# 2 out of my four fish have died-why?



## Starling2003 (Oct 24, 2006)

This is the first time that I have ever had fish, so I really don't know much about them.

A little over a month back I got two goldfish and within 2-3 weeks, one of them had died. It lost its fins and got a white spot on its gill. It was alive and then a few hours later, it was dead.

So I got 2 more goldfish. One was really small. The small one died today-only had it about a week. It was alive and then about an hour or so later, it was down at the bottom and then it died.

What is going on? I have a ten gallon tank with filter. I clean it often.


----------



## robyn (May 29, 2006)

did u cycle the tank first and treat the water with dechloronator? and how big are your water changes and how frequent?


----------



## Zoe (Feb 26, 2006)

The white spot and loss of fins sounds like it could be finrot. This required medication. However, it doesn't really explain why all your fish died.
I am assuming that you didn't properly cycle the tank. Read up on the Nitrogen cycle, but basically, if you don't cycle a tank, and you just put fish in, they will produce waste, or ammonia, which is toxic. This will kill / hurt your fish. In the wild, and in established aquariums, there are bacteria that break down the ammonia into nitrates, which is broken down into nitrite, which won't hurt your fish. You need to get that bacteria into your tank, either by adding gravel from another tank (which has the bacteria in it), using a cycling product like bio-spira which is live bacteria, or throwing a piece of shrimp in the tank and letting it rot (producing ammonia - or, you can put in pure ammonia) which will induce the growth of bacteria. This is called fishless cycling. You can also cycle your tank by putting a couple disposable fish and letting them create the ammonia for the bacteria to develop, but I don't like that idea, as it means that the fish have to go through the ammonia spike which is painful and could kill them.
Depending on your cycling method, it could take 2 days to 4 weeks to cycle your tank.

Also, goldfish are too big for a 10gallon aquarium. I suggest you do a little goldfish research - many species grow much, much bigger than you'd expect. Once you've properly cycled your tank, there are many better fish options you have for your tank 

With a little time and effort, you can have a nice, healthy tank full of happy, healthy fish.


----------

