# Fish Dying Consistently Please Help!



## nickthefoxtoy (Aug 2, 2016)

Hello everyone,

I am trying to figure out what is going on with my tank. To start, a few details about my tank.

55 gallon stocked with 12 electric yellows, 5 yellow tail acei (2 male 3 female), and 6 synodontis lucipinnis.
Water parameters: Ammonia 5 ppm, nitrites 0 ppm, nitrates 15 ppm.

I do a 10% water change every 2 weeks.

My tank has been established for going on 6 years now and every fish has been in here with each other since the beginning. The ammonia reading was shocking, but I am not 100% sold it is an issue, and could be misread, I will test again in the morning.

My issue:
About 1 month ago I woke up to a dead yellow tail acei, it was the subdominant male. I chalked it to aggression, because I was worried about the bad ratio, but I never had an issue over the 5 years the fish were together. A couple days later a female was struggling, moved to a quarantine tank to die a few hours later. No marks on her body, but very nipped fins. Again, blamed the dominant male. I moved the male to my 135 gallon tank where he is now happy. I added salt to the tank (very little amount) because I read multiple places that this could help with disease that is caused by stress. The problem is, 3 weeks go by and I just lost another yellow tail acei! This obviously can't be due to aggression. I have no idea what could be causing this. I attached a photo of a weird mark on the dead fishes body. Seems like the fish has an ulcer like sore on its side. He has since been removed and burried  RIP. I did not take a photo of the fish after removing from the tank so I apologize. I am not sure what to do, because I do not want to lose anymore fish. The electric yellows seem to be happy and healthy (although it is hard to get an accurate count on 12 in a tank with a lot of rock work).

Another thing to note is that the electric yellows are still consistently breeding and I have fry hanging in the rocks. If it was a water parameter issue wouldn't they be the first to go?

Thanks for your help, any advice is greatly appreciated!


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## ironspider (Dec 5, 2017)

Did you mean .5 ppm? 5 ppm is deadly. Get a new test kit if you think it's wrong, as you know you need to make sure you have 0 ammonia.


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## Oscar6 (Aug 4, 2017)

I would question all of your parameter readings. 10% water change every 2 weeks is basically replacing evaporated water, and really amounts to no water change at all. After this length of time I wonder if your tank has fallen into "old tank syndrome" where Ph has bottomed out to a point where ammonia is almost harmless, but at the same time very far from African cichlid comfort levels. I would gradually get the tank in better condition, ie 25% water change every 4-5 days. Then after a few changes, up to 50%. Your fish as is have to be living in high toxin water. Solution is to replace with clean water, but in your case gradually as to avoid potential osmotic shock


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## ken31cay (Oct 9, 2018)

Oscar6 said:


> I would question all of your parameter readings. 10% water change every 2 weeks is basically replacing evaporated water, and really amounts to no water change at all. After this length of time I wonder if your tank has fallen into "old tank syndrome" where Ph has bottomed out to a point where ammonia is almost harmless, but at the same time very far from African cichlid comfort levels. I would gradually get the tank in better condition, ie 25% water change every 4-5 days. Then after a few changes, up to 50%. Your fish as is have to be living in high toxin water. Solution is to replace with clean water, but in your case gradually as to avoid potential osmotic shock


+1.


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## cyclonecichlids (Sep 7, 2019)

ken31cay said:


> Oscar6 said:
> 
> 
> > I would question all of your parameter readings. 10% water change every 2 weeks is basically replacing evaporated water, and really amounts to no water change at all. After this length of time I wonder if your tank has fallen into "old tank syndrome" where Ph has bottomed out to a point where ammonia is almost harmless, but at the same time very far from African cichlid comfort levels. I would gradually get the tank in better condition, ie 25% water change every 4-5 days. Then after a few changes, up to 50%. Your fish as is have to be living in high toxin water. Solution is to replace with clean water, but in your case gradually as to avoid potential osmotic shock
> ...


+2


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