My poor fish

Question
I have a 10 gallon fresh water tank. I have had the tank for about 3 months now and went through 2 shubunkin and a fan tail Gold fish (depressing right). i chnged out the water and put a plant in the tank and started over with two small fan tails and all of a sudden the water got alittle cloudy and then a few days later one of the fan tail's died. what am i doing wrong. Is there something I need to be doing. Is it time to change my filter. I dont know what to do. Please help save my fish.

Answer
Hi Shawn.  Your problem with this is pretty simple.  The fish that you have in that tank CANNOT LIVE in a tank that small.  Please please research any fish before you purchase them to put in tanks.  If you research fantail goldfish and shubunkin, you will see that they are best fit for a 30 plus gallon tank (for ONLY 2 fish) in order to live a happy healthy life.  These fish get FAR TOO BIG and are far too messy of fish to be able to sutain their lives in a 10 gallon tank.  I have fantails that are almost 12" long.  They would not fit in a 10 gallon tank, they live in an outside pond because they are so large.

In a 10 gallon tank, you'd be best suited for smaller fish such as platy's, mollies, guppies, tetras, danios, swordfish and a couple of others that stay very small.  Other then that, like I said, you will not be able to keep any fish that get very large in a tank that small.

Before you upset yourself anymore by losing more fish, please please research them prior to getting them and MOST of all, you MUST learn how to properly "cycle" a tank PRIOR to putting fish in.  No fish (but a couple of hardy ones) will survive just being put in to water straight from the tap and treated with water conditioner.  It must be cycled first.  Please see the following webpage to help you out:  http://www.fishlore.com/FirstTankSetup.htm .

I hope this makes sense to you.  Good luck!