Been Losing A Few Fish: 2015-07-06
In the last week or so have lost one albino catfish (today), a female swordtail, and a yellow fancy guppy (called Mr. Yellow). I'm not sure why the guppy died, the tank he's in has been doing good for a few months.
The swordtail died because of a mistake I made. I recently got a 30 gallon tank, and wanted to move the swordtails and the catfish from the 10 gallon to the 30 gallon. I've had it running for a while, with some live plants, and didn't check the levels before transferring. The nitrate and nitrite levels were too high, the female swordtail died the day after. We need a 50% water change, and added chemicals to bring the levels down, however today the catfish died, so I've moved the remaining swordtail fish I have to my other 30 gallon.
The 10 gallon I am basically using as a snail breeding ground right now. I plan on putting a couple of smaller fish in there when I get a chance. Snails are great for eating excess food and such, though they over populate easily. I feed them cucumbers constantly, they seem to love those. To help with population control I take them out of the 10 gallon and put in my other 30 gallon, with the angel fish and mollies and everything. I'm pretty sure something in there eats them, so that tank doesn't get over populated. I found the best way to get them out is to have a piece of cucumber floating in there, then just scoop it out at night time, after a day or so, usually it's surrounded by snails. If I feel I'm taking too many out, I'll shake a few off before putting in the large tank.
