Re: Help - somebody else's fish dying

I'm sorry about your fish.

A lot of folks end up in trouble cleaning a tank by taking out the gravel
and everything and scrubbing the glass.  This destroys your biofilter (all
the beneficial organisms living in your gravel-they look kind of like dirt,
but they're really worth their weight in gold to your fish).  Its like the
culture that turns milk into yogurt instead of spoiled milk. The tank
culture turns fish waste into plant food instead of poison.  Partial water
changes, say 10-20% every two weeks (correct me, wise sages of the list) are
a good opportunity to syphon debris off of the top of your gravel, and will
keep your water quality up to par by keeping the concentrations of "plant
food" at reasonable levels.
  
By the way, your 10 gallon can't support that many fish.  It won't cause
Ick, but it can set up a stress situation that will allow Ick to reach
epidemic proportions.  Buy a bigger tank.  10 gallons is a very hard size to
work with.  Water quality is much harder to maintain in a small tank.  Save
the money you would like to spend on fish and treat yourself to a 20 or 30
gallon, at least.  

Keep your 10 gallon as a quarantine tank.  Keep it bare bottomed with a
sponge filter going so that when you get a new fish you can keep them in
there for a week or two while you watch them for signs of illness.  If they
don't come down with the yuck you can move them into the community tank.
When you start buying fish again, buy them one at a time, allowing the tank
to adapt to the bigger population each time before you get the next one.
Delayed gratification is hard, but think of it as spreading the fun out over
a longer period of time.

Don't feel too bad.  I have made all of these mistakes myself.  That's how I
learned what not to do.
Good luck, 
Chris
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
>> I saw a couple of recent posts here and thought I'd do one of my own.  My
>> situation is very similar to Raj.  I have a 10 gallon tank.  It contained 1
>> kissing gourami, 1 3-spot gourami,1 "headstand" fish, and 1 tiger barb.  The
>> tank was cleaned about 3 weeks ago.  All was well before then and
>> afterwards.  The tiger barb needed company, though.  So a week after the
>> cleaning bought 2 green tiger barbs and 1 albino tiger barb from PetSmart.
>> After introducing them to the tank one of the green tiger barbs died within
>> a couple days.  The second green tiger barb began getting white spots all
>> over it's body about 4 days after joining the tank.  I treated with
>> Coppersafe. A few more days later and ALL the fish in the tank began showing
>> white spots all over and the green tiger barb that had them first now also
>> had almost no tail fin.  So I began treatment with tetracycline tablets.
>> Then the remaining green tiger barb died and yesterday I came home to a dead
>> headstand fish.  The most recent symptom on the 3-spot gourami is a red
>> sore/spot where it's body meets the tailfin and tonight when I got home from
>> work the albino tiger barb was dead.
>> 
>> What is ravaging the tank and what ELSE can I do or treat it with to try to
>> save the 3 remaining fish?
>> 
>> I guess my lesson here is when introducing new fish, use a quarantine tank,
>> eh?  It's just such a shame and I'm really sick about it.  These fish,
>> especially the gourami's had personalities.
>> 
>> Thanks so much for any help,
>> Lydia
>> 
> 

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