General Fish stressers

ncbuckeye

HI all, I have several tanks, but I have one that seems like all the fish stay stressed, but few are still breeding. I have 2 bristlenose plecos, the females are seem to stay pale. I have 6 black skirted tetra's that seem ok, but skitish, and stays to one side of the tank. I have 6-8 cory cats that hide most of the time, the dorsal fin seems to always be laying down. I also have 2 opaline goramis and 1 lone Cherry Barb (all the others have passed at different times over the past year.

As for the breeding , I've had 2 batches from the bristlenose, lost all of the last one to a nitrite spike (caused by me, I know what happened and have it fixed, dang zeolite) I have a baby cory from time to time.

I had a white sand bed, but I'm slowly changing it over to black gravel. I thought the darker gravel might make em feel better.

I change 5 gallons every week, tank is a long 30, with a whisper 30 and 40. A couple live plants and alot off moss on the driftwood. I have the standard lighting on way to long. I feed, flake, shrimp pellets, and algae waffers, and the occasional cucumber.

I'm just concerend cause all my fish seem to cower on one side of the tank towards the back.

Any idea's, thanks for the help.

James

ncbuckeye

oh yeah, my testing levels are measured with and api master test kit,

Ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates >15
Ph 7.0 - 7.2

With testing strips my was is soft, and very low alkalinity. But I don't trust the strips to much anymore since they all measured my PH way to low, like at 6.6 - 6.8.

Do I need to get some more tests, for the hardness and alkalinity.

1077

Were it me, (and it ain't) Whenever fish behaivor causes some concern, I first get my API freshwater master kit and test the water. Ammonia should read zero,nitrites should read zero and nitrAtes should be below 40 below thirty would be ideal. If any of the tests read otherwise, I would perform a 20 to 25 percent water change and use a dechlorinator such as PRIME (very good) and that is all I would put in my tank in the way of chemicals. I would test the water after twelve hours and if the readings were still above zero for ammonia and nitrites, I would do another 20 to 25 percent water change. I would ater getting the readings I wanted,Perform water changes once to twice each week depending on how many fish i had and what the test kit(APIfreshwater master kit)indicated. I would also vaccum a small area of the bottom with each water change ,and a different area each time. I might cut back on food to once a day until I got things in order. You should not need products like zeolite to control ammonia.

ncbuckeye

I was using the zeolite to help control the ammonia after my 50 pleco babies hatched, and started growing, I was afraid it would be to much bioload for the tank.