# Help, two of my fish died!



## AaronR (Aug 21, 2010)

I'm fairly new to keeping an aquarium, I purchased a 10 gallon kit from petco because I've always like watching a healthy aquarium and I needed a new hobby to occupy some of my time. 

I purchased and set up the aquarium about 2 months ago. It was set up and running for about a week before I put fish in it. I purchased 3 platys and 2 mollies for my tank. They were all healthy up until today and all of a sudden one molly and one platy died. I had been having the water tested weekly at petco but two weeks ago they said I didnt need to have it tested so often.

I did a 50% water change around 2.5 weeks ago. I feed them a small amount once a day, no more than they can consume totally in 3 minutes.

I keep the light on around 8-9 hours a day except yesterday it was only on for about 4 hours.

What am I doing wrong that these two died and what can I do better?

I realize I need to purchase a test kit but I wasn't sure exactly what I needed it to do or how much I needed to spend on one.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated so I might be able to have a healthy environment for my fish.


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## fishfish (May 27, 2009)

AaronR said:


> I'm fairly new to keeping an aquarium, I purchased a 10 gallon kit from petco because I've always like watching a healthy aquarium and I needed a new hobby to occupy some of my time.
> 
> I purchased and set up the aquarium about 2 months ago. It was set up and running for about a week before I put fish in it. I purchased 3 platys and 2 mollies for my tank. They were all healthy up until today and all of a sudden one molly and one platy died. I had been having the water tested weekly at petco but two weeks ago they said I didnt need to have it tested so often.
> 
> ...


I believe the recommendations are to change 25% of the water once a week and vacuum the tank with a siphone once a month. I used to have a happy tank for a year and then all of a sudden one by one all my platies started dieing because of a contagious disease. I didn't want to stress the diseased fish so I kept it with the other ones.

Personally, not that I consider myself successful at this, I avoid adding any kind of chemicals even Aqua plus. I just filter the water that I had put aside for 1 day to a week using old drinking water filters. I also change 25% of the water every 3-4 days. Every two weeks I vacuum the tank.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Hard to say what is going on without knowing what your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings are. Your tank could still be cycling and what is going on with the water can be toxic to the fish. Cycling with fish can be stressful to them. I wuld do at least a 25% water change weekly and would do one now.

I saw posted on here a few days ago that Walmart had the API master test kit for sale of less than $20 and .97 cents to ship. I didn't go look myself because I don't need one, but you could. With that size tank I hope those fish are all male or you could be overstocked pretty quick.


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## [email protected] (Aug 18, 2010)

I agree. The tank could still be cycling. I reccomend an API freshwater master kit. Check the ammonia and nitrite levels. Hopefully these will both be elevated and then you will know what has caused the deaths. I know our local Petco quarrantines their fish and they guarantee them for 15 days. Also, our Petco uses the "dip strips" to test customers water. I'm personally not a huge fan of these. An API test kit uses drops and (in my opinion) gives you a more accurate reading. Cost about $20-$25. Good luck.


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