Need Help Fishes Dropping Dead Like Flies!

[euripides]

Like the topic states, my fishes are dropping dead like flies.

I will start from the beginning of when this all started happening. about 3-4 weeks ago I got rid of my small community fish of white cloud minnows, black phantom tetras, and harlequin rasboras, 17 altogether because I decided to get into Rainbowfish. I bought some praecox rainbows from a member and I bought 3 more from AC. acclimatized them for 2-3 hours and put them into my 55 gal. They were in there for about a week and I decided to get a pair of mucollochi, and Parva rainbows from Galeen did the same to acclimatize them. during the weekend I cleaned my 2 canister filters and all the attachments.

during the start of the week I had my first death which I didn't think it was too unusual, the rescued powder blue dwarf gourami. Wasn't too surprised because when I first got him he was damaged face had a open wound, and it never healed always red. After the gourami died, started noticing that my praecox rainbows some of them had a white round mold on their fins, took the one out that I noticed, and managed to wipe it off. The next day the bigger male Praecox had a white coating over his body wrapped around near his head. The next day he died.

water parameters:

Ammonia: 0

Nitrate: 0

Nitrite:0

Ph: 7.4

2 canister filters, fluval 204, and 304. Two powerheads, running Co2

Doesn't end there though. That morning took a trip to Calgary to pick up some Rainbows from Rainbowric. picked up 6 Mocollochi's, 2 pairs of Wanams, and a pair of herbies, talked to him about it, and said I have some sort of disease in there, and he gave me some medication.

When I got home, I dosed it with the medication I got. acclimatized the new rainbows I got. And I put the rainbows into my 20 gal Ram tank, since I know that I have no issues with that tank. doubled the filtration on the 20 gal. I bought a 10 gal tank to quarantine the rainbows in my 55 gal. and I started to dose the quarantine tank of rainbows with Microb-lift artemis. did that for 3 days, and I dosed my 55 gal with that medication, as well as my ram tank. Then I bought Seachem para-guard and dosed the 10 gal with that for a week and I dosed some salt into the tank as well. Continued to dose my 55 gal and the ram tank with artemis.

The quarantined fishes looked fine, no deaths. after about a week of having the new bows in the ram tank, I placed them in my 55 gal. since none of my original fishes have ever died beside my Gourami. They been in the tank for half a week, and now they are dropping dead like flies. Never when I'm around. They have absolutely no signs of diseases. not ich, no mold. First lost one mocollochi, then another the next day. then another, lost one wanam and mocollochi yesturday, and this morning another mocollochi, and wanam. so altogether 4 moccolochi's and a pair of wanams, in like 3 days.

parameters again are.

ammonia:0

Nitrate:0

Nitrite:0

Ph: 7.4

Even when this first started happening I got AC to confirm my water parameters.

So I need everyone's help, whats going on? this is very discouraging, and making me want to tear my tanks down and call it a day. seem to have a death thumb going on.

Are they being pestered to death by my other fishes? shrimps?

I have 1 opaline gourami, 2 flame gourami, 1 other gourami I think pearl. 6 sky blue tetras, about 8 corys, 2 kuhli loaches, 3 ottos, 3 albino bristlenose plecos, some neon blue gobys, 5-6 red claw macro shrimp. ghost shrimp, cherry shrimps.

Again all my originals are alive besides my one gourami, which I think caused a outbreak when he passed..

If anyone can help me on this, it eould be much appreciated..

[Jayba]

Hmmm. A few things to consider:

You mentioned that you cleaned your filter, did you change all the media inside of it? Or rinse it in tap water?

Are you gassing the fish with CO2 when the lights go off? Do you find them dead in the morning? Does your Co2 run all night?

Your test kit is shot, and you need a new one (seeing 0,0,0) makes me think so......

Lets start there.....

[euripides]

the media I rinsed with tap water, never changed any of the media, added another pouch of purigen into one of the canisters, I poured some prime into each canister too when I filled it with water. The Co2 I'm only running during the day, and ever since I got the new bows, I ran the Co2 only twice during the days. as far as the test kits, the ammonia is a older one, but that's why I got AC to test it, I always got yellow as the reading for ammonia, AC got yellow, and as far as Nitrate, AC got 20ppm, where my kit always reads 0, Nitrate was minimal reading so I listed it as 0, and when AC tested it it was minimal.

If my kits were bad, I can understand if the readings of all 3 were off the chart it would cause fish to die, but none of my originals are suffering. all the shrimps are doing fine. I forgot to list my two pea puffers. No deaths what so ever with my originals beside my rescue gourami.

Even before I got rid of my small community fish I was pushing over 40 fishes in my 55 gal including the shrimps, and never had any deaths.

Edited April 30, 2012 by euripides

[jeremoose]

By rinsing the media with tap water you called ALL the beneficial bacteria built up (rinsing media with tap water is as bad as replacing all your media). You started a new cycle on your tank and an ammonia spike likely killed your fish. Do you have some mature media from another tank you can swap in to jump-start the cycle? Sounds like your ammonia kit may be pooched.

[euripides]

Still doesn't make sense why none of my original fish have died, having the ammonia spike occur it would of killed my gourami's, shrimp, tetra's, cory's, loaches, ottos and pleco's. it may not kill all because some may be able to go live through the ammonia spike. but at least some of them would of died.

[ckmullin]

if your water conditions are askew, the original fish can be acclimatized, while a new fish will not adjust very well to those askew conditions.

[euripides]

Shouldn't my rainbows in my quarantine tank start dieing to then? it was a new tank specifically for them using the water from my 55 gal

[Jayba]

The water in your 55 may have brought some bacteria into the tank. Also the bou load may be small enough for it to handle it. Certain fish can put up with abuse, others can't. Also gouramis can breathe without using their gills, and directly breathe from the surface.

Time to go buy a new test kit. Before you kill more rare fish

[euripides]

I highly doubt it's my water parameters, but I went and bought a master kit to test it. I asked the guys at AC, and they said its bacterial, and since it is fish from breeders, they are more prone to die from bacteria and parasites than LFS fishes, because they aren't raised in environments like LFS that have more bacteria and parasites, whereas LFS fishes are more immune to those, it would be like catching a common cold, and to breeders fishes a common cold would be deadly, Rainbowric has talked to some of his friends that are bow breeders, and two people said the same thing, one breeder said he bought 6 tetras from a LFS and stuck it in his fathers tank. then he placed two bows in the tank, the bows got gil disease a week and a half later and died. but all the other fish were fine.

Some other guys mention issues with the red claw macro shrimp and the pea puffers, I can say the puffers aren't an issue never had any fin nips when I had the 17 community fish, and having the black phantom tetras being the slowest and longest fins, they never had any fin nips. Now the red claw macro shrimp, never seen them attack any fish, some of my cory's have fin nips, but never any deaths

Edited April 30, 2012 by euripides

[Fishnerd]

OK usually the simplest answer is the right answer and I'm sure in this case as well.

Here's my best learned theory

1) Lack of O2 and surface agitation for a thorough gasseous exchange

2) Plain old fish stress due to high stocking and/or lack of swimming space

None of us are at your house to witness anything in person, sometimes making accurate diagnosees is a real crap shoot otherwise. I have certainly seen my 2 submissions several times before and it has happened to me as well once upon a time.

I do not subscribe to the theory of washing your filtre as being the reason whatsoever. Sorry but giving it a rinse does not kill the whole thing I've never had a spike in 30yrs of doing so when I had hobs or canisters. So unless you boiled the bloody thing your filtre is fine so lests remove the fear factor of various advice you've had so far especially when every ready is zero. Lets get real dudes ! Maybe increase your water change schedule as well to see if that helps. Another long shot idea is perhaps something is leaching into your water by way of onaments or wood etc that you've recently added or if it not perhaps these fish are more affected by what was already in there whereas the others weren't. This is certainly a long shot suggestion cuz as I said none of us are there to see in person.

Best of luck I hope it works out alright for ya

[PistolPete]

Paraguard wiped out all my BB before. It says its safe for filters but i can say for a fact that i dosed correctly and it killed off all the BB in my tank before

[Jayba]

I highly doubt it's my water parameters, but I went and bought a master kit to test it. I asked the guys at AC, and they said its bacterial, and since it is fish from breeders, they are more prone to die from bacteria and parasites than LFS fishes, because they aren't raised in environments like LFS that have more bacteria and parasites, whereas LFS fishes are more immune to those, it would be like catching a common cold, and to breeders fishes a common cold would be deadly, Rainbowric has talked to some of his friends that are bow breeders, and two people said the same thing, one breeder said he bought 6 tetras from a LFS and stuck it in his fathers tank. then he placed two bows in the tank, the bows got gil disease a week and a half later and died. but all the other fish were fine.

Wow, so let me summarize if I may. AC can say it's bacterial pretty good skills hey? But how can they rule out the common and most obvious, and claim bacterial when test results of water (0,0,0, in itself is very strange) or is this a common ailment they see in the store? It's pretty common for the LFS to pump fish through and make a buck, let it die at your place, not theirs. It's an ugly business.

At the end of the day, your quality fish died because you bought farm fish that are exposed to diseases? Wow, Also a very safe bet no medications have been given to these farm fish prior to getting to the store. But lately the LFS and disease is a common theme, and my medication sales back this up.

I have not bought fish from a store in the last 2 years, and haven't had a problem with disease, worms etc. simply put, the LFS can be a petre dish of diseases. But at the same time I have seen people on this and other forums dealing with diseases and selling livestock a week later. lol. Take the time to find and support the local breeders that have the fish you want, and take the time to do a proper quatantine.

Best of luck with your fish problems.

[jeremoose]

OK usually the simplest answer is the right answer and I'm sure in this case as well.

Here's my best learned theory

1) Lack of O2 and surface agitation for a thorough gasseous exchange

2) Plain old fish stress due to high stocking and/or lack of swimming space

None of us are at your house to witness anything in person, sometimes making accurate diagnosees is a real crap shoot otherwise. I have certainly seen my 2 submissions several times before and it has happened to me as well once upon a time.

I do not subscribe to the theory of washing your filtre as being the reason whatsoever. Sorry but giving it a rinse does not kill the whole thing I've never had a spike in 30yrs of doing so when I had hobs or canisters. So unless you boiled the bloody thing your filtre is fine so lests remove the fear factor of various advice you've had so far especially when every ready is zero. Lets get real dudes ! Maybe increase your water change schedule as well to see if that helps. Another long shot idea is perhaps something is leaching into your water by way of onaments or wood etc that you've recently added or if it not perhaps these fish are more affected by what was already in there whereas the others weren't. This is certainly a long shot suggestion cuz as I said none of us are there to see in person.

Best of luck I hope it works out alright for ya

The chlorine in our untreated tap water is put there to destroy the EXACT same type of bacteria we need and want to grow in our filters.

[euripides]

I highly doubt it's my water parameters, but I went and bought a master kit to test it. I asked the guys at AC, and they said its bacterial, and since it is fish from breeders, they are more prone to die from bacteria and parasites than LFS fishes, because they aren't raised in environments like LFS that have more bacteria and parasites, whereas LFS fishes are more immune to those, it would be like catching a common cold, and to breeders fishes a common cold would be deadly, Rainbowric has talked to some of his friends that are bow breeders, and two people said the same thing, one breeder said he bought 6 tetras from a LFS and stuck it in his fathers tank. then he placed two bows in the tank, the bows got gil disease a week and a half later and died. but all the other fish were fine.

Wow, so let me summarize if I may. AC can say it's bacterial pretty good skills hey? But how can they rule out the common and most obvious, and claim bacterial when test results of water (0,0,0, in itself is very strange) or is this a common ailment they see in the store? It's pretty common for the LFS to pump fish through and make a buck, let it die at your place, not theirs. It's an ugly business.

At the end of the day, your quality fish died because you bought farm fish that are exposed to diseases? Wow, Also a very safe bet no medications have been given to these farm fish prior to getting to the store. But lately the LFS and disease is a common theme, and my medication sales back this up.

I have not bought fish from a store in the last 2 years, and haven't had a problem with disease, worms etc. simply put, the LFS can be a petre dish of diseases. But at the same time I have seen people on this and other forums dealing with diseases and selling livestock a week later. lol. Take the time to find and support the local breeders that have the fish you want, and take the time to do a proper quatantine.

Best of luck with your fish problems.

Not too sure what your problem is but let me say this again. The results weren't all at zero I said zero because they were near minimal.

Results are

Ammonia 0.25ppm

Nitrate 5.0 ppm

Nitirite 0 ppm

High ph 7.4

Ph 7.6

I guess my parameters were far off from what I got from my NFG test kits. And they are far off from when I got my water tested at AC. So I guess not doing my basics is the death of my nice bows. But I dont quite recall not ever doing them but according to you I didnt. And these test kits I used when I started my tanks in the start of this year led to a zero casualty of zero fish.

Dont shoot the messenger when Im trying to get this solved and going through the right steps. But lets rule out that breeders themselves said that their fish they breed may have casualties bc they aren't as immune to the common bacteria and parasites that LFS Fishes encounter.

But thanks for your opinion. Almost forgot how it feels like being a child again and being lectured of doing something so wrong. When nothing was done wrong.

Thanks buddy!!

Oh and I do support the local breeders. But since you like to assume thing I just buy breeders fish that they put all the efforts and pride in breeding just to kill them. You know me so well Jayba

Edited May 1, 2012 by euripides

[Fishnerd]

jeremoose

I must be the luckiest guy in the world then with my stock and even luckier to still be alive from drinking tap water with all the bacteria in my intestinal tract dying by the millions with evey sip with that logic lol...

sorry bro we'll hafta agree to disagree on that one