Losing guppies like that is very frustrating. But we need more data. How long has this aquarium been set up? When you say you clean your tank, are you using a gravel vacuum on maybe 25-50% of the bottom and changing 25-45% of the water a week?
How might your situation be similar to other recent diaries and logs which have complained about guppy losses?
I kind of hate to do this to you, but Angelhologram in http://www.guppylog.com/story/2005/6/24/82111/0134 offers a list of 20 questions, which will help you describe your aquarium. Please answer as many as you can. Also, later in that thread I offer another 20 questions more aimed at symptoms of sick fish. Are there any from that list, which characterized your late guppies?
The first collecting water and aquarium factor to be measured was pH. It is unfortunately a myth that one should look for that first. The hobby does better, but still falls way short of informing new aquarists about what the nitrogen cycle and cycling an aquarium is all about. (See Immediate Help section 2 for more.) I know it inflates the price of a new aquarium, but if I had a shop I would urge ALL new aquarists to get and use a test kit which had tests for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. The cost of the kits (financially and emotionally) would be a lot less than the cost of lost fish and heartbreak which almost always will occur if one doesn’t know about the nitrogen cycle and how to use those kits.
By the bye, is the sucking loach a "Chinese Algae Eater" or a hill stream loach? Is the shark catfish the Arius catfish (first known as Arius jordoni, then Arius seemanni, and now scientificly named Hexanematichthys seemanni).
If so, take a look at http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=700
I hope this is a useful start to understanding what is going on in your aquarium.
All the best!
uncle scott
Immediate Help
