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Hi everyone, this is my first time posting but I've been a long time lurker. I've set up a heavily planted 10 gallon aquarium. I used to have 3 kuhli loaches and 6 pearl danios in it, but when I added a dozen sakura cherry shrimp to it, the danios would aggressively tear at any of the shrimp that would expose itself. I took them out, and instead got celestial pearl danios. These were the last nine the pet shop had, they looked quite thin but in the past couple days seemed to have fattened up a little. The first day after introducing them to the tank, I had one die. Yesterday, I had zero deaths, but I was disappointed to wake up today to find another one belly up and struggling to swim and breath. This time I took a photo, his gills looked heavily inflamed compared to the others. I've had a few cherry shrimp die after adding them about a week ago, I'm inclined to blame the injuries from the pearl danios nipping their legs off and also because of accidental overfeeding. I haven't had any shrimp die in a few days though, and they seem happy. The loaches are still in there, and thriving. Had some oto catfish arrive today to deal with the algae, I'm currently letting them adjust to the water before putting them in by having them in a cup floating on the surface and adding about 10ml of aquarium water every 5-10 mins for a couple hours. A couple days ago I tried to introduce two scarlet badis, but they both died within a day. One had what looked like cottonmouth, where their mouths swelled open with white flecks inside, the other died before this one, so I didn't check for cottonmouth. The pearl danios previously in the tank had some white on their mouths that would come and go, so maybe the water was contaminated with whatever they had. The celestial pearl danios don't have any visible symptoms, even the ones that died. Here are my tank parameters, this tank is three weeks old and uses the amazonia over powersand combination substrate which is supposed to lead to a 1 week cycle. Parameters have been quite stable after the first week.
Parameters
size: 10 G
Ammonia: Don't know, getting test kit today. This sounds like a likely culprit, since the amazonia soil leaks a lot of ammonia. It shouldn't be that much of a problem at this point though.
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm (this is what I go for through dosing)
ph, gh, KH: 6.4, don't remember gh and KH but the water is quite soft, I think about 70ppm, i mix with bottled RO water
Temperature: 75 F
Freshwater
Set up for 3 weeks
3 kuhli loaches, 2 oto's (error in shipment today, ordered 4), 7 celestial pearl danios, a handful of cherry shrimp, tons of snails
No fish were quarantined, I have yet to get a separate quarantine tank for them. This might be difficult, I'm not sure if my college accommodations will allow for another.
I have many live plants, glossostigma carpet, dwarf baby tears, giant baby tears, pearlweed, and anubias
substrate is amazonia and powersand, with all of the ada substrate additives
One large piece of driftwood, not seeping tannins anymore
zoomed 501 canister filter (the big one with the pressure turned down)
Small heater set to 75
Finnex Ray2 LED light with 9 hours of light
30 percent water change weekly, half RO half tap, slowly tapering to tap water only since glossostigma doesn't seem to mind (tap water is 170 KH I think, slightly hard)
Aqueon water conditioner, I dose green brighty special lights and step 1, seachem potassium, green bacter, and green gain every Sunday Tuesday and Thursday
I fed the cpd shredded bloodworms, will be switching to ken's golden pearls when they arrive in the mail tomorrow
The cpd appear healthy, inquisitive, and only a little shy. They eat what can fit in their mouth, spitting out bloodworms that are too large. Today's dead cpd looked like it had gill damage, it was red and inflamed, the others look fine. I have pimafix and melafix, which I ordered shortly before the second scarlet badis died. I'm mostly inclined to suspect my CO2 system. The drop checker is a solid green, and the fish don't appear to struggle to breath. On the other hand, I don't have any surface agitation, and the CO2 levels might rise at night due to reversal of plant respiration despite having a solenoid that turns off my CO2 for the night. I'm going to get an air stone for tonight, then we'll see how it goes.
Here are photos of the tank and the fish (dead and healthy). Thanks in advance for all your help!
Parameters
size: 10 G
Ammonia: Don't know, getting test kit today. This sounds like a likely culprit, since the amazonia soil leaks a lot of ammonia. It shouldn't be that much of a problem at this point though.
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm (this is what I go for through dosing)
ph, gh, KH: 6.4, don't remember gh and KH but the water is quite soft, I think about 70ppm, i mix with bottled RO water
Temperature: 75 F
Freshwater
Set up for 3 weeks
3 kuhli loaches, 2 oto's (error in shipment today, ordered 4), 7 celestial pearl danios, a handful of cherry shrimp, tons of snails
No fish were quarantined, I have yet to get a separate quarantine tank for them. This might be difficult, I'm not sure if my college accommodations will allow for another.
I have many live plants, glossostigma carpet, dwarf baby tears, giant baby tears, pearlweed, and anubias
substrate is amazonia and powersand, with all of the ada substrate additives
One large piece of driftwood, not seeping tannins anymore
zoomed 501 canister filter (the big one with the pressure turned down)
Small heater set to 75
Finnex Ray2 LED light with 9 hours of light
30 percent water change weekly, half RO half tap, slowly tapering to tap water only since glossostigma doesn't seem to mind (tap water is 170 KH I think, slightly hard)
Aqueon water conditioner, I dose green brighty special lights and step 1, seachem potassium, green bacter, and green gain every Sunday Tuesday and Thursday
I fed the cpd shredded bloodworms, will be switching to ken's golden pearls when they arrive in the mail tomorrow
The cpd appear healthy, inquisitive, and only a little shy. They eat what can fit in their mouth, spitting out bloodworms that are too large. Today's dead cpd looked like it had gill damage, it was red and inflamed, the others look fine. I have pimafix and melafix, which I ordered shortly before the second scarlet badis died. I'm mostly inclined to suspect my CO2 system. The drop checker is a solid green, and the fish don't appear to struggle to breath. On the other hand, I don't have any surface agitation, and the CO2 levels might rise at night due to reversal of plant respiration despite having a solenoid that turns off my CO2 for the night. I'm going to get an air stone for tonight, then we'll see how it goes.
Here are photos of the tank and the fish (dead and healthy). Thanks in advance for all your help!
