some fish stopped eating!! Please help

[rickten]

Hello have lost 5 fish in the last week, all my number look good. PH is at a 6.5 though. No signs of ich. Any suggestions. Thanks rickt

[danielratti]

Fish look skinny?

[rickten]

yes they do, and then they die a few days later. some nice ones too. all around 2 inches

[danielratti]

Hex treat with metro prly will have to squirt it down then

[cranialdisturbance]

The PH needs to come up.  7.0 is the basement for Africans.

[rickten]

I will take the wood out and do a water change. lost 3 red caps already Mike, so bummed.

[rickten]

NOW I JUST LOST MY BRAND new golden nugget, so pissed

[cranialdisturbance]

 Real sorry to hear that. The Red Caps are more sensitive to water chemistry than most of my fish. I wouldn't think PH would be behind the gold nugget's demise though. How long has that wood been in there? What else changed recently. Did you check the temp? Are your filters functioning properly?

[rickten]

yes filters temp all good, 78 to 79. wood has been in for about 5 months. so all the fish were doing fine. until last week, just did water change and fed them very little and appears 5 or so fish still want eat. only thing that changed was i added 4 small plecos and removed 2 bigger ones.  I will continue to monitor the tank.

[cranialdisturbance]

Wild plecos can die for a variety of reasons which may or may not be linked to the Red Caps. I would get the PH stable at least to 7.0 and see how the fish respind to that.

[linuxrulesusa]

One other thought - the PH dropping could be due to insufficient water hardness, e.g. if you don't do large enough water changes then over time the hardness of the water will drop and the PH can eventually crash, which can then kill your cycle, spikes ammonia, and fish will get stressed and die.  Or so this discussion indicates, and I've read this elsewhere, never had it happen personally: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?144661-what-causes-the-PH-crash

Your water test was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and under 20 nitrates?

[Mastiffman]

yes filters temp all good, 78 to 79. wood has been in for about 5 months. so all the fish were doing fine. until last week, just did water change and fed them very little and appears 5 or so fish still want eat. only thing that changed was i added 4 small plecos and removed 2 bigger ones.  I will continue to monitor the tank.

 Where did you get the 4 new plecos from? This seems like the culprit.

[rickten]

thanks for the info guys. I will continue to monitor and go from there. Still have lots of life in the tank. Going to switch out the gravel and put sand in this weekend.

[lohachata]

instead of sand why don't you find a local landscape supply..get some 5 gallon buckets and a shovel..get a bunch of the smallest crushed limestone they have ; probably #10 but as small as possible..rinse it good..save the finer stuff and use it as well...you should be able to get 500 lbs of it for about 6 or 8 bucks..
i never mix rift lake species with asian or south american or even west african species as their water parameter requirements are considerably different..
gold nuggets can be a bit delicate when first introduced to a new environment..after a month or 2 and they are still doing ok , then they should be good..
do at least 30-40% water changes every week..and if your tanks are a bit overcrowded twice a week..

[lohachata]

oh yeah ; i forgot......no wood in rift lake tanks...