Lost Fish

Hi,
I have having a few issues with my tank and I am looking for advice…
A bit of background first:
I got my first tropical tank about a year ago (a Fluval Roma 90) and went through a full fish less cycle then stocked with approximately the following:

• 10 male guppies
• 3 endler guppies
• 6 galaxy raspbora
• 3 honey gourami
• 6 Amano shrimp

From stocking to now I have been doing weekly water changes and have never noticed anything off with any of the levels when testing..

I had a few fish die in the first couple of weeks but then all seemed ok for a month or so until I lost all the galaxies over the period of a few weeks. Each one slowly started to look bent and eventually died. I had been testing all the water throughout and never had any issues and chatted with a few people who suggested that they may have been a dodgy batch of fish and to not worry.

Over the next 6 months or so I slowly lost all of the guppies except 1 (and I do mean lost, I only ever found the remains of 1 or 2).

I restocked at somepoint to get to the following level about a month ago:

• 4 guppies (2 original)
• 1 endler guppy
• 3 honey gourami (2 original 1 replacement)
• 5/6 Amano shrimp (can’t tell if they are all there but there is at least 5)
• 3 peppery corys
• 3 glowlight danios
• 5 oto’s

Since over the last dew weeks I have now lost some more (again lost as it I have never found bodies), I am down to2 guppies, 2 corys and2 glowlights (but have issue with 1, explained below) and 4 otos.
All of my water is still fine  according to the testing kits, so I am unsure why I keep losing fish. What I don’t know however if this is just part and parcel of the game (that some die and you need to replace), or if I have something wrong in the tank.

I realise my community isn’t very balanced at the moment and ideally I should get some more glowlights and corys, but I am hesitant to add more without knowing why the old are dieing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Regarding the glowlight danios, I searched the whole tank last night and I was unable to see one of them, but finally spotted him this morning. He does not look well to me though and appears to be being picked on by the other much larger one. I have attached a video of this (sorry about the focus jumping in and out).

Thanks for reading all of this and any input you can give

Picture of tank
* removed 3rd party image hosting site requests upgrade from user * Rob Admin


Video of glowlight Danios

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uolPT-y7Jf4

Mark
 

Thanks for the reply Sue,

The tank is fully covered so there is no chance any could have escaped that way. I have spent a lot of time looking within the tank, there is a chance that they could be hidden in the real plants, but I'm sure they would have turned up during a clean out. I guess the others are just eating the whole lot!

I tested my tap water back in March last year (when I was setting up the tank), it gave me the following:
-200 GH
-110 KH
- 7.6 PH
- 0.25 ppm Ammonia
- 0 ppm nitrite
- 40 ppm nitrate

I seem to recall this was called moderately hard. I checked with a friend nearby who has gouramis and corys and they have got on great so I thought that would be ok.

That particular glowlight has always been much smaller than the other one, he seems to be very active tonight though. I have never seen anything protruding, just a long string of waste at times which drops off eventually.

It is peppered cories I have, I started with 3 but have 2 now. They seem really happy, but are very rarely swimming together. I have no problem getting some more of them though, I just don't want to add fish for them to die straight away.
I wasn't aware of the minimum number of glowlights until I checked this site the other day, but now that I know that I am planning to get more, I just didn't want to add them until I know what's going on with the others!

200 GH (assuming it's a ppm reading) is low for a livebearer like a guppy.  I wonder what your water hardness is in dH as Sue says.  I think your water hardness may be lower than you initially thought.  I would love to keep guppies but my water is too soft.

40 ppm nitrate is right on the edge of what's tolerable for fish. If that's the amount in your tap water it will only increase in your tank.  A much healthier level will be around 20 ppm or below.  High nitrate levels leave your fish prone to all kinds of illness.  Have you been using RO water?  What are your current water test results compared to March?

Sadly I think you may have had multiple issues rather than just one but you're on the road to fixing them. 

Thanks so much for all the replies.

@fcmf I always take the filter off the stand when I am doing a water change as loads of waste builds up around it so I make sure I clean it off. Also although there is a small hole in the lid I find it highly unlikely that a fish would ever get through it, let alone multiple fish. It is a way above the water level and off to the side a little. Thanks for the advice though.

I have never seen any ammonia or nitrite from tests on my actual tank water (once the fishless cycle was complete obviously)

@marquismirage : I have lent my water hardness test kit to someone, but I will test both the tap water and tank when I get it back in the next week and report back. According to the Severn Trent website (my local water supplier), my water should be "moderately hard".  I find the nitrate reading very hard to judge, there seems to be so little difference between all the options on the scale that I could well be more like 20 than 40 I suppose. I was under the impression that the live plants in my tank however would help to lower this level for me? I have never used any RO water in the tank.

@Richard W I am also not 100% convinced on the chemistry either as I have had many people tell me they have purchased tanks and chucked whatever fish they liked the best all in from day 1 and never had any issues. I want to make sure though that if there is anything I can do I am doing it properly. I will hold off getting any replacement fish until I have a few months with no deaths

Another fish gone 

The glowlight seems to have perked up a little in last few days, a few days ago one of my honey gouramis started acting funny however.
They were spending a lot of time at the top of the tank which was pretty unusual, this was the only thing I noticed though. 2 days later I have found it dead in the tank with no obvious signs of what happened (not obvious to me anyway). I think I need a good clear 2 months with no deaths then start to restock

* image removed photo hosting company generic message requesting upgrade Rob - Admin*

Thanks for the reply @fcmf. The fins on this gourami were always darker than the rest of the body so I don't think it's that. Hopefully someone else can give an indication

I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of iffy honey gouramis out there. The yellow ones I've had never lasted as long as the natural coloured forms. I do wonder if it is the result of inbreeding and, being the most common colour in shops, bad breeding practices to keep up with demand.

You could maybe think about thick lipped gouramis instead.

Hello @Mark359 

The photos in your post look exactly like the ones I posted in a thread "The Emergency Room >Unexpected Demise" not long ago.

The tail clamping that @fcmf mentioned is identical.  I think it's just how they are when dead and out of the water. Also, I have a couple of other Gourami with various black markings, typically in the throat area.  I think that's just the way they are.  One was so marked that I went back to MA to talk to them and check out their, then, current stock.  They said it's the way they are (well they wouldn't say there was a problem would they), but the current stock had several similarly marked fish.  Because of the relevance to me, I always take a look at Yellow Honeys whenever visiting a LFS.  All of them have a few with these kind of markings.

The other 2 I've got are completely without any black markings and. if anything, are a lighter colour than the other two.  I think the marked one's are males and the paler ones, with a feint orange strip along the body, are females.

I've lost 2 out of 6 I bought mid-November, but neither were "sick", apart from the fact they were both dead of course.  One got a bit too curious about the pump housing and got stuck in it and the other decided to do a bit of sunbathing on top of some décor, under the tank lamps.

As I mentioned, mine came from MA Scottsdale's so there's no connection with P@H.

Natural coloured male honey gouramis all have a black throat. It is their colouring. Yellow honeys were bred from natural coloured ones by selective breeding and the genetics for the black throat are still there to some degree. The amount of black throat that appears on male yellow honey gouramis is quite variable, but some black on the throat is normal.
Similarly, almost all natural coloured females have a brown stripe along their sides. Yellow females often show this stripe but it is not nearly as pronounced as in natural coloured females. And females never have any black on their throats unless they are sick.