Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] a little OT

Could be your food, what are you feeding?

Donna

>________________________________
> From: Larry Blanchard <labl02@aol.com>
> - goldfish death
>
>
>
>I know this is a tropical group, but I hope you'll forgive one excursion
>into the goldfish realm.
>
>After our move, I had a 29 gallon tank that was empty. Since I hadn't
>kept goldfish since I was a kid, I thought why not. Just for a change.
>
>I got 2 small fantails at PetsMart. One died in 2 days, the other a day
>later. I tested the water and it was fine. Yes I used the liquid API
>tests, not the paper strips. Not to mention that the same water,
>treated the same way, goes in my tropical tank and I've got happy fish
>in there. Ammonia and nitrites were zero, nitrates were in the 10-15ppm
>range.
>
>So I went back and bought a couple of feeders to use as a test. Same
>thing except it was 1 and 2 days this time. Now I'm really worried. I
>did a 90% water change, added a teaspoon of ammonia, and waited 24 hours
>to retest. Biological filter was still working, no ammonia, no nitrites.
>
>OK, back to the store. This time I took a water sample, not so much for
>absolute values since the store uses the paper strips, but to see if my
>water tested the same as the water in the store tanks. It did. The
>manager of the store didn't think it was my problem, he just thought
>thestore was getting bad fish. So based on that I got two calico
>ryukins. This time I went up a size on the theory that older fish were
>stronger.
>
>Same thing. One of the two is still alive, but I wouldn't take bets on
>how long.
>
>Additional info. The tank temperature is 68-70 with no heater. I've
>got a HOB filter and a bubbler to ensure oxygen. The only rocks and
>plants(artificial) in the tank are ones that came out of other tanks
>where they caused no problems. The gravel is aquarium gravel and is too
>large for the small fish to ingest, although Iplan on getting rid of it
>unless I give up on goldfish. Our water comes from an aquifer with no
>added chemicals, but I use AquaSafe+ just to be sure. Supposedly that
>eliminates any heavy metal problem although I've never heard of one in
>this area.
>
>I'm stumped. I have trouble believing it's all bad fish, but I don't
>know what else to tryother than putting in a heater and trying some
>platys, tetras, or the like. Anyone here have any suggestions?
>
>Larry B
>
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>
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