DrFunky

@Markp2483 Thanks for the advice! I saw a couple of videos by Father Fish on youtube that really go by that "less is more" method. It was interesting to see how well his tanks were operating with minimal water changes, and I think I want to adopt some of his teachings going forward. I've always used leafzone as a fertilizer, and I would always dose right after a water change. Do you think that could have been contributing to ammonia?

@Tony s@xXInkedPhoenixX Thanks you two, you're awesome. My female loach just passed, hopefully my mystery snail can make it until she's picked up. I appreciate the help, and I'll likely come back here when I'm ready to repopulate the tank for suggestions. You guys are great!

For an update, this morning I woke up to find the last fry dead, along with my adult male loach. Only my mystery snail and female loach are still kickin. I reached out to the woman who was going to buy the fry and told her what happened, then asked if she'd be willing to take my last two critters. I already know her to be a good fish owner, and she even adopted my male mystery snail a while ago when he wouldn't stop mating with my female, lol. She's awesome and said she'd swing by after work to pick them up. By the end of the day I'll have an empty tank, save for the plants. I might siphon all the water our and re-cycle it, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it afterwards. I might leave it as a sort of aquascape for a bit while I figure it out. Thanks for listening guys.

Hello, thank you! The store didn't recommend them, but I did see them while buying fish food one day and thought it would be an easy fix to the things that naturally build up in an aquarium. Big mistake on my part. I don't put them in often, and this was my first time doing both together. @Tlindsey

Thank you. Between me writing that and now three more have died, and I'm not optimistic about the last one. I'm going to throw out the algaefix and pristine, I can't imagine the help they give is worth the harm. And yes, you're probably correct about not trying to rush everything. This was a hard lesson to learn for sure, but I hope to do better going forward. For now I'll be grateful if my Old Guard survives.

This last Sunday I returned home from a week long vacation, and when I woke up the next morning I had the flu. I'm still fighting it, but I have a job coming up that'll be keeping me away from home for another week and my 20 gal was looking messy, so I did the water change today. The tank houses my black mystery snail, my two adult hillstream loaches, and their eight kids. The fry are about three months old. I heard it's pretty difficult to get these guys to mate, so I was amazed when I came home one day to a bunch of little guys swimmin about. I was able to find a buyer for them when they get a bit bigger. Today it took me longer than normal to clean up the sand substrate, and I ended up siphoning about 60-65% of the water out. Then I totally misjudged the heat of the tap water I was putting back in, which brought the temp to about 85°F. I tried to put in a bit of water on the colder side to even it out, but it was going down slowly. Normally afterwards I just put in water conditioner and liquid fertilizer for the plants, but I thought I'd also add a bit of Pristine and Algaefix to help keep the tank clean while I'm gone. I'm an idiot. Couple hours later and now four of the eight fry have died, and everyone else is staying close the top of the tank. I'm heartbroken, and I'll admit I cried pretty hard for them. I love my fish and I try to give them the best life I can, but I made several bad decisions during this one water change that most of the little ones just couldn't weather. I'm still worried for the others too. I put out a bit of food but none of them are eager to go to the bottom of the tank. I'm still pretty new to fishkeeping, and I know that this is a learning experience, but this hit me pretty hard. I wanted to write down my heartache and share it with some people who might understand. Any sympathy or advice would be appreciated. Thanks yall.