[AquaticLife] HELP!! Baffled by Fish deaths
Whenever you have a problem in a tank, it’s a good idea to do a full set of new tests and give us your numbers. Saying “it’s fine” or “level and consistent” isn’t enough information as there is no such thing as “fine” for all fish. What might be good for some fish could be very bad for other fish.
Since your tank is only 2.5 months old, you might have just finished cycling the tank or it could still be cycling if you didn’t do things properly during the cycling with fish process. It’s always better to fishless cycle but I understand many people end up with fish first and then find out all about this cycling stuff. Once again, having numbers for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, GH and KH go a long way in diagnosing problems.
Tell us more about your tank, your filtration system, any filter additives, chemicals you use or have used in the tank, any live plants, how they are doing, etc.
Your 50G tall tank will not be able to hold as many fish as a regular 50G or rather a 55G 4′ long tank due to having a much lower surface area for gas exchange. With the numbers of fish you had, you would have been quickly overstocked. Remember that when stocking a tank, you MUST stock it based on the expected adult size of the fish, not the fact that they are “little” now. Your two remaining angelfish, should they survive whatever happened, will basically require the entire 50G tank to themselves with maybe a little more room for a school of smaller fish. Although the clown pleco only grows to around 4-5″, they get very wide and bulky and have a lot of body mass to them so they also need a lot of water volume but you might have been able to handle a pair of angels and the clown pleco if the tank had a good overall ecology and you did weekly tank/filter maintenance.
Also, I’m not familiar with “Von Rios” so give me more info about what they are. I did a Google but nothing jumped out at me except that it might be another name for Flame Tetras or some kind of breeding offshoot http://fish.mongabay.com/species/Hyphessobrycon_flammeus.html so check out the pictures link on this profile and let us know if that’s what you have.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
