What's Killing My Fish!

[ekimzulad]

Help! Hopefully you more experienced fish keepers can steer me in the right direction. It's sad to see 1 fish die every couple of weeks and not know how to stop it. What happens is 1 fish will start to isolate themselves and breath rapidly, and eventually stop eating. They will ususally bloat up at bit or have scales sticking out. Once they get to this point they die within a few days. I also lose a shrimp about once a week.

I believe my fish issues could be due to parasites from an weak immune systems - possibly due to high nitrates (20-40ppm - see below for more info). They do not get spots (ICH). This could be due to lack of vacuuming my gravel (but see my routine/issues below).

Regarding the Plants, I also wish they would do better. The crypts are doing OK (sometimes a leaf melts), just very very slow growing. The swords are not doing too well. The plants eventually turn a lighter green and the leaves start to melt (break apart). They do grow a bit but the new growth also doesn't look too good and is fragile. The java moss and moss balls look good and grow ok.

Here's some info on my setup & maintenance:

Tank:

• Marineland 27 Gallon Cube (Petsmart) - set up for about 6 months now
• (2) Aquaclear 30 HOB Filters (both with Sponge, Purigen, & Biomax - as well as a Fluval Prefilter on the intake)
• (2) Marineland Double Brite LED light strips
• Eco Complete Gravel (got this because its supposed to be good for plants for it's been a pain to keep the plants down in it, and it's extremely hard to vacuum)

Fish/Inverts:

• 30-40 Cherry Shrimp (I had 5-6 adults up until 1-2 months ago, they had a bunch of babies and the adults died off)
• 3 Amano Shrimp (had for 4-5 months, no issues)
• 2 Nerite Snails (had for 1 month, no issues)
• 3 Kuhli Loaches (had for 6 months, no issues with them)
• 2 Celestial Pearl Danio (had for 1 month. use to have 3 others but they lasted 3-4 months)
• 9 Ember Tetras (had for 1 month, no issues....yet)
• 3 Male Guppies (had 1 for 7-8 months, other 2 are new - replacing 2 others that died after 4-5 months)
• 5 Threadfin Rainbows (had 12, lost 7 within 4-5 months)
• 7 Gertrudae Spotted Blue Eye (had 12, lost 5 within 3-4 months)

Feeding:

• I feed once a day - What they can consume in about 5 min. (i know they say use 2-3 min, but I need to ensure some of the shier fish get fed too).
• I normally feed small pellets and/or crushed flake. But every 3rd day I feed frozen baby brine/frozen daphia instead.
• I also feed an algae tablet (maybe 1.5 small tabs), broken up for the shrimp and loaches, although the fish eat off of them as well. But every 3rd day I feed a few blanched frozen peas/zuchinni pieces instead of the algae.

Plants:

• 3 Swords
• 6 Cryptocorne Plants
• 3 Moss Balls
• Clump of Java Moss
• Couple other Misc Plants
• Add Seachem Flourish 1/week (most weeks)

Water:

• Tap Water (always use Prime) - out of tap 0 Nitrite/Amonia, but 5-7ish Nitrates
• Nitrite - 0 (have never seen a reading other than 0)
• Almonia - 0 (have never seen a reading other than 0)
• Nitrates - 20-40 (after a week or two it starts getting to 40 or a bit higher before I do the water change)
• KH - 6
• GH - 16
• Temp = 76-78
• I use API Master Test Kit

Maintenance:

• Water Changes - I typically do 1 50% water change every week, with Seachem Prime & Flourish
• Filters - I clean the prefilters each week and the main filters every couple of months. I also clean the most balls every 2 weeks.
• Vacuuming - I hardly do any becauses its soo hard to vacuum Eco Complete without sucking up the gravel and making a huge mess (if I dig down into it it stirs up tons of fine dust like particles). I don't see any debris on top of the gravel, except for the occasional dead fish/plant piece, which I remove right away. So the top of the gravel always looks good.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Welcome! I'm not an experienced tankologist, but that is a LOT of critters in a 27g tank!

It sounds like you've got great hardware and an excellent maintenance regimen. Congrats to that.

I would say if you're getting up to ~40ppm nitrates in a week, even with your ~50% water changes and plants in the tank, you need to reduce the stocking.

From what I've read, when fish's scales start to pineapple like that, it's kidney failure due to water quality issues.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

The pinecone looking scales like that is called dropsy - and is a symptom but can be from multiple causes. Most often cause is a bacterial infection that was able to take hold due to stress (poor water conditions, overcrowding, bullying), but it can also be from parasites.

If you had all the fish you listed that have died at the same time initially, that could well have contributed to the problem. To me, the number of fish you have now is not really overstocked - they are all small (or tiny) peaceful fish. But I would not continue to add fish at this point.

If it were me, I'd be inclined to try a medicated food. Something that will take care of potential parasites, or you could also do an antibiotic food. Have you seen any stringy poops or little white "threads" (worms) from any of their rears?

It sounds like the maintenance schedule is not the issue. Honestly, I have had much (much) higher nitrates than 40ppm, although with hardy fish, and haven't had an issue. Shrimp should be the first affected if nitrates are the problem, and though I have no personal experience with it I would tend to doubt that baby shrimp would be surviving if water quality was the issue.

Is there a specific reason you're adding Flourish for the plants? Are you following the proper dosing recommendation?

With the planted tank substrates, you shouldn't really need to vacuum them. Just sucking the crud off the top should be fine.

Hopefully you are taking out a plant if it is starting to rot / melt away - decomposing material is just going to add nitrates to your tank.

I also clean the most balls every 2 weeks.

Not sure what you are referring to - if you mean the bioballs, they shouldn't be cleaned ever, or at most just rinsed in tank water if they have a bunch of crud built up.