# Help! African cichlids keep dying



## Jhw1126 (May 17, 2019)

2small hab and peacock with few blue botia
I woke up yesterday found my African stressed, but loach doing just fine. 
Cycleed tank. 120g power by fx6 and 20g sump 
With crushed coral to buffer the ph
Tank is set up for water change 5gallon every 3hour, water is drawn from a water reservoir, preheated and treated 
I checked water ph8.0 ammonia between 0~0.25
Water temp 81.5. Water changed 50% after the water test. They are still dying. 
I got some stress guard seem like wasn’t doing much. 
Help I am half way down!!


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## Jhw1126 (May 17, 2019)

I also have one the fx6 outlet pointing upward. There is good surface agitation. 
The reason why the ammonia is higher the usual is because. most of these fish are just introduced in the tank for about a week. I am dosing seachem stability. There was about 15 peacock. 
They are all juvenile no lager then 4”


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## Jeepcarpenter (Sep 29, 2018)

If they were all introduced at the same time, recently; the tank could be struggling to keep up with the bioload while the bacteria populate enough that to handle it? Unless they've been in there a while now and this just started out of the blue.

So a 120g tank, powered by an FX6 canister and a 20g sump, 
PH8.2 but curious what your hardness and alkalinity are
Amm: .25
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
Temp: 81.5
How long has the tank been running?
List of inhabitants?
When each was introduced?
Any new aquarium decor?
Any symptoms/signs/pics?


I would continue with the 50% WC daily with aged/dechlorinated water, treated with conditioner and hopefully the community can help you remedy this problem, in the meantime try to give as much information as you can, too much even; as noted in the stickies. 





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Jhw1126 (May 17, 2019)

Thanks for the reply, here is the slightly more detail version of the tank info 

Used to be around 17 peacocks, now at 5 
peacocks, 2 had, 3 blue botia, 1 feather fin cat. 

Added about 10 fish a week ago(totaled around 21 inhabitants) mostly peacock range from 2-3 inch 

Tanks been running for 2 month now, it used to host 6 mid size bichir and 10inch Oscar, with the cat and botia, then I took them out fine tune the water parameters to fit the African cichlids then after 2days everything checked out I put in the cichlids.

The first few day they were doing ok then I slowly added more. Check water parameters daily. And I also dose seachem stability daily to help out

Water change are scheduled Automatic changed, sourced from heated and treated(seachem prime) 


No new decor

Symptoms consist breathing heavily, some stay at top some at bottom not moving much, not eating. similar to an ammonia burn, but as far as I can tell .25 isn't that deadly especially with the amount of water exchanging through auto water change 

Since yesterday I up the auto water change to 5 gallons per hour. Still my cichlids are dying 

I am going to grab a kit to test Hardness and alkalinity level, don't have the tools on hand atm

Nitrite n nitrate n pics, I will test n send them once I get home.


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## clubsoda (Oct 10, 2009)

Were they eating well in your tank? What were you feeding them? One or a few may carry parasite and spread to others you may have to medicate them with metro. I wouldnt do that much water change with peacock twice a week you may have had disturb the bacteria equilibrium. I always have good luck with adding sponge filter with air pump in addition to hob or cannister they don’t look so great but good results. Lastly do you have substrate what kind how old and how thick?


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## des (Jul 30, 2011)

Any update on the tank since?

Have you ruled out aggression? Any fish being overly aggressive. Do the fish show any damage to their fins and scales?

Have you ruled out electrical leak from the heater, power head etc.?

(I know this an old post)


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## Jhw1126 (May 17, 2019)

des said:


> Any update on the tank since?
> 
> Have you ruled out aggression? Any fish being overly aggressive. Do the fish show any damage to their fins and scales?
> 
> ...


Thanks for your advice 
Back then they were all to small to fight, no sign of sickness or inflections or damage. Tank also have ground probe installed

I was puzzled, until I read a god damn mail from my mail box suggesting that my city was working on the piping, and there could be residual in the water.

The cause was the continues drip system

Unfortunately only one yellow lab survived, but I were able to restart the tank from June and have no issues since then


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