I have a 10 gallon craigs list tank I bought to go in my sons room that I'm about to give up on.
I used playsand as the substrate, its been a planted tank/snail farm for almost 6 months. There are probably 100 snails in it ranging from pin-head to eraser sized. (When they get much bigger I pull them out and toss them in the living room tank for my clown loaches. It has 2 37w CFL daylight lamps providing the light for the plants. Its well planted, with anacharis, Cardamine lyrata "Chinese Ivy", and Dwarf Baby Tears. Plants and snails are thriving.
Every time I add fish I grab some filter media out of one of my existing tanks and put in the HOB, which is an older (5 years?) AQ 30.
After putting fish in, I monitor water quality, testing for ammonia, KH, GH, nitrites and nitrates, and if anything gets slightly out of wack do a water change. I have a bunch of other tanks and have never had mass die offs before.
So, every time I add fish to this tank, within 2 or 3 days they're all dead. I just killed a batch of 8 petsmart cardinal tetras. I've tried fish from petsmart, petco, that fish place, and my lfs. I've put fish from all of those places, and despite a 100% ich rate on petco fish, I've never lost one in any other tank.
I've tried maybe 6 batches of fish? I've tried different species (mollies, guppies, red fin tetras, cardinal tetras, sword tails) I've tried adding them 1 or two at a time and 6 or up to 8 at a time. Never had water parameter troubles, and never had a fish live in this tank more than 3 days.
I have a 30gallon right next to this tank with the exact same substrate, exact same plants, exact same water, from the last batch of petsmart fish I put 8 in the 10 gallon and 5 in the 30, and all 5 in the 30 are doing fine. Prior to adding fish this last time I did 5 days of consecutive 50% water changes in both the 10 and the 30 to ensure anything toxic is washed out. The 30 has fish i've had for a couple of years in it, they are thriving.
I've tried to eliminate every possible variable I can think of, but i'm at a loss. 2 or 3 batches of fish ago I emptied the tank scrubbed it all out with ammonia, rinsed it thoroughly, and then did a couple water changes on the empty (except for plants and snails) before adding fish.
Thanks for reading this giant text wall, do you think I should just call the tank cursed and just keep it as a snail farm? Is there something I don't know about snails that would be killing off my fish? Thats the only thing any different from the 30 gallon sitting next to it, the 30 has no snails.
I'm tired of killing fish!
I used playsand as the substrate, its been a planted tank/snail farm for almost 6 months. There are probably 100 snails in it ranging from pin-head to eraser sized. (When they get much bigger I pull them out and toss them in the living room tank for my clown loaches. It has 2 37w CFL daylight lamps providing the light for the plants. Its well planted, with anacharis, Cardamine lyrata "Chinese Ivy", and Dwarf Baby Tears. Plants and snails are thriving.
Every time I add fish I grab some filter media out of one of my existing tanks and put in the HOB, which is an older (5 years?) AQ 30.
After putting fish in, I monitor water quality, testing for ammonia, KH, GH, nitrites and nitrates, and if anything gets slightly out of wack do a water change. I have a bunch of other tanks and have never had mass die offs before.
So, every time I add fish to this tank, within 2 or 3 days they're all dead. I just killed a batch of 8 petsmart cardinal tetras. I've tried fish from petsmart, petco, that fish place, and my lfs. I've put fish from all of those places, and despite a 100% ich rate on petco fish, I've never lost one in any other tank.
I've tried maybe 6 batches of fish? I've tried different species (mollies, guppies, red fin tetras, cardinal tetras, sword tails) I've tried adding them 1 or two at a time and 6 or up to 8 at a time. Never had water parameter troubles, and never had a fish live in this tank more than 3 days.
I have a 30gallon right next to this tank with the exact same substrate, exact same plants, exact same water, from the last batch of petsmart fish I put 8 in the 10 gallon and 5 in the 30, and all 5 in the 30 are doing fine. Prior to adding fish this last time I did 5 days of consecutive 50% water changes in both the 10 and the 30 to ensure anything toxic is washed out. The 30 has fish i've had for a couple of years in it, they are thriving.
I've tried to eliminate every possible variable I can think of, but i'm at a loss. 2 or 3 batches of fish ago I emptied the tank scrubbed it all out with ammonia, rinsed it thoroughly, and then did a couple water changes on the empty (except for plants and snails) before adding fish.
Thanks for reading this giant text wall, do you think I should just call the tank cursed and just keep it as a snail farm? Is there something I don't know about snails that would be killing off my fish? Thats the only thing any different from the 30 gallon sitting next to it, the 30 has no snails.
I'm tired of killing fish!
