HELP! Newbie ready to give up...

[golfnfish]

Help. I'm new to this great hobby (or so I thought) and have been having nothing but trouble. Here's my setup:

5 gal bow front (I know, should've started with bigger tank, but Gpa got this for the kids)
pH - 7.6
Ammonia - 0.0
Nitrite - 0.0
KH - 6
GH - 10
74-78 degrees
20% h20 changes every other week
several water sprites

Started the tank in August before learning about cycling, lost fish, then cycled tank, more fish lost, then things settled. But I can't seem to keep any fish alive more than 3-4 weeks. I've had neons, otos, guppies, bumble bee gobys and platys. I now know the neons and gobys weren't the best fis for a newbie. Now I've got an adult Gold Dust molly and one of her 10-day old fry along with one oto. Tonight I lost the other Gold Dust who I think was about ready to give birth. Got home from Turkey Day meal and she was pushin' up daisies. We were heartbroken.
I'm not sure what to do next. The kids really like having the tank in their room, but I'm getting tired of all the sadness.

Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[Darkangel]

Okay golfnfish, I hear you on the constant losses. It is a sad thing but it is an unfortunate end in trying to care for animals. You do not say wheather or not there is a heater in this tank. I am going to guess no as most small tanks do not. If not that is in large part your problem. Does the tank have a filter? It should have at the very least an air powered sponge filter. If there is no filter cut the below mentioned fish numbers in half.Who feeds the fish and how much? How often are water changes and gravel cleaning done? If it is not you or more then one person doing the feeding you need to change that. A small tank this size needs like one or two flakes of food per day about the size of a penny in total. Perhaps even down to 3/4 the size of a penny. Next you need to change about 25% of the water once a week while cleaning the gravel. Your temperature is far to low for mollies. They would prefer if it were at about 80* and a little salt added. For your tank I would recomend you get 4 White Clouds, and 2 of any type of cory. The otto should be okay. The tank may seem sparse but do not be tempted to add more fish. Keep the temperatures where they are for this fish collection. No need to add a heater if there is not one. Also what type of lighting? If it is incandesent that will drive your temperature up and down which is another bad thing. Next I would suggest you go buy a basic beginers fish book and give it a quick once over. There are some decent books out there in the $10 range. They will help you out a lot. That should get you started. If this does not help ask here for more help.

 

[golfnfish]

Darkangel, thanks for the info. My tank does have a Bio-filter and I got a heater several weeks ago when the weather changed and the tank temps dropped to 68-70 overnight. There is an incandescent light that's on 8-10 hours in the afternoon/everning. And I added a small amount of aquarium salt. I do the feeding and am giving only a very small amount every day or two.

I'll try more frequent water changes and see if I can keep the last three soldiers alive.

 

[Serrateeth_2002]

Problem here is the tank is too small,nitrite and ammonia levels may skyrocket considering the number of fishes unless you have a good filter,if the temp changes is drastic,the fishes may die from it,most of the fishes are brackish,only 2 types of fishes you mentioned are FW,otos cannot handle salt,you should restart with easier to keep fishes like danios and white clouds,make sure you don't mix with the wrong fishes like FW with BW and tropical with coldwater.

 

[ewok]

a bio-filter..... bio-wheel? possibly an eclipse system?

i'm sorry, i have a few questions before i would even guess at this....

need a little more specifics on the "bio-filter".... is it a hood unit like an eclipse, or maybe a HOB... or maybe even just an air driven box?

is there an air source like a stone or one of those air operated gizmos?

what is actually left in the tank for fish?

do you have test kits for ph, ammonia and nitrites? those are the most important generally, you can also probably get your pet store to test it for you.

have there been any symptoms about the deaths? any strange actions? looks? colors? you said you thought the last one was pregnant.... was she so fat the scales were sticking out?

personally from what i have seen, none of the fish you have posted seem super strong to me either, i mostly keep cichlids and catfish but i have kept a couple of those myself when i was new and had bad luck. they wouldn't be my first choice for a cycling tank.

post back whatever answers you can and hopefully we can come up with something to get you on the right track........

i would run with the water changes with fresh dechlorinated water for now, it might not seem to help but it definately won't harm them either. water quality is very important in this hobby.

 

[redwing]

Hang in there golfnfish. Most of us have gone through fish losses and tank problems like yours. If you stick with it you will be rewarded with many years of happy fishkeeping. What are your nitrates? If you don't have this test then often lfs will test for free. I still take a sample to lfs just to double check my kit. Like others have said frequent water changes won't hurt. Personally I wouldn't add any fish until you get to the bottom of your problem.

 

[Cichlid Woman]

Hi there,

It's great that your kids are interested in the fish--could get to be a major family hobby. If you can keep it going. Losing fish hurts, I know. But if this hobby grabs you, it will become a passion! And you'll begin to gravitate toward a bigger tank. The best size for beginners is a 20-gallon long tank, I believe. It is MUCH more difficult to get things running smoothly in a smaller tank, because the conditions change too fast. (In a bigger tank, any problem doesn't affect the entire tank so quickly, etc., giving you more time to fix it.) A couple of questions:

I don't know your level of expertise, so I hope this isn't a stupid question, but you do know you have to add a dechlorinator to the new water before you add it to the tank during water changes, right? (Water straight from the tap contains stuff that can kill your fish ...)

Also, I don't like that incandescent light. It will definitely fluctuate the heat in the tank at least a bit, and that stresses fish. Fluorescents don't do that.

One last question--how old are the kids? They're not reaching in there to play with the fishies, are they? (That could also stress the fish enough to kill them over any length of time.) I've got a kid myself, and that's the first thing she tried to do ... thought it was worth asking.

Don't give up!!

-- Pat

 

[famman]

Don't give up!
Do get florescent lighting.
Don't get single otos, gobys.
Do get platys, guppies.
Don't get too many fish.
Do spend hours of fun look at the fish and explaining the nitrogen cycle to your fry (I mean kids).

Keep at it. My wife has a picture perfect platy tank in my son's room. 10 gal, 6 platys, 1 snail. We've started to see the occasional fry, so we've done a few things help them hide.

good luck

 

[Fishsmurf]

Gotta agree with the famman and chiclid woman. Keep at it, still a newbie myself but once you start to see the results you will be addicted! There are plenty of people here who will help in anyway they can & plenty of great advice. It is honestly worth it.....

 

[golfnfish]

Thanks for all the support. It's nice to know I'm not the first one to kill a bunch of fish before getting the hang of it.

Some answers to your very good questions:

Tank - MiniBow 5 with Whisper Power Filter-hob, filter changed monthly
Stress Coat added with each water change.

The kids are 7 and 9 and they aren't reaching into the tank.

Lighting - There's not much room in the hood for any bulb other then the incandescent that came with the setup.

There is NOT an airstone or any other air going into the tank other than from the filter.

I do test for ammonia, nitrItes, ph, kh and gh. Don't have a nitrAte test kit. Perhaps I should get one.

Here's what's left in the tank - one oto, one adult Gold Dust molly and one of her 12-day old fry.

The prego(?) fish that died last night looked fine, no scales sticking out, or anything else I could see unusual. She was hanging out in the gravel most of yesterday. I figured it was her way of getting ready to pop out her fry. What would be normal behavior for a molly ready to have babies?

Maybe I'm just having a streak of bad luck.

Thanks again for the help. Please keep the ideas coming as the kids and I aren't ready to give up just yet. Let me know if you have any other questions.