Dying spree

[Sven]

Hi, I´ve had a very strange dying spree over a long period of time lately. I have a 55g tank that has been set up for about a year now.

First my 8 banded barbs died, one after another, the all seemd to have dropsy. I did a big water change after this. I do abour 40% water changes per week. I do not have an ammonia test kit, but I fiond it highly unlikely that I have ammonia issues.

about 2 weeks later my 3 clowns died, one at a time, suddenly they were very lathargic, lay almost motionless and died. I did not see anything abnormal in their appearance. They came sick like this in a short period of time, but they all died about 2 days apart. The clowns were about 2" and had been looking very good since I got them, had them for about 6 months. Fat little buggers.

After the clowns, it was the herlequin rasbora, they have been dying one at a time without any appearent signs of illness, they look fat and helathy. The just suddenly seem very lathargic and die shortly after, gone from 10 to 2.

This has been happening over a period of about 6 weeks.

I´ve measured NO3 (20ppm), PO4(2,5), PH(6,8), GH and KH are fine

All this time the 6 lemon tetras, 8 rummy nose, 5 SAE and 4 ancistrus have been doing fine and all seem very healthy.

I´ve not noticed that any of the fish stopped eating befory they died.

I´m baffled, from description I thought this might have been because of swimbladder problems, is that a possibility? But none of the fish have been having a very hard time leaving the top or bottom of the tank. Right before dying it just looks like they are totally lump and just float about.

[Sven]

Any ideas???
Isn´t it unlikely that there would be any ammonia in my tank with all these plants ans WC? And wouldn´t that also show up in other fish, or are the species that I mentioned particularly sensitive to ammonia?

[crazie.eddie]

Any new changes like new fish?

[tazcrash69]

Originally Posted by Sven

Any ideas???
Isn´t it unlikely that there would be any ammonia in my tank with all these plants ans WC? And wouldn´t that also show up in other fish, or are the species that I mentioned particularly sensitive to ammonia?

I don't have any ideas, but I can tell you that if it was an Ammonia issue, I would think you would see it on the faces of the rummey noses.

Good luck

Walter

[Sven]

OK, the rummy noses have been looking very good, I did add 3 keyhole cichlids, they also seem very healthy.

So ammonia is out of the question.

Are swimbladder problems a plausible explination? Wouldn´t that show upp in fish floating or sinking?

[turbosaurus]

Swim bladder problems are generally from damage or impact, caused by a bully, or an infection and the infection in a swim bladder is generally the result of - you guessed it- damage. I Don't think that's it...

Heres a long shot- what are your temperatures? Its been really hot here, and I noticed the tanks can really get hot during the day if I don't leave the air conditioning on. Temperature swings can really stress out fish too.

Dropsy is usually kidney failure which can happen for a lot of reasons- have you ever had an outbreak of some other identifiable problem in the past that these fish lived through? Mayeb a filter crash and resulting ammonia spike- even if it doesn't kill your fish it can dramatically decrease their life expectancy.

[Sven]

Well the harlequins had been bullied a bit by a crazy yukatán molly, but that was not the case with the clowns and the banded barbs.
There was a period that I didn´t clean the filter for a while but it never shut down, so I guess an ammonia spike is possible, but that would hardly have just killed one specie at a time.

Heat changes are unlikely, during the day it´s about 27°c and about 25-26°c during the night. Indoor temperatuers are pretty stable at about 21-22°c

I think I´ll give up, this mysterie will probably never be solved.

[the_noobinator]

aliens from outer space maybe? i'm stumped.

[marchsunrise371]

How recently have you added the keyhole cichlids?
Did the deaths start happening shortly after they were added?
I don't know what the temperment of them are but maybe they are causing the deaths, and maybe they are not being bullies but defending territory? maybe?
Good luck solving this issue.

~~~Dawn

[Sven]

marchsunrise371, Don´t remember exactly when I got the keyholes but I
don´t think this started shortly after they were introduced. But the keyholes are very calm and I have still not seen them harrass any of the fish in the tank.

Well.....but the storie goes on.

I came home from work today to find a dying lemon tetra hanging in the anubias. All lemons seemed very happy yestarday and I was actually thinking this dying spree might be over since my last 2 harlequins were still alive and looking fine.

Like all others the lemon tetra seemed to look very good, even when dying. Here it is in its final minutes of life.


It died the day after a WC, is it possible that fish might be getting stressed from WC and dying because of that.
I got a digital ph meter and it seems that ph is 6,2 might that be to low and stressing fish out?
This situation is driving me crazy

[uncskainch]

Maybe something has changed with your tap water?

[Sven]

OK, I think the mistery is solved. When the lights whent on in the tank this morning, I didn´t see many fish, at first I wasn´t alarmed and thought they were just having a slight case of the thursdays. But when I didn´t see them an hour later, I had a closer look and four 2 of my rummy noses stuck to the intake of the filter. I shut of the filter and they were still breathing. Looking closer at the other fish in the tank I found them all to be quite flimsy and noone seemed really OK. Checking things I found that the CO2 was at about 5-6bps, my doughter had probably been inspecting the CO2 equipment the night before (terrible two´s)
The funny thing is that I found the symptoms to be exactly the same as all the other fish that had been dying, lathargic, but the suddenly darting somewhere and lye there on the bottom. So I´m guessing now that I have been keeping the CO2 flow to high the past weeks. It´s been at about 2bps. Although, I have never seen the fish hanging at the surface, gasping for air, and I still have enaugh GSA. Wouldn´t the GSA had gone if the CO2 had been this high for the recent weeks? According to my measurements the CO2 should have been at about 58ppm. The Co2 had been pretty stable at 6,1 (was 5,9 this morning.)
Anyways, I ordered a solenoid today to not get into this situation again. After cutting of the co2 for the a while and putting an airstone in the tank, the fish bounched back pretty quickly. Fish loss seems to be minimal, only one rummy nose so far, though I´m yet to find another rummy nose and one keyhole acara.

But do you all believe that it might be the case that the CO2 had just been set to high all this time? The fish might have been having a rough time during the nights, but might have bounched back after the lights whent back on? Usually, I don´t get home until about 3-4 hours after the lights go on, so I might have missed the signs the fish were showing early in the day.

[TINNGG]

I dunno... I lost several bettas in june to a mysterious malady. Antibiotics (TC) helped somewhat. Then I lost another several at the beginning of this month (august). On a whim, I treated one that was looking really bad with formalin and was amazed at how much better the fish acted the next day.

The symptoms were the same both infestations - the fish would become lethargic and uninterested in food. I also noticed the fish breathing hard. Have you noticed that with any just prior to death? I'm guessing gill flukes with mine as I noticed shortly after medicating that first fish I treated with the formalin that he was twitching and jerking like something was itching. Then shortly after that, he didn't seem to be breathing as hard.

[Sven]

Yes, I noticed rapid breathing when they were close to dying. I had also been thinking that this might be gill flukes, but this happened so suddenly that it didn´t look like gill flukes. Did your fish in the end look like they were half paralized? then suddenly darting somewhere an lay there for some time again before darting of again? Mine sometimes just floated around like they were dead, but were breathing, then they tried to svim off but didn´t go far.
The first deaths I didn´t think co2 poisoning since I hadn´t seen any fish gasping for air at the surface.

I was thinking that the fish then died in the order how how weak they were to changes like these; first my clowns died, then my harlequins died one by one.
But the strange thing is, that I didn´t lose a single rummy nose tetra until yesterday. I thougt they were more delicate then the harlequins, but maybe the can withstand higher levels of CO2 ???

[TINNGG]

The thing with bettas is they spend time sitting around doing nothing. They just got apathetic when I came around, something I thought very odd. Usually they get all excited to see me and start doing the "feed me" dance. I never saw one just prior to death so can't attest to dashing.