I can't figure out why the fish are dying? one at a time- every week or two lately. I have platys (7 now) (all were born in my tanks) and down to 3 mollies (also born in the tanks) ; had 3 panda garras for 18 months and one disappeared/died this week. Also lost a platy this week. I have a couple other platy that were too young and small and want to put back in the tank.
I had corydoras in this tank too but they did not live long - some people have suggested I did not vacuum enough and the black sand substrate which is on top of the seachem red substrate had too much mulm. so I pulled out the last remaining bronze cory and put him in my bigger tank with the new/larger bronze cory- he did not live either. I think that fish bought at LFS are usually in RO water and even though I slow drip acclimate them - they don't do well in my hard tap water. Whereas the fish that come from LFS and are in Tap water are able to do well in my hard tap water. yes, I use seachem prime to dechlorinate and stability if ammonia suddenly spikes.
Meanwhile, the platys and other mollies and now panda garra have died, sometimes it looks the platy have wasting disease. My theory is that when the panda garra ate a dead sick one (I saw one munching down on a platy a couple weeks ago), they too will get the disease and die.
Is this plausible? I just did a water change and noticed a bunch of little empty snail shells on the bottom too.
Tank parameters are 78 degrees, pH is 8.2, zero ammonia, zero nitrites, nitrates have been staying under 30 ppm....I do water changes now about every two weeks. I use API Master kit to test. there is a free floating java moss and a blob of algae on the top of the water too.