HELP

[Confuscious]

I bought a new aquarium last week.
I installed everything and the fishes were very happy.
Swimming up and down the aquarium.
But yesterday, the fishes remain swimming on the surface.
Not swim down.

What could be the cause of it?

I have a normal aquarium filter system and an Oxygen pump installed and both work fine.
 

[weegee]

Did you use TOWN WATER to fill the Aquarium?..

 

[Techno Viking]

Assuming they are not dead, have you fed them ?

[Confuscious]

3 hours ago, weegee said:

Did you use TOWN WATER to fill the Aquarium?..

 

No.
I fill the aquarium with bottled water (20L) and let the water run trough the filter system 4 hours prior to insert the fishes.
The fishes are still alive.
But they swim only at the surface.
The first days they swim everywhere.

[Confuscious]

3 hours ago, Techno Viking said:

Assuming they are not dead, have you fed them ?

Yes.
They have an automatic feeder which feeds them 2 times per day.
That should be enough according to the man who installed the aquarium.

[vogie]

What size is the tank and how many fish, sounds like lack of oxygen?

[Confuscious]

The tank is 1 meter wide, 50 cm deep and 60 cm high.
There are about 25 small fishes inside the tank and 1 big blue shrimp (about 12 cm long).
Also there are 2 "cleaner fishes (the kind who sucks themselves to the side and clean the aquarium)".
They are about 8 cm long.



 

[vogie]

The fish look predomately Guppies which drop live young every month, which in future could cause overcrowding, you are borderline at the moment, when live young are born many will be eaten by the other fish, but many will survive and you might have over a hundred fish in a couple of months. If too many fish they will foul the tank and they will seek oxygen at the top of the water. I am not an expert, but our tank is my wifes hobby, but we don't have any problems, but she will change about a third to a half of the water every two weeks. We have a 5ft tank and have about 15 fish, they are very healthy. We just use tap water which doesn't cause us any problems.

[Confuscious]

Someone of the fish shop came to my house this morning to have a look at the problem.
According to him, there was indeed a lack of oxygen in the water.
He also measured the pH of the water and it was too high.

 

After changing the Oxygen pump for a more powerful type and let the pump run for about 1 hour, the situation improved significantly.
He also took about 1/2 of the water out of the tank and replaced with new water.
Everything seems better now.

He advised that as soon as the problem happen again, I should replace 1/2 of the water.

The amount of guppies was not a big problem as most of the babies are consumed by the shrimp.

[meatboy]

there is a solution you can buy,forget the name as i got rid of mine 5yrs.ago,its to add to tap water every time you empty the tank.

you should be able to find it in any shop that sells tanks and fish.

[Confuscious]

21 hours ago, meatboy said:

there is a solution you can buy,forget the name as i got rid of mine 5yrs.ago,its to add to tap water every time you empty the tank.

you should be able to find it in any shop that sells tanks and fish.

I can imagine this solution.
Should work the same as the flush system in a toilet.
But that system would imply that I have CLEAN and FILTERED tap water (no chemicals) which I don't have.
We use bottled water (25 L) for drinking and cooking.

[meatboy]

our tap water[only used for showering,washing dishes or the car,i wnt even give it to my dog.

most times you can smell the chlorine,it will kill tank fish.

it comes in a small plastic bottle about 60bht.

if your useing the [25ltr.] bottles for drinking water check them for MOSQUITO LAVER.

we have always used them but i found some laver in 2bottles,they must leave the tops off at the filling stations after washing.

so now we only use it for cooking.

[dick dasterdly]

I've stayed away from this topic as even though I have a small garden 'pond' (i.e. purposely built by landlord, circular 'pond' approx. 1.5 metres diameter)/a patio 'pond' of slightly larger dimensions, and two (personally bought) aquariums.

 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm far from an expert and regret buying the aquariums - and putting fish into the patio 'pond' .  Too many fish have died - 'spectacularly' so when  I employed an 'expert' to clean the patio pond..... He removed all the fish into a huge 'bin' of pond/well water - and although they'd been happily breeding previously - after the clean - they all died within a week ....

 

I have a couple of other horror stories :-

1) all night power cut, and one species in the patio aquarium suffered so badly from the lack of oxygen they ALL jumped out.  I found them dead on the floor the next morning 

 

2) A few years ago a (presumably greedy) predator of some sort discovered the small fish in the patio pond, and I woke up to many, small, dead fish around the 'pond'.

 

Nowadays (touch wood) they're all doing well, even the Discus fish (too the point where I'm worried about finding better homes for the koi outgrowing the patio pond).  But I suspect the well water (that comes from my taps) is far better than 'city/bottled' water?

 

Edit - In short, unless you're an expert - I'd recommend staying WELL away from putting fish in ponds/aquariums.....

[dick dasterdly]

On 8/3/2017 at 10:29 AM, meatboy said:

our tap water[only used for showering,washing dishes or the car,i wnt even give it to my dog.

most times you can smell the chlorine,it will kill tank fish.

it comes in a small plastic bottle about 60bht.

if your useing the [25ltr.] bottles for drinking water check them for MOSQUITO LAVER.

we have always used them but i found some laver in 2bottles,they must leave the tops off at the filling stations after washing.

so now we only use it for cooking.

"our tap water[only used for showering,washing dishes or the car,i wnt even give it to my dog."

 

My tap water comes from a well - but my dogs still far prefer to drink out of garden pond/filthy puddles .

 

I gave up on bottled water for the dogs a long time ago as they'd rarely drink it....