GoldenAngel

thanks for taking a look at the test results ianab! I'll keep up with your good advice and do my regular water changes-hopefully it will flush out the bad toxins or whatever it is that is making my fish unhappy! I haven't lost any more fish since Friday - so maybe things are starting to stablise.... I've got 3 x swordtails, 8 guppies and 1 corydora.

Picture of my tests!

I went out and bought a fancy multi test kit this afternoon. The results seem to indicate that the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH levels are OK. Ammonia was 0ppm Nitrate was 5ppm Nitrite was 0ppm pH was 7.0

That's great advice - I've been very fortunate with previous tanks as I'd never even heard about doing any kind of nitrite/ammonia testing until I began having problems with my new tank! I will get a nitrite test kit and get my water right before I consider adding any new fish.

thanks for that - I will buy my own test kits and do the tests myself. I only test the pH levels, but think I'd better get the nitrate and ammonia test kits before I put more fish back in...-

Thanks for all the advice/answers coming back so promptly! Firstly, no, it is not my first tropical tank, but I've always been 'lucky" with my previous tanks and never had anything as disasterous as this! The tank is a hexagonal 62L. It was set up 5-6 weeks ago. After 2 weeks I added 10 guppies, and have been adding 2-3 fish on a weekly basis since then. However, I had just bought the last lot of fish (neon tetras) at the weekend, and it was after the new additions that I started losing fish!

I bought a brand new tank and set it up as a tropical tank. I was advised by the store I bought it from to use "sera floredepot" which is a long term gravel substrate for freshwater aquaria. However, ever since I set the tank up the water has continued to be yellow/tanned in colour - despite using charcoal in the filter to clear it, and doing regular weekly water changes! Now my fish are starting to die, and I don't know what to do to fix things up! Could someone please advise me on how get the water so it is clear and sparkling again? (I have been thinking I should get rid of the substrate and just use the gravel I have on top of it, as I have just used gravel for years and never had the problems like I am currently having now!)

Hi Caryl, Yes, my cold water fish were goldfish. I had a run of bad luck (fin rot) with my goldfish after years of everything going well - which seemed to coincide with the introduction of the Fluval 3! Hopefully switching to tropicals will mean there is less waste... I also hadn't realised that you don't need to replace the sponges very often - that is amazing having sponges last for 10 years!

Thanks Mark & rollergirl. I really appreciate the advice I'm looking forward to having a larger tropical tank operating soon. It will be a nice change for my fish as I've got a silver shark who is growing bigger by the week and my AR-380 is getting a bit small for him and the rest of his friends!

I am moving my tropical fish into a vertical rectangular tank, which used to have cold water fish. The tank measures 54cms (H) x 34cms (W) x 34 cms (L). I have previously used a Fluval 3 filter in this tank when I had cold water fish. However, it seemed to clog up fairly often - about every 2-3 weeks and needed the filter sponges to be replaced then (or so I thought!). Recently I sold my remaining cold water fish to a fish enthusiast who said that he had external filters in his tanks which required cleaning only every 6 months - which sounds perfect to me! I would appreciate advice on what is the best value for money filter for a tank this size (which more or less looks after itself). Also - what size heater would I use in a tank of this size? Should the heater be fully submerged or should the top rubber be out of the water?