help????

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siang

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 16, 2010
159
2
18
cheltenham
i have a 96l community tank, nearly 4 months old. i have 2 red honey gourami in there with other peaceful fish. one of my gourami is listing to one side and staying close to the bottom of the tank. i have just fed them and he didnt come up for food. he looks normal. water params are normal, temp is 26 degrees celcius. have had him for about 6 weeks and he was fine until about an hour ago. other one is fine. i have lost 3 gourami in last 6 weeks, one red honey 2 weeks ago, and 2 blue dwarf about 5 weeks ago. what is wrong with my fish? i love my gourami, they are my favourites
 
how can you say everything is fine with water params when you lost so many fish in such a short time? yeah i consider that alot of lost in just 6 weeks.

so instead of saying your water param is fine, give us exact measurement that your test kit is giving you.

what are you doing for filters? any bubble wands or powerhead?
 
ok, ammonia is at 0ppm, nitrite at 0ppm, nitrate at 40ppm, ph is 7.6 which is standard tap ph here, medium water hardness. planted tank with 4 big plants.last water change was 30% a week ago because i had some ammonia build up, normally do 15% each week,will be doing tomorrow. fish seems happy enough, just quiet. no aggressive tankmates, he fed well this morning, feed tank twice daily on flakes food, catfish pellets and algae wafers as have cory's and a bn plec. feed frozen food twice a week, and blanches peas and broccoli once a week. all other fish are fine, 4 mollies, 4 cory's, 5 silvertip tetra, the 2 gourami, 1 bn plec and a couple snails. running fluval 3+ filter and waiting for fluval U3 to come from ebay. air pump running bubble wall and standard airstone.
 
Did I just read ammonia build up, so you did a water change? You shouldn't ever get ammonia ( well, testable IMO ) because your filters should be able to easily convert it into nitrites and finally nitrates. It sounds to me that you don't have adequate BIO filtration or that your tank never completely cycled. I'd also suggest 50% water change a week....
 
your nitrate is high, especially for a planted tank. you need to do daily water changes to get it down to 20 or below. 10 would be diserable
 
when i asked on here about the water changing i was told 10% a week. there was an ammonia build up because my friend had looked after them for a few days and not vacuumed the excess food up. i did a water change, put nutrafin cycle in, and aquasafe in the new water and have been testing daily, now water is great. fish did just get up and swim around for a bit, ate a little then went back to leaning. is he trying to sleep?
 
siang;4570504; said:
when i asked on here about the water changing i was told 10% a week. there was an ammonia build up because my friend had looked after them for a few days and not vacuumed the excess food up. i did a water change, put nutrafin cycle in, and aquasafe in the new water and have been testing daily, now water is great. fish did just get up and swim around for a bit, ate a little then went back to leaning. is he trying to sleep?

I only talk from experience... All 9 of my tanks have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and nitrates below 10 (from doing 50% water changes a week). Water changes are the only way to reduce nitrates. Now, I do 50%, because that's what it takes for me to keep my nitrates under 10. For you, maybe it'll only take 30% a week. It depends on feeding amounts, type of fish, etc. I have 2 puffers who are very messy eaters, so their water needs changing in higher volumes to stay clean.
 
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