General Aquaria Discussion • Thinking of tearing apart my Tanganyika tank

[Laurel]

This tank(although beautiful) has been nothing but problems for me. My boyfriend and I have begun referring to it as "the tank of death." Our first bn pleco died after 5 weeks, a few weeks later, we got another one, and 5 weeks later, he kicked the bucket, and his death was followed by a massive bacterial bloom that lasted about 5 weeks. Somewhere in there 1 of the 3 julies that I ended up with died. After the second pleco died, 2 of the multies died, and the 5 olive nerite snails that I put in there to eat algae died. As a last ditch effort to control algae, I purchased about 20 cherry shrimp, which have gotten into the filter and are apparently very tasty. Throughout all of this, my water parameters have stayed nearly pristine.

No matter what I do with this tank, I can't seem to get it right. I would have no problem rehoming the remaining livestock, and I'd like to try a high tech planted bolivian ram+tetra+bn pleco tank that doesn't have such harsh water parameters(8.6 pH, etc) for fish like plecos to live in.

Thoughts, opinions, etc?

[Darkside]

I keep my multies in a planted tank with the pH around 7.8 and I'm sure they'd thrive if the pH was lowered further. My Ancistrus are thriving at a pH of 8.2, maybe the high pH is your problem? I've also included some Siamese algae eaters to keep my own algae down, they may be a bit large for a 29, but they do work wonders. What stock is left in the aquarium?

[Laurel]

I pulled 1 of the julies out 2 nights ago because he got kicked out of the rocks by the other one(failed to pair) and the multies had removed most of his dorsal fin. He seems to be doing better in the hospital tank with a little melafix.

I have 1 julie, 3 adult multies and several fry.

When I had the pH at 8.4 the ancistrus were dying, and my tap water pH isn't much below that. I just add buffers to give it hardness(my tap's super soft).

After having 2 ancistrus die in the tank already, I feel as though I'm giving a death sentence to the next one unfortunate enough to make it into this tank. They're fine in my 75 gallon with mbuna and a pH of 8.0-8.2.

[Darkside]

Try doing a small water change without adding any buffers for the hardness. I would maybe remove that last julie, multies and julies never seem to co-habitate well over the long term. Although it may work better with only a single julie. It may also be that your multies are killing your ancistrus. I found that in my 20 gallon I couldn't keep a BN in there with them, that aquarium is now housing a wayward kuhli loach instead. I also tried otos with my muties... those were a no-go as well. I general tangs like more space than cichlids from malawi, but a 29 should be enough space for more than just multies. What type of algae are you having trouble with?

[Laurel]

All of it. The green algae covers the black background and rocks, and on some of the higher up rocks, I have something that resembles bba, but it's not quite as long and a little browner looking. When the plecos were alive, the tank looked beautiful, but I'm not going to keep dumping plecos in to die.

[DMWave45]

It really seems to me that you are just having really bad luck with your plecos. My tap ph is around 8.4 and i've always kept different types of plecos in my tanks without incident. You may think that you are sentencing it to death but I would try another one. JMO, and keep an eye out to see if it is being harassed.

[Laurel]

The other 2 weren't harassed by the multies or julies unless they wandered into their shell bed, and even then they didn't do much more than nip at the pleco and he left. Perhaps I'll try ONE more pleco and see how that goes. It's just disheartening when everything that goes in it seems to die.