Fish problems

[valdega]

I'm pretty concerned about my freshwater aquarium as i've had three fish die in it in the last two days. All three were different species; a male swordtail, a female fancy guppy, and a female balloon mollie. the swordtail and mollie didnt show any symptoms of poor health, they were well-fed and active. I noticed the body of the swordtail as i was about to perform a water change, he was floating at the top and didnt smell like he had been dead for very long. afterwards i bought a couple female guppies, one of which i think may have had some sort of disease, as it behaved erratically soon after i entroduced it to my community tank. It would swim straight up and sink back to the bottom upside down, then swim back up again. it died a couple hours later. the other female still seems quite healthy though. i found my mollie last night upside down hanging in one of my plastic plants, she hadnt been dead long when i took her out. im very worried about a disease breakout occurring within my tank. one of my male fancy guppies has a pretty nasty case of tail-rot so i bought some Melafix at the pet store and have been treating it for a day so far. it doesnt seem to be getting any worse. i also have some very tiny (~1mm) worm-like organisms on the side of my tank and have no idea what they are, or wether they're harmful to my fish, but i probably caused that by overfeeding or something. i had my water checked out at the pet store. pH was okay, but ammonia level was slightly high, so i performed a water change. if anyone has some advice on what i need to do to clear my tank up and prevent any further death, please help me, i am in your debt.

[Lady Hobbs]

Easy. Fish die in toxic water. Any ammonia, nitrites are toxic to fish as well as high nitrates. Apparently your tank has not been cycled so please read the stickie (in red) in the beginners section regarding cycling and hopefully that will help clear up some things for you.

[A340]

First thing is first, you need to buy a good test kit (liquid test kit and not the test strips) and test your water conditions, most importantly for nitrite, nitrate and ammonia. High levels of these can kill your fish.

1) How long has the aquarium been set up?
2) How did you "cycle" the tank? Did you use fish? Fishless? Any supplements?
3) What tap water condition do you use?
4) What kind of filteration do you have running?

These are all very simple questions that we need to know before we can give you an accurate answer. It probably is new tank syndrome, but the extra info can be very useful to us.

[valdega]

I saw a liquid test kit with everything in it at the local pet store for around $35. I'm a full-time student and part-time employee so i'm a little worried about spending money for things i may not use very often. but since you suggested it i'll swing by and pick one up today since i just got paid yesterday.

I hope these answers can help:
1) The aquarium has been set up for atleast 2 months
2) i cycled the tank with two guppies in it for about a week and a half, no supplements.
3)I've been using O.S.I. Water Safe conditioner for my water
4)I have a Tetra Whisper 10 power filter, i change the carbon bag atleast once a month.

thanks

[Lady Hobbs]

If your tank has been set up for 2 months, it has probably already cycled by now. Do water changes of about half the tank every week and they should be OK. But first you need to check on your stock list which I posted about in your other thread.

And don't clean that tank much. It is still very new and still unstable. If you have been cleaning too much in that tank, you are still uncycled and probably have set it back.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

Test kits are a must-have, IMHO.
You can drive a car without having a spare wheel in the boot, but it's damned useful to have when you do get a flat.

[SkarloeysMom]

I was wondering what size tank it is and how many and what kinds of fish did you have in it before they started dieing off? Did the two guppies you cycled live?

[valdega]

it's a ten-gallon tank. the original guppies survived the cycle. the original stock was 2 male guppies and one female, a male swordtail, a female mollie, 2 dwarf frogs, and a small 3" pleco. they all got along just fine.