http://forum.aqua-fish.net/ A forum devoted to aquarium fish, plants, techniques and fish keeping as a whole. en http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#1 I have a 29 gal tank. ANd until recently have had no problems with keeping my fish alive. I have 1 sucker fish, 2 mollies (1M, 1F) and countless guppies (mostly babies) I have been doing to weekly cleaning and keeping the fish happy, then 2 days ago my water turned cloudy and now 3 of my babies have died. Please help if you can original post: February 15, 2008, 7:16 pm lamber26 2008-05-04 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#2 Something went wrong with the filter probably. This is my personal experience. When I was experiencing similar problems I simply bought a more powerful filter and things are OK since that moment . jan 2008-05-04 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#3 I had changed to filter pad in the filter, when I woke up this morning 5 more of my babies had died. I don’t see any spots or ich on them. lamber26 2008-05-04 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#4 Do you have a test kit, or test strips? You can purchase 5 in 1 Quick Dip Test strips. They are not the best method, but they are enexpensive and extremly helpful. They usually test the sam ebasic items. Nitrate, Nitrite, Total Hardness, Alkalinity, and ph. Nitrate and Nitrites are what you want to watch the closest, followed by the ph and Alkalinity. The ph can be controlled with fizzy tablets or drops that you buy second hand. The Nitrates and Nitrites are created as by products of fish waste. There are organisms that need to grow in the water to stabilize it for the fish. This generally takes a few weeks after the tank is set up. If the tank has been set up awhile, then something has happened that has effected water quality. Either the fish are being overfed (which leads to to much waste in the water) or possibly your filter is not working correctly/ needs a filter change. Another option is that there is not enough oxygen in the water. Changing the filter will help with that, but I find that a few simple hardy plants greatly help with this. I also have two moss balls in my tank that are as bit around as baseballs. They are GREAT at removing waste from the water and pumping out oxygen. Alkalinity is the saltiness of the water. Now I know it seems weird to put salt into fresh water, but Aquarium Pharmaceuticals(API on the Box) makes Aquarium Salt for freshwater tanks. The salt helps keep the fish from getting diseases by improving gill function in fish as well as promoting disease recovery. The hardness of the water isn’t terribly important as long as you keep it constant. The biggest killer of fish is when people do water changes to often, or take out to much water when they do. Typically you should change about 20% of your water every two weeks, and your charcoal once a month if you have only 1 filter. I hope this helps, and good luck! Cal Hinders CalHinders 2008-05-04 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#5 I want to tank everyone for all the help. I’m still not sure what happened, but I got a new filter. I think part of it was the filter I had in it wasn’t big enough. I bought a 10 gal and put my mollies in it and now have about 15 babies. The old filter works great in that tank. And the 29 gal looks tons better with the new filter. again thanks for all the help. lamber26 2008-05-04 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#6 i have few guppies and 2 days ago one of them start to swim strange in tank i put her in isolation and observe her...look like normal but suddenly yesterday i found her this morning another one guppy was pumped and has a strange skin also like it start to lose color and both of then was always on bottom of the tank need help what to do and if i need some medicine what kind of BioHazard 2008-07-07 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#7 with both problems it sounds like the water quality is not up to scratch Lamber,changing the filter pad means that your tank has to re-cycle, the cloudy water will be from a bacterial bloom Biohazard,from reading your post could be an ammonia problem,how long has the tank been running and what are the water parameters.The more info you give us the more likely we are to diagnose the problem. mickey 2008-07-07 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#8 well water wasn't cloudy.... tank is equipped with sponge filter and it runs about 2 weeks and i clean the filter maybe 2-3 days before dieing dunno about water parameters cause i didn't buy testers i suspect on bacterial bloom too cause skin sharpness but also i could be wrong since I'm just a beginner in this i remember that my friend has same problem and he use some green liquid that is dosed in drops but again cannot be sure what is the name BioHazard 2008-07-09 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#9 sounds like you are talking about Green away produced by Interpet.Using that stuff will clear the water short term but it will not cure the problem. Quick question for you what did you clean the filter with,could be the answer to your problem. mickey 2008-07-09 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#10 well, dude in store told me that i just clean filter in few degrees warmer fresh water nothing else BioHazard 2008-07-09 http://forum.aqua-fish.net/?topic=please-help#11 filters should only e cleaned usiong old tank water.Using fresh water will kill off all the bacteria in the filter which means that your tank has to recycle.It will be the ammonia level that is killing off your fish-nothing else. It could take up to 3 weeks before your filter is working properly again so you may have to do extra water changes just to keep the rest of your fish alive. Buy a test kit to keep any eye on the water when cycled the ammonia should be zero and nitrites should be zero.These are the two killers, fish can cope with a certain ammount of nitrates. mickey 2008-07-09