.
Any ideas, comments about the chemi-pure, etc?
Thanks.
