Good afternoon. Bangers, Mash and Gravy came into my life almost 2 years ago. They have lived in a 30 litre Biord all that time with no problems. Bangers does suffer from Swimbladder, but that is short lived after feeding him a pea or two. As some of you are aware the Biorb filter is completly changed every 2 - 3 months depending on many factors. I do a partial water change of 25% every 10 days. They alwasys have a varied diet. Yesterday put them in a bucket with there own water so I can clean the tank. (Bucket has never been used for anything but them). Came back and the fish looks sad. Put them back in the tank like I have done for years and within the hour, my boys passed away. Gutted was not the word. Bangers was last to die and it looked like he had mucus or something coming from his mouth. All there mouths were open wide, and they just floated to the top. please if anyone can advise what happened to them, please drop me a line. I want to replace my boys, but can't till i find out what went wrong.

Sorry for your loss.

What type of fish were they? Had you checked your water readings recently? That may give you some answers. When you clean the tank what do you mean? Do you change all the water? Why do you remove the fish when cleaning the tank? Did the other two have mucus too? Sorry for all the questions but the more information you can give the better the results. I am no expert and one of the others may help more with some more information

Hello and thanks for the reply. I didn't check the water as I was about to clean the tank. I always remove the fish so I can give the tank a good clean inside without disturbing them. I remove the fish and then replace 50% of the water with bottled water bought from the shops. This is low in everything and as I have led pipes coming into the house I always used bottled water. They all in the end had mucus coming from there mouths. what would have caused my boys to go so quick? I change the filter and put fresh plants in. Bangers wasn't feeling too well the day before I started doing this. Should I replace the tank and plants if I get new fish?

Hi m18rta, welcome to FK.

Sorry about your fantails, that is so sad I would suspect ammonia poisoning from what you described, did they have any black marks on their bodies? Removing the fish and changing all the water isn't really recommended as it can kill too many of the good bacteria (see this link on cycling). I know the biorb instructions say to change the filter completely but this destroys too many good bacteria as well not your fault, just bad advice from biorb.

Fantails are a bit too big to be kept in biorbs as well and that might have contributed to the problem, so if you do want to get some more I would recommend getting a bigger tank.

If you had a water testing kit or could get water test results from your local fish shop we would be able to tell you for sure but it does sound like the tank uncycled itself.

Interesting about the lead pipes, do you know the hardness of your tap water? Do you get a lot of calc in your kettle for example?

I am not sure what was wrong, maybe not enough good bacteria was left in the tank:

This link may help you:

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/clinicalsigns.htm

Caz, hello and thank you also. I know it sounds daft to be upset, but they meant so much to me.
I have spoken to many specilist and biorb directly and they all said 3 fantails was acceptable for that size of tank.
I have the complete water test kit, which I will test when I get home tonight. I have my boys in the boot of the car in a wee box, and I don't know what to do with them?....any suggestions? I was actually going to throw them into the north sea tonight after work :o(
The water in the north of scotland is amazingly soft. I never have a build up in the kettle. Can ammonia poisoning kill them within the hour?

Hey, don't worry, I cried like a 5 year old when my fish was sick

Re the biorb suitablity, I have been arguing with biorb for quite some time on this issue and IMO a 30 litre biorb is not big enough for any goldfish, let alone 3. The minimum size I would recommend for goldfish is 8 gallons (36 ish litres) each, the reason being they do not grow to the size of their tank and they poo more than any fish should
Biorb are more designed to look cool than to be a good home for fish but they won't back down on the issue. They are great for small fish (maybe a handful of white cloud mountain minnows) but not goldfish. Unfortunately profits seem to be more important to biorb than fish welfare

I wouldn't throw them in the sea, in case they are carrying anything contagious that could be transfered to what little fish are left in the N sea. The best way is to bury them in your garden, somewhere where they won't get dug up by any local cats or anything.

I would be interested to hear your water test results, especially the ammonia and pH levels as these 2 are my prime suspects.

I will do the tests tonight. Can someone please advise me of the correct levels for the Ph, Nitrate and so on. But I will post the results tomorrow morning. I was considering updrading to the 60 litre tank as a Christmas present for the boys, but because they are no longer here, there might be no point? I think you are right with the tanks looking good. If I do go for more would 30 litre be too small for 2 more goldfish?

These are the results I would be looking for in a healthy goldfish tank-

ammonia- 0
nitrIte (NO2)- 0
nitrAte (NO3)- below 50ppm, but you should get above 0
pH- between 6.5-8.0

Unfortunately 30 litres is too small for any goldfish. They do need a really really big tank as they are such big fish. This is my 3 goldfish tank to give you an idea (my fish have grown since this pic was taken). I would say a minimum tankl size for 2 goldfish would be about 20 gallons (sorry, I haven't gone metric 20 gallons is about 90 litres)

You could keep white cloud mountain minnows in a 30 litre tank though.

http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/uploads/photos0/666.jpg

With goldfish it's best to go large....as mentioned fantails need 8 gallons each and single tailed goldies need 10 gallons each.

You could try your local freecycle to see if anyone has a nice sized tank.

Sadly the filters on bio orbs are rubbish and might sustain a small shoal of minnows or one fighting fish but wouldn't be able to cope with the mess goldies make.