Kaleigh

@Guppysnail I def have some room to put more water in, I just kept it lower to keep snails from wandering but sounds like I need a lid anyways. I’ll try that! @Bobbie yeah i used an old stock pot we don’t use often - I rinsed it out prior but that’s it. So I guess it could be a factor @eatyourpeasno candles or oils, we don’t do really scented stuff at all in our house and the tank is upstairs in a bedroom, so it’s away from the kitchen. If I wanted to rule this out, what would I do? Would I have to scrub the whole tank down and start my cycle all over again?

No this is the only tank that has wood in it, I’ve never used it before. My tap water parameters are .25 ammonia 0 nitrite 8.4 pH 5 nitrate

Here’s a picture of my tank and then the rummynose that I first had (the only fish I’ve seen any evidence of something going on), and a picture of the gourami I had. Filtration is 2 medium sponge filters with air stones. I am using prime at water changes cause I’m using water from the faucet - which I use on all my tanks. I have Nicrew lights on all my tanks running. I do a 50% water change typically once a week. The only thing different in this tank is this is my first time with wood in my tank - I bought some for aquariums specifically and boiled it for almost 4 hours before placing into the aquarium. I guess this is the only tank without a lid - so maybe something did get in there? We don’t use aerosol or anything necessarily as I’m extra cautious about what gets in there. But would extra water changes and maybe a lid help to eliminate this path? I’ve never heard of Purigen! I’ll have to look into it to see how to use it.

So I have a 20 gallon I’ve had set up for about 5 months now. It’s planted with some driftwood and sand. I have 2 mystery snails, a nerite snail and a trapdoor snail (plus babies now - oops). Anyways, anytime I add fish they die within a few days and it seems to happen so fast I can’t catch what’s going on. I first put a school or runny nose tetras in there that were mailed to me - half died in transport so I had went to get some more at my LFS so they wouldn’t be stressed by having inadequate numbers. A couple days go by and they seem to adjusting fine and eating well - then I see one that looks like he has a messed up eye - like it’s squinty. So I’m confused - I go to Facebook and get a ton of diff suggestions. I didn’t have any meds on hand (I now have the coop trio of meds) - so went to a big box store and got some ich stuff but by the time I could treat them after work half of them were dead. I then added the meds and the other half died in the next 12 hours - so within 24 hours they were all dead. It was my first fish dead and devastating. So I waited a couple months and my snails seemed fine. I obviously did big water changes and stuff but everyone assured me that nothing would survive the tank. so I then decided to get one dwarf gourami - seemed fine for the first day and then next morning he seemed to be struggling to breathe but I could see no visual signs of anything. I took even more of my floaters off the top and I have 2 sponge filters with air stones running - so I don’t think it was lack of oxygen. finally I just went to get a trio of guppies as my last attempt and sure enough they are dying. I can’t see any visual signs but they seem to be breathing heavy. I have no idea how to treat my tank in an attempt to save them?! Or even so I can keep fish in this tank. I have 2 other tanks with no issues so this one is killing me. I’m also newer to the hobby my tank parameters are: ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrates 20-40 ppm depending on day pH 8 im really hoping I don’t have to tear the whole tank down and start all over again - help please