issues besides am, ni, na, ph that can affect fish?

[kimmers318]

Okay, as you know Rollie and William, I am still relatively new and learning everyday! My tap water has a ph of 8, so I mix it with RO to achieve a ph of 7.4. Haven't ever tested gh or kh since the ph stays stable. I lost one of my existing clown loaches for no apparent reason. I originally bought 3 in late January I believe, lost 2 of those 3 within a week...didn't figure any of it was my fault, we all know how sensitive small clowns can be. A couple of weeks later purchased another and the existing 2 have done fine. The other morning I found 1 dead on the tank floor. The only change to this tank was that I put the 7 platy's from 20 gal into it so that I could Q the new spotted clown loach due to ICK. I did check water parameters and all stayed fine. The only thing I noticed was that the platy's didn't share well with my corys and clowns as far as food goes, they gobbled up everything I put in the tank! Finding a dead clown loach upset me a little and since that was the only possible issue I removed 5 of them lowering the competition. I doubt the loach starved to death in 5 days, all other fish including the last clown loach appear happy and healthy, and no others have died. Could there be something else about my water that could have been slowly debilitating to a clown loach or any fish for that matter (gh, kh, phospate etc.) that I may want to check out? It is strange to me that it just showed up dead one morning, had eaten the previous morning when I fed the frozen bloodworms. I am just destined to have only 2 clown loaches???? :cry:

[William]

provided the two surviving loaches don't hassel the new ones to death (they can do that) there are a long row of other levels that can matter including but not limited to the ones you mention. Other are the level of different metals in the water etc.

Have you been experimenting with salt in this tank?

[kimmers318]

Not in this tank ever. I have tried salt in Q tank (before new clown loach, not with new clown loach) and once in my daughters tank...no luck either time. There is now only 1 surviving loach in my 64 gal, and the newly purchased one being Q'd. I don't want to keep losing clown loaches, I love them so!

[William]

You might wanna check gh, kh. If the pH is that high from the beginning yo might have very high gh, kh.

But I have a feeling we are missing something. Does all the clowns come from the same store? Was the surving ones larger than the others.

[kimmers318]

The original 3 came from the same store....2 of those died, leaving me with one. The next one was purchased somewhere else, those 2 lived happily together for about 3 months, were close to the same size, and then the other day one of those showed up dead. My new one, the spotted one, is still in Q tank, and hasn't been added to main aquarium yet.
I will pick up a gh, kh test kit(s) and see what I have with tap....and RO/tap mix. Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that I originally wanted plants, and was sold flourite to put under the gravel. Too little light makes it near impossible for plants to live. Could the flourite be putting too much into water without there being plants? I am lost here! I am not confused if I lose a fish within a week or 2 of purchase...but 3 months later is upsetting me thinking I have to be doing something wrong. I hate the flourite, so even if sometime in the future I decide to venture into properly planting a tank I won't use it again....I will manually feed the plants!
No, the surviving clown wasn't much if any larger, they were pretty much the same size, as is the new one. Now that I only have 1 left I am chomping at the bit to get "spotty" as my daughter has named him into the 64 gal to provide each other companionship.
I will keep you posted when I get test results. Thanks William.