# Bottom feeders all dieing



## Aquaman18

I've got a 29 gallon tank, set up for about 8 months now. 5 platys & 1 gouramie are fine & healthy- all been in the tank for over a month, 2 of them for 3 & 8 months. In the last 2 weeks I had an "blond algae eater" die after being in the tank for 2 months, and the 2 cory cats & pleco I just put in died within 3 days of being put in. Nothing else changed on the tank. I feed with flakes daily and bloodworms on Saturday mornings as a treat. All water quality looks good. However, I've had some greenish tint in the water for about 2 weeks (started around when the algae eater died). I've been doing 25% water changes every 4 days or so to keep the algae blooms down. I have well water, which needs no treatment. And like I said- I've got 6 surface feeders who are fine- just the bottom feeders are all kicking the bucket. 

Any ideas? Help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.


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## susankat

Can you give us your actual readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates? How did you acclimate them?


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## chris oe

Do you have any drift wood for your plecos? Do you ever feed algae wafers or bottom feeder tabs? You're doing a good job on your frequent water changes, but I'd still like to hear the results of your water tests. Well water can be tricky, you don't have to worry about water treatment chemicals from the utility, but you can still get stuff leaching into your aquifer from agricultural chemicals and dumping and stuff. I'm wondering if the reason you keep getting the green water isn't due to some kind of agricultural chemical leaching. Fast growing algae (and all fast growing plants) though they produce o2 (or rather free it up) during photosynthesis, at night when the lights are off and they switch into night time phase they actually use up o2 and if they're overactive they can lead to a low oxygen situation, especially in early morning. If your tank was having low nighttime o2 it might effect your bottom feeders more. (at least, that's one possibility) but we'll need to know your test results and so on to be sure. Nitrates and especially phosphates would be good to know. If you don't have those tests, some pet stores will do that testing for you for free or low cost.


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## Aquaman18

I'll test later on & post the results. 
I have a fake hollow "log" for them to hide in/under/around. Also a mini-reef ball. Actual one used for artificial reefs. A couple of fake plants (no real ones at this point. I missed my opportunity to grab some **** tail)

Acclimation- I've done a little more research on other people's bottom feeders dieing- and have seen that floating them in the bag for 15-20 minutes isn't good for corys or plecos. So I'll change that from now on. Weird though- when I was a kid, and didn't have anyone to answer questions, give advice, etc, I would buy random fishes, and put them all in the same way- never had any of these die-off issues! Corys were like little armored tanks- even when I was 10 I couldn't kill them. Are they just getting soft??? (kidding)
Guess I'm getting an acclimation bucket going. But I find it weird that 3 different bottom feeder species have died, and all my surface feeders are happily swimming/eating away.

Oh- no agriculture around here. House behind me (nearest my well) has been vacant for a few years, so it's not an issue with over fertilizing their lawn, etc. We're also near the top of a pretty large hill (by southern NY standards). But not an industrial part of southern NY. There hasn't been farming here for at least a hundred years, but there isn't any industry. Nice suburban area- we have 1.25 acres. Not saying that to brag or anything, just making it clear we aren't in what most people outside of NY think of when they read NY. 

I bought the pleco & 2 corys because the tank has quite a bit of algae- the bloom of which started after I put in one of the weekly algae tabs I was feeding the algae eater! He had happily lasted about 2 months in the tank. I am wondering if the algae tab was tainted somehow, with a different species of algae or something. The algae eater wouldn't eat one tab I had put in, and it corroded, but left a very dark green algae on the glass beads my wife wanted in place of gravel (gotta make some concessions to get an expensive hobby going ). As it dissipated, the greenish water began...

Thanks again for any help. I'd like to have some cellar dwellers to watch down low.


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## Martini2108

How fast do they die(all at once or 1 then other followed) and are they showing any symptoms, having trouble staying on the ground (floating while alive), seem to not know where they are going just wandering aimlessly, closer to the surface than they should? Had an odd issue with 9 cory's before died for no reason at all within 5-6 days, all other fish in tank were fine.


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## jrman83

I'm guessing by your response you don't have your own testing supplies. If you don't, do yourself a big favor and get an API mater test kit.

I have well water also and used to test it all the time and everything would always come up negative, so I stopped. Until one day I had a problem.....come to find out my tap water had an ammonia level of 2ppm. Now I treat with Prime no matter what. Your well water can change any day.

Fish dying within a few days of the store I never really equate as a problem in my tank. Fish are stressed quite a bit before they get to your tank and the effects of that are not instant. Bag floating is only a temperature acclimation. Water acclimation is what's needed. I drip acclimate everything I get from the store now and my losses of those fish have reduced at least 50%. 

Cories need something else for their diet. They make a bottom dweller food...believe it is shrimp pellets. I put a few in a couple of times a week. They love it.


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## chris oe

The thing about well water is, you're drawing off an aquifer that can span the whole county, and things can drain into it and spread throughout it that you'd never know about unless you test. I'd run a test on a sample of your water every time you prepare to do a water change, just to check to see if there have been any big changes. I'd definitely do a water test on your tank, the algae may have come in on the tabs, but it didn't grow because of them. 

Algae can only grow explosively (what we call an algae bloom) if there's water conditions that are right for it, including excessive phosphate and excessive nitrate. Phosphate comes into your tank in all sorts of ways, including through food, any time something dies, including plant leaves or dead fish, etc. and nitrate is a natural end product of your biofilter that will build up in your tank over time, it is one of the big reasons to do your regularly scheduled partial water changes, to decrease your nitrate level. But if you don't know how much nitrate you have in your well water, and how much nitrate you have in your tank water, you don't know if you're actually decreasing your nitrate load or not. So the algae tablet crumbles, if it crumbles in a tank with a low nitrate and a low phosphate, it maybe wakes up, grows a little, and the pleco eats it up. But if there's high nitrate and phosphate, the algae goes nuts, like a plague of locusts and suddenly its everywhere, because there's food for it to eat in the right combination. Here's a kicker - you may even have phosphate coming into your tank through your well water. Its in agricultural and home fertilizers, in laundry detergent (anybody in the neighborhood have a septic field?) you need to know what the character of your well water is. 

If you have an algae bloom, the algae produces o2 during the day and consumes it at night, and the fish that don't stay at the surface of the water where there's o2 may simply suffocate. A small amount of algae doesn't produce that big an o2 fluctuation and everything is fine, but the larger the amount of algae, the bigger the 02 fluctuation. 

What kind of filtration do you have?


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## Aquaman18

jrman- I do have a testing kit. But the tank is downstairs and computer is upstairs, or I'm at work. Internet was down for a few days... I don't have the exact numbers, but all the numbers looked very good to me. I am thinking it is simply stress. The last 2 corys that I got were juveniles, and the pleco was pretty small too.

Algae bloom is pretty well under control. Water is still kind of cloudy, but not green anymore.


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