# Fish dying and dont know why - help anyone?



## Efishency (Nov 29, 2010)

Hello everyone

I have a tank setup with around 300 garra rufa fishes (spa fish) at home, and everyday i collect 2-3 dead guys. my water parameters are within their desired optimal ranges (ph-7.6, gh-10, kh-4, temp-28oC, nh3/no2-0mg/l, no3<50mg/l). the no3 had at some point reached 100mg/l but i have gradually lowered it with water exchanges but even now fish are still dying. 

i am feeding them as i read about, twice daily. im thinking they might be getting attacked by others as the dead ones are nibbled on by the rest. which could mean they are hungry, but feeding more brings my no3 sky high and then im worried that might be the problem. there are fishes that are missing very few scales and some with small reddish/inflamed areas. im hoping this is from nibbling andnot a disease. they are so small its hard to check. some of the dead ones have no scars whatsoever which maks me think its not a disease killing them.

please help guys. any advice?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I don't even have to ask what size tank, although I hope it is pretty larger, I would say do daily 25% (minimum) water changes to keep all these fish alive. You're not the guy that is using them to fish with are you?


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## Efishency (Nov 29, 2010)

hey, thanks again for replying to my posts. no im not the fishing guy! these are garra rufa fish used in foot spas. tank is 330 L and stocking is well below what is recomended for these guys. struggling with this one..


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

So tell me this then:

How long has the tank been running?
When were the fish added?
What filtration do you have?
What is your maintenance routine?


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## Efishency (Nov 29, 2010)

tank running for 3 months
fish added 2 months ago
i have a trickle filter, approx 8L of sponge filter, 8 L of biofilter, 500ml carbon

chnage 20% every 2 weeks. the initial water was ro water in which i had no dead fish and i have been making the water changes with local treated tap water in order to slowly acclimate them to local conditions (ph, hardness) as i intend to sell them in the local market. they were ok with the initial changes, but recently ph, kh,gh have been fairly constant, and its again recently that a few started dying. i would think if it was the change that killed them, it would be sooner rather than 2-4 weeks after the major changes in ph and kh. and again, would only a couple die every day? i know that even slight ph changes are bad, but i had to slowly adjust them to these higher values. 

as a trial i put 6 fish in a asmall 30 l aquarium with changes:
ph: 7.5 to 8.3
gh: 2 to 14
kh: 1 to 9

and the 5 lived for a month there before i removed them, behaving normally, while one did die. 

i understand im playing with water quality alot, but i have to adjust these guys to local conditions, as when they arrive (from abroad) they come from water parameters completely different to here.

missing scales and tiny wounds may be from attacks, as well as disease right?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I dunno. 300 fish in that size tank you could just have fish that are stressed from an overcrowding situation alone. I would shift to weekly water changes at a minimum if not 2 weekly.


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## verdifer (Sep 8, 2010)

I would go to the LFS and get the water tested, 300 fish and 2 feedings per day I would have expected your test readings to be higher.

I don't really know much about these fish but 300 in a 330L seems a lot, who told you this was OK for these fish, was it the person selling you them by any chance.

I don't really agree with using these fish for Spas as it really does throw up a hygene issue but if they are then why feed them so much you don't want them to be stuffed as they won't do what they are meant to be doing in the spas as they will have a full belly.

As for finding fish nibbled on in my experience when a fish dies the other fish will have a nibble on it, fish are scavengers and a dead fish will be scavenged.


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

Overcrowding could be killing your fish. The open sores, missing scales, and possibly nipped fins, along with corpses, is a dead giveaway that these fish are killing the weaker members to make room for themselves. In a tank that competitive, the ones that are disease-laden will be offed first, as they are the weakest.

Do you have live plants in there? That might explain why your nitrate readings are so low. Otherwise, I really can't fathom why your nitrates are so low with a water change once every 2 weeks, 300 fish, and two feedings a day. Really baffles me.

Congrats on keeping so many alive, let alone breeding them. I would have never tried anything close to that. I view fish more as eye candy and less as workers.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

How big are the fish? 330 liters is about 87 US gallons, unless the fish are only about 1cm long you are way overstocked! Try doing 50% water changes every 3 days and only feed once a day.


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## myhobby (Mar 24, 2011)

Hello,
did you solve your problem? I'm having similar trouble and was wondering, what was your solution?


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

myhobby said:


> Hello,
> did you solve your problem? I'm having similar trouble and was wondering, what was your solution?


Is your tank similarly stocked? If so overcrowding will almost certainly be the problem, or at least one of them. If not post a question that says:

How big your tank is 
What fish you have
How long you have had the tank
The results of any tests you have done for ammonia, nitrites etc.

And we will be glad to help.


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## hellokitty (Jul 20, 2011)

hi
im having a similar problem with garrar rufa fish.
tank size is 150L, 
approx 150 fish (2-3cm) size
sera 250+uv bio filter
ph 7
nh3/4 0
no2 40ppm mg/l
have had the tank for 5 weeks
had amo spike after 2 weeks then droped after week or so, now have nitrite spike but not droping after 9days.. am doing daily water changes of around 20-40 litres. vacuming gravel every day, feeding half a stick on tablet every day. water temp between 29-30c. i understand from reading my tank is still cycling but dont know for how much longer, people i brought tank and fish from useless, and advised to put fish into tank after 2 just 2 days!! im still losing 2-3 fish daily, please help any advise will be greatly appreciated as dont know if over feeding, underfeeding, over water changing or not? Im testing daily for no2 (nitrite but not getting lower)
cheers in advance*c/p*


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

You should be doing 50% water changes daily until the nitrite levels get down.


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## hellokitty (Jul 20, 2011)

thanks jrman83
any idea how long this cycle will take until no2 drops? and once this has droped and levels stay at 0 should my fish stop dying?
Also am i feeding enough or should i feed 1 stickon tab per day (sera 0nip)
again thanks in advance


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Hard to say. You might find that once you get it down it may be pretty close to over with. You'll only be able rule out that they aren't dying from nitrite poisoning.


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## hellokitty (Jul 20, 2011)

again thanks
is the fedding correct at 1/2 tablet or should i increase to a whole one. I have read that they will eat and eat but no one seems to be able to give an answer for the number of fish i have?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Not familiar with that type of food. You should research the fish and see if it will tell you how much to feed. Most fish can go very long periods without food. They don't get daily meals in the wild. You could probably safely feed every few days and it may help keep ammonia/nitrite issues at bay.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

I've started a thread about garra rufa fish. It might be of some help to you or you might want to share some of your experience.
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f2/foot-spas-garra-rufa-fish-care-17341.html#post111288


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## eka (Aug 10, 2011)

dears,

I need you advice.It's has been already am month,I purchased the Garra Rufa from Indonesia.From the beggining everything was OK,but now every day there are more than 30 fish dead.I have One filter for 3 tanks(the tanks have the holes and the filtration is going through all tanks),I feed them 3 times a day and do water change one a week.
I am in a very bad situation.Try to attract the customers and it seems that I am staying without the fish.Please advice what can be the solution.Thank you everyone for my help.Georgia,Tbilisi.Kathrine


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## Pigeonfish (Jun 23, 2011)

eka said:


> dears,
> 
> I need you advice.It's has been already am month,I purchased the Garra Rufa from Indonesia.From the beggining everything was OK,but now every day there are more than 30 fish dead.I have One filter for 3 tanks(the tanks have the holes and the filtration is going through all tanks),I feed them 3 times a day and do water change one a week.
> I am in a very bad situation.Try to attract the customers and it seems that I am staying without the fish.Please advice what can be the solution.Thank you everyone for my help.Georgia,Tbilisi.Kathrine


3 times a day? I hope you're feeding them very little through those three times... You might be overfeeding and causing a bigger ammonia spike than there should be. Did your tank go through the nitrogen cycle?


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

eka said:


> dears,
> 
> I need you advice.It's has been already am month,I purchased the Garra Rufa from Indonesia.From the beggining everything was OK,but now every day there are more than 30 fish dead.I have One filter for 3 tanks(the tanks have the holes and the filtration is going through all tanks),I feed them 3 times a day and do water change one a week.
> I am in a very bad situation.Try to attract the customers and it seems that I am staying without the fish.Please advice what can be the solution.Thank you everyone for my help.Georgia,Tbilisi.Kathrine


I'm sure we can help you work out what is going on but you need give us some information first
1) How big are you tanks?
2) How many fish do you have?
3) Was the tank cycled before you put the fish in?
4) Have you tested for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

If the tanks had not been cycled first what your experiencing is very typical of a cycling tank. My advice is to get a liquid test kit to check ammonia and nitrite levels as soon as possible and you will probably need to do daily water changes until you can get those levels down.

For some basics please check out this link:
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f2/foot-spas-garra-rufa-fish-care-17341.html#post111288


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## eka (Aug 10, 2011)

Thank you so much for your answer.I have hired the man who looks after my fish,but the problem is that ,Garra rufa fish is the new in my Country and no specialist have any idea what could be the reason of their death.I am really in a very bad situation.Could you please be so kind and write to me,what kind of equipment is needful to test the level of Ammonia and nitrits?How should i explain that man who testes the water,to get know the level of those nitrates?does the fish trash couse the high Ammonia level?WE changed the water today and after it more fish have been dead.I am going now to install one more filter.will it help?there are 3 tanks devided from each other with glass but they still have connection with holes with each other.ABout 800 Litre water is in those 3 tanks and my fish amount from the beggining was total 1200 .Now they become less and less day by day.My business is going to dive.I just stated to advertise and to attract the customers,they are very interested,but I faced those fish dead problem.Thank you once again for your reply.I am happy i found this forum to share my emails with someone as there is no porfessional help in my country.Thansk in advance.Kathrine(Eka)


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

It is likely you don't need a specialist to work out what is wrong, just someone who understands aquariums in general. Just to start with I can tell you you are very overstocked which leads to ammonia poisoning and illness. Get a liquid test kit from a shop that sells aquarium equipment and start doing more water changes.


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