fish tank

my bf surprised me with fish last week and one ended up dying, so the next day he bought me 2 more.. the one died on saturday, so then sunday I went with him to pick out a fish I wanted and a allergy sucker fish... the allergy one died today... so what's going on, I don't want anymore fish until we get a bigger tank and stronger filter. I know animals die or go into shock..etc but I never felt so unlucky with animals like this before.. anyone have any ideas?

check levels of ammonia, pH, and we had a liquid to our tank water than automatically neutralizes it and makes it safe. And the wter temp can be wrong for that kind of fish. I'd suggest doing a little research on what the type of fish you have needs.

Probably ammonia poisoning.

The long and short of it is that your filter needs to build up colonies of bacteria. These bacteria break down the ammonia in the fish waste into nitrites and then nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are both very poisonous to fish. It takes weeks for these bacteria colonies to grow and in the meantime ammonia just builds and builds, usually to very toxic levels in fairly short order.

There are a few things that you need to know. First, you should start with just a couple of small fish for ~3 weeks. Second, when you throw away that dirty filter cartridge you're throwing away all your beneficial bacteria colonies and you start the whole process over again. For this reason, I recommend either ditch the single-cartridge filters in favor of something with either a Bio-Wheel (the bacteria live on the wheel, which never gets replaced) or a multi-element filter that has a sponge you can rinse out and don't have to replace.

So give me some details and I can give you more specific recommendations. What size tank? What kind of fish? How long were they in there? Did you use dechlorinator? Do you have a heater? What kind of filter?

Oh and NEVER EVER add any kind of unnecessary chemicals to your tank. This includes pH adjusters and buffers as well as algae control chemicals.

Fish keeping really is easy once you understand the basics. Once your tank is cycled (bacteria colonies built up) and mature, it will require precious little maintenance. Just a bit of gravel vacuuming and filter rinsing (NEVER IN TAP WATER! Chlorine in tap water will kill off the bacteria) every couple of weeks.

The tank needs to be running for a week so the beneficial bacteria can start to grow to sufficient levels inside the tank. Ammonia levels and nitrate/nitrite levels will spike in that first week. Many fish species can't handle the spike so they go into shock and die.

The problem with Aquariums is they are self contained eco systems. They are not "set up and go" type things.

The only fish I know of that don't really require the pre-setup tank are Beta Fish. You still need to use something like Novaqua to condition the water and a heater depending on what you're trying to do with your beta fish. If you just want one fish that's fine but if you want more and go with betas you'll have to divide that tank.

At least 2 gallons per beta. No more than 3 beta in a divided 10 gallon tank.