all my fish died, please help!!!!

[stoney]

I got a 55 gal. freshwater tank, that i moved from a friends house. it has been set up for about7-8 years. I have only had it for almost 3 months, when i got it, it only had a 6 year old10" pleco and a 6-7 year old 6-7" catfish. over the past 2 months I added an angel fish, upside down catfish,2 balloon mollies,pangasius shark,some neons,orange glo fish,two telescope goldfish, and a silvertip catfish shark. one fish i bought from petco, was sick and shouldnt have been sold. my shark got ich a little bit so i treated with jungle ich clear. it seemed to go away, but then 3-4 weeks later the ich came back really bad,and was on just about every fish. i ended up treating it 3 more times with the ich clear. then i noticed that the ich was starting to clear, but my big catfish started acting weird and its skin was mossy looking. well it died and ove the next few days i lost all my fish except for one balloon mollie, the pleco, and one telescope goldfish. my question is that i want to know if i should move the fish i have left and just totally clean my tank and put new gravel, or just leave it. no fish have died for a week now. please help

[Suess00]

You had tooooooo many fish in a too small of a tank.

Do research on some of those fish and you will find out aggressive fish dont make the life any better for community fish.

Also your Pleco was big and produced alot of wastes and so do your catfish you had, so how many times a week or months did you clean your tank?

Did you test your tank ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels?

Many of the fish you listed need more of their own kind in order to fully strive in a tank and you had some pretty bad matchups.

If a fish looks sick like that seperate that fish in another tank like a 10 gallon medical tank that is cycled already and let him heal up there. The medicine you used most likely killed your iche problem but also vital bacteria in your tank.

[stoney]

what fish were the bad match ups? i cleaned it about once 1-2 times a week. i tested the water, and it tested ok

[Suess00]

half of your fish are aggressive and the other half are community fish. If you put those two combinations together you will stress the community fish wich in turn will make them more vunerable to disease and sickness. Also not to mention you overstocked your tank really badley

[stoney]

ok well is it a bad idea to try to totally clean it and start over. ever since i got it, i kinda wanted to change the gravel to a different color, and make it look better, It was not cleaned very often by the person i got it from so it was really dirty when i first got it. i just think now that i only have three fish left it would be easier to do that.

[Tallonebball]

Your suffering from a tank identity crisis..
You have too many fish in your tank and too many different types of fish..
A 10'' pleco is doing nothing for your tank but produce a ton of waste, at 10'' they don't even clean algae anymore...
Any 6-7'' catfish is a predatory catfish and will eat neons and danios any chance they get...
Angelfish get big and will also eat neons by the time they are 6 to 8 inches tall...
Pang sharks are aggressive and silver tip sharks do best in brackish water...
Telescope goldfish get big, are a cold water fish (50-60 degrees), and are very dirty as well...
Upside down catfish are generally ok with most fish...
Balloon Mollies aren't hardy fish to start off with...
It seems like you just need to figure out what type of fish tank you want (Community - Cichlid - Goldfish - Angelfish - Livebearer - Catfish - Etc.) and then choose your fish.
Basically what happened is you moved a tank, which is stressful, then added too many incompatible fish.
Ich = stress and you probably had a lot of fish that were stressed out! medicine won't work unless the stress is taken care of first.
Hope this helps and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask me!

[stoney]

thank you that does help, when i had all those fish together, all the fish seemed to be doing good together no one really messed with each other that i saw, so i thought everything was ok. Anyways, now that i only have a few fish(including the 10" pleco), how would i go about totally draining, cleaning, and changing new gravel, to start it up again.

[lohachata]

i can't say anything about overstocking a tank.. mainly because i take that over the top..
but................................
for starters; that pangasius cat gets 3-4 feet long or so and is a predator.. when it comes to catfish; look at the position of their mouth... on the bottom and kind of sucker like; it is a scavenger... if the mouth is on the front of it's face; it is a predator.when doing research on fish that you have seen and might want; don't just go by what the petco idiots tell you.. they only want your money.. not to mention that they really haven't a clue about fish as most of them sdon't even keep fish...

most likely your fish didn't die from being overcrowded.. although you didn't provide the actual tank conditions; i would almost bet that the temp was too low.. that could well led to the return of the ich...always keep a bottle of "aquarisol" on hand..it is a great product that is good for more than just ich..
no need to tear the tank down or replace the gravel..but i would treat it for a couple of weeks with the temp set at 84 degrees...then lower the temp to 80 and stop treating...
good luck.... i hope everything works out well for you.

[Tallonebball]

I think the best thing for you to do is figure out what type of fish you want, the goldfish and the balloon molly may work together, but it is probably best for you to choose one or the other and go from there. The 10'' pleco really should be given up too, it would be better for you to have a smaller variety pleco like clown plecos or rubbernose plecos, or maybe even just otto cats or flying foxes. I don't know if your aware but a pleco that can get big enough to 10'' long could very well end up 15'' to several feet long. Also do what lohachata instructed you to do as far as cleaning the tank. If you change gravel then your are basically starting your tank all over again and you will need to re-cycle it before you add fish again. And after you choose the type of tank you want, then you can determine the heat the water should be at.
I am open to anymore questions you have.
Oh and PETCO SUCKS!

[SouthernBelle23]

It sounds like you added too many fish too fast....and that you had a bit too many, like said above. The biofilter that had been established in the tank was overloaded and you had a bunch die because of it. Along with the ich.

I definitely think you should research before buying and figure out what type of tank you want it to be. People here could probably give you some ideas if you decide on a type of tank (predator, community, coldwater)....

Having a quarantine tank for new fish can help the spread of diseases like ich and prevent it getting in the main tank. Or just being super careful when you buy fish can help too.