Are your fish dying one by one?

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Summary: Fish keeping is a hobby that requires a lot of basic knowledge to start to save money and time.

Reasons why the fish are dying

Possibility #1

An uncycled tank can cause fish death.

Cycling the tank can take a long time. Also, all tanks are a little different so some might cycle easily whereas others might take longer than a month. Despite how long it takes, all cycled tanks show the same signs when cycled correctly. You should check out this article to find out what cycling is and also check out the article on how to perform and check a water cycle.

Possibility #2

If the water had been successfully cycled, the cycle might be broken, also known as broken filtration cycle.This can happen for many reasons. Simply put, it is when ammonia increases. You should know by now that ammonia is the same as poison for fish.

1. It can happen if there are suddenly too many fish in the tank and the bacteria that live in the tank cannot keep up with decomposing the increasing waste.

2. Overfeeding or a decomposing fish in the tank increases the contaminants in the tank and the ammonia cannot turn into nitrite fast enough so ammonia builds up in the tank.

3. If the numbers for temperature, kH, pH, gH, cH, and other water parameters change rapidly and continuously, it can break the cycle. This can happen if the temperature in the room the tank is in changes at least 8 degrees during the day. This change can break the cycle. Of course, the fish will become stressed and their immune system compromised due to that.

Possibility #3

There is an outbreak of disease or parasites in the tank.

It is always recommended to quarantine new fish in a separate tank before putting them in the existing tank. Even if you got the fish from a reputable breeder, it is impossible to be 100% free from the risk of parasites. Most parasites are highly contagious so once it starts to spread, the fish start to die one by one starting from the weakest.

These dead fish can lead to possibility #2.

Possibility #4

There was originally 2 guppy fish but they produced babies and now there are 30 fish in the tank. In other words, when breeding increases the number of fish in the tank.

When this happens, you would start to give more food and this is the right thing to do. However, giving more food means more excrement. In that case, you would need to add another filter, increase the tank size and increase water change frequency and amount. However, if you don’t take all those precautions, the tank’s balance will be broken and the cycle will be broken. This is why you need to be wise in picking your fish tank size.

Possibility #5

Additional filters are needed because the filter space the bacteria live in has been fully occupied and there is no more additional space for the bacteria.

This situation is actually pretty rare. Most people believe this is the case when in fact their problem arises due to overfeeding or rotting fish corpse (possibility #2).

If your situation does not coincide with any of the possibilities above yet the ammonia continues to increase, it is right to try to add additional filters. Of course adding a filter won’t solve the immediate problem. Bacteria propagates slowly so you need to observe for at least 4-7 days.

Possibility #6

The water temperature was not the same when water change was performed and the fish got shocked or a water neutralizer was not used so chlorine contaminated the tank. The chlorine in the water is detrimental to the fish and bacteria in the tank. Once it goes into the fish, it can cause inflammation in the nervous system and is that main cause of sudden death. Chlorine is normally used to kill bacteria in the water so it is the main reason for a broken cycle.

A lot of people believe that the 100% of the chlorine in tap water gets filtered once it passes through the filtration system, however, this is not always the case. I recommend purchasing a chlorine test kit and testing to make sure.