Trouble in tank ..... Siamese Fighter ..... & Black Moll

[dcase]

Hi

After 2-3 months of everything being fine I now have some issues developing in my tank.

It is a community tank with 3 plecos, 3 peppered catfish, 7 neon tetras, 6 harlequin tetras, 6 pearl danios, 3 clown loaches, 2 black mollys, a keyhole ciclhid, 2 siamese algae eaters & a siamese fighter.

Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite all show as negligable (and I do a 40% water change every 2 weeks, with the next change due tomorrow). It is a 90 litre tank which originally had 2 Filter Chambers each containing Ceramic Noodles, Black Filter Sponge & Carbon Cartridge and with a Jebo 2010 200W Aqua Heater. I replaced this with an Eheim 2010 Internal Filter (Pump output 220-500L), Undergravel Filter with 2 Uplift Tubes, AAUV9W Internal UV Steriliser & an Elite 100W Aquarium Heater (am keeping he temp at around 26 and with the original 200W I couldn't get the temp below 27.5). I know it is highly stocked but it has good aeration and everyone has been geting along fine .... until now ....

... last few days Siamese Fighter has been losing fins, they've gone straggly and looks like fin nip, also thought I saw a bit of white fluff, couldn't be sure, but dosed tank with Wunder Tonic and have placed Fighter in floting isolation tank. Now also one of the Mollys has a boated tummy and geting a lot of attention from the other Molly .. maybe it is pregnant (how can I tell? certainly the fin structure indicates I have a male & female) if she is pregnant what should I do? isolate her also?

appreciate any feedback ..... thanks

Up to now everyone has appeared to get on fine

[VinsonMassif]

Yes you do have too many fish in your tank. With overstocking a tank the fish become stressed because they are all in each others space.

Betta's are slow and prone to be attacked/fins nipped off in a community tank with larger species, particularly cichlids.

Personally I think you should take the Betta out and put it in its own tank.

I would choose between the Keyhole or the Molly's seeing as the Mollies get to 6".

Your clown loaches have to potential to get to >40cm if they are not stunted from being in a small tank, so imo either put them in a bigger tank or give them to someone who has one.

What types of pleco's do you have in the tank? Some get HUGE. With Pleco's and Clown loaches being predominantly bottom dwellers the will be competing for same space. Pleco's can get quite territorial depending on what species you are keeping.

IMO you should rethink your stocking or else you could have real problems in the near future.

HTH

[dcase]

but realised some will get very large so now have 2 more tanks ... one is relatively small and was going to be a hospital/isolation tank and the other is quite large .. I'm also looking to get some more.

Will possibly set several up in the garage (already have some spare heaters, etc for the)

The plecos were labelled as Plecostomus Bristlenose when I bought them and they are approx 5cms long, Mollys would be about 3cms ... the biggest fish would be the cichlid at about 7cms.

The clown loaches 3-4cms ... they seem a bit slow to realise food is about then when the do realise the chase everyone that is eating (even the Cichlid) trying to get the food off them, instead of grabbing their own ... net result is they end up getting less than the others.

Thanks

[VinsonMassif]

Good to hear you have more tanks. Those BNs get to 4-5" so they're sweet in there.

Here are 3 sites I like to check fish profiles and stats:

http://www.fishbase.org/search.php

http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/profile.html

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/fishindx.htm