Mysterious fish death

[Vallisneria]

Its a sad sad day today. I woke up and turned on my tanks lights only to find my favorite fish dead. My 4" red empress male was laying on the bottom of the tank. So i scooped him out (proper burial in the back yard ) and tested my water. All the test came back fine. Ph 7.8 ammo- 0 nitrite- 0 nitrate around 30(normal of this african tank). ALl my other fish are doing great, no visible signs of problems. I fed them all and they all ate.

I can't figure out why he died. He was fine yesterday as i watched the tank after i fed them. He ate and was swimming around fine, looked normal. So i have no idea why he would dead this morning. His body didn't look like there was anyhting wrong. HIs color was very faded, only a bit of red remained. HIs fins were ok, a bit tattered but i think that was after death as it wasn't there yesterday. The onyl thing was his eyes looked a bit red, like there was spots of blood. Not sure what that would be from.

So i'm just doing a water change now(last one was about a week ago) hoping what ever killed the red empress wont' kill anyone else. So does anyone have any ideas on what it could be. I hate loosing a fish so fast as i can't do anything about it. One day they are find and the next morning they are dead.

So any ideas?

[Smokey]

Degrassi: glad to see you are able to do a full water test; NH3, NO2, NO3.

From my expierence: ... Death is/can be caused by 3 factors

1 - Enviromental

2 - Physical

3 - Disease

1 - Environmental - You say the water is fine. o.k. [??]

3 - Disease - hmmm [??] - did you notice any external signs of ??.

- [ we will forego internal problems for the moment ].

that only leaves ---------

2 - Physical - what other tankmates are there ??

[ Not to point a finger, but....... ]

[Vallisneria]

The other tankmates are

5 lab perlmutts

5 rusties(iodotropheus sprengerae)

1 male P.electra

1 female red empress

and 3 syno petricola

There was never any fighting going on. The only one that ever got a bit roughed up was the female red empress. The male red empress was the king of the tank. He was the biggest fish and i never saw any fighting betwwen him and any of the other fish. The most that would ever happen was chasing and a bit of nipping to the female. The perlmutts and rusties seemed to not even notice the haps. They didn't seem to ever really react(chase, nip) to the haps even if they were in their "territories" that they would normally chase other perlmutts or rusties from.

The before he died he didn't show any outward sighs of illness. FIns were perfect, body was free of spots and in perfect color. Eyes looked clear and he was eating like normal.

So i can't think of what could be wrong. The water is good (No3 is what it normally is before i do my weekly water change, the last one was last weekend). HE looked healthy the night before and i never saw any fighting.

[AndyL]

Unfortunately, sometimes you'll just never find a good answer...

There are a lot of variables which affect a fish's longevity, and a lot of it happened before you even laid eyes on the fish... Poor genetics, poor raising, social hierarchy in grow-out tanks, shipping, time spent in the store tanks... Can all lead to stunting/runting, and future problems.

To give an example - I recently euthanized a large batch of angelfish fry simply because I missed a water change while they were very young (was a couple days after my knee surgery - they were 3-4 days freeswimming), the fish had noticeably poorer growth rates, and higher death rates than other spawns. In some hatcheries that's tollerated, even expected - but realistically as a breeder you can tell that those fish are going to be 'problematic' over the long term... But some breeders think only of the allmighty dollar - thus they would have sold such fish.

I had a pair of dwarf honey gouramis, that were also recently euthanized, the reason: their offspring all died for no good reason after roughly 8-10 months. I've got another pair of these gouramis raised under the same conditions, that do not have this problem - thus I can only assume it's a genetic condition...

In other words, don't stress for the next 6 weeks over why the fish died, quarantine it's replacement and move on...

Andy

[Smokey]

Val:

Well, from your description, the 4" red empress male may have succumb to ""Physical " problems. IME - a ''QUICK'' overnight death - a confrontation !!

Internal problems - a damaged vital organ ..

However, do not overlook any possible other factors. some which you may not even be aware off, or have considered.

Consider the events leading up to the red's death and post anything that may have seemed out-of-the-normal.

Sorry for your lose.

[Vallisneria]

I didn't see anyhting out of normal. The tank taht held the red empress is right next to my computer in my room so i pretty much watchi it for most of the day and i didn't notice anything different.

Its could be possible that the red empress was attacked during the night but i have never seen anyhting remotely that aggresive in this tank before. I used to have a male peacock that would get beat up by the red empress but i sold the peacock and ever since its been a "peaceful" tank. BUt maybe there was some kind of freak fight at night and he did get injured.

I was jsut wondering if i missed anyhting as whenever i loose a fish it seems to be an overnight thing instead of the fish getting visably ill.

Oh well, I guess i have to think about whether i want another male or if i should sell the female i have and try something new.

Thanks so much guys