Deaths

[iain.betson]

We all make mistakes when starting out, and we all get a visit from the Ich Fairy and her friends at some point so i was wondering just how many poor little buggers we lose along the way
Feel free to share your experiences, you will not be judged

I thought it only right to share my losses with you guys since everyone has been so honest.


2 x platy (cycling problems)
1 x tiger barb (cycling problems)
1 x blind cave fish (cycling problems)
5 x clown loach (Ich)
5 x khuli loach (unknown cause of death just turn up on their sides) make that 6, long story short dodgy lfs
not too mention about 30 - 40 common and mirror carp fry I attempted to raise only one of which is alive and kicking.

 

[WILDER]

Well my tank had ntd so lost a full tank to that, but got better now and hardly ever have a sick fish.
Plus started of with guppys and they never when bought was in good health, so lost quite a few of them, no longer keep them now.

 

[snowyangel]

I lost over 20 of my guppies in 36 hrs from my breeding stock due to coloumnaris flexibacter which most people think is just fungas and thats what i was treating it for not knowing any better. It's the worst fish disease in my opinion. Much worse then ich.

 

[Tolak]

It took me 3 spawns of practice to get a good growout percentage with angels, that's at least 600 dead fish. I had a pair of marbles that would give me huge spawns, they would hatch out, swim for a day or 2, then all die. After 3 spawns, which is better than 1000 tiny fish, I figured they were unsuitable partners & gave them to a friend. I still lose around 5% in the first week or 2, once they hit 3 weeks there is only the occasional death, maybe 1 or 2 a week, if that.

If you don't count the breeding disasters, I've probably lost 40 or 50 dime size or larger. That's out of several thousand fish.

Ooops, almost forgot the heater malfunction a while back. 5 cooked corys & a boiled bristlenose. The angels didn't mind 98F though. Glad it was only a 20 gallon.

 

[wendywc]

Numerous deaths over the years since sharing a tank with my brother when I was a kid -- over 15 years now. But only one death since I've started my 30 gallon community.

 

[Anthony!]

Just two deaths -- a silver dollar and my ...... bichir... now I'm all sad.....

EDIT: I forgot the bala shark I had for SIX HOURS--needless to say, I bought a lid the next day

 

[metfan581]

unfortunately.....through out many years in the hobby and through out many tanks fish tend to be lost especially when entering the hobby

 

[Torrean]

like tolak I've lost lots of fry...other than that I've lost...oh lord this is embarrasing.

1 blue gourami (dwarf puffers need I say more)
2 5 zebra danios (unknown cause all died within a week no symptoms)
3 2 blue danio (finrot...I think)
4 around 50 white cloud fry
5 around 50+ jbp fry
6 1 rainbow shark (aggression from other rainbow sharks...I tried my best)
7 1 common pleco (cycling)
8 1 pictus cat (velvet nasty disease hard to spot too)
9 3 gold danios (velvet)
10 2 adf's (unknown)
11 1 hillstream loach (impulse buy I put him in a 78-80 F tank)
12 1 dwarf gourami (sudden aggression from other DG during quarantine)

probably a couple more from my first 29 gallon disaster that I can't recall...god this makes me wonder if we should be keeping fish at all...

NO I don't think there is really anything wrong with keeping fish. I think the main problem is actually LFS employees. They should refuse to sell you fish if you can't provide for them. Instead they intentionally sabotage your tank. Ofcourse I am not talking about all lfs employees. Some lfs employees are great...many are not. In my humble opinion no one should be able to walk out of a fish store with a bag without having a brief conversation about the nitrogen cycle at the very least. Now the second largest cause of fish deaths in my opinion is impulse buying...I am guilty and fish have died from it. I don't do it anymore but I was very bad about it earlier on. I'm sorry. If you properly research and setup your tank and perform proper maintenance your fish probably won't get sick and die. I haven't had a death in a long time excluding quarantine.

 

[Xcric]

lets see over the course of 2 years...

the ones that got ich were in my first tank, before i knew what cycling was, and recently my 55 (the power went out for a day, the temp dropped 10 degrees, every single fish got ich, and i couldn't raise it back to 80, nor did the medication work)

the ones that were eaten were eaten by my tiger barbs, they were pretty nasty little fish when it came to that (i'll never get them again)

3 red tailed black sharks (1 jumped/ 2 got ich)
1 royal pleco (ich)
1 blue pleco (ich)
5 jurupari babies (3 eaten/1 ich/1 died of stress the first day)
10 or so firemouthes (7 aggression between each other/3 from a nitrite spike)
30 or so tiger barbs (old age/ich/eaten/stress)
13 serpae tetra (4 eaten/9 from lack of oxygen)
5 black phantom tetra (eaten)
5 clown loaches (4 ich/1 eaten/ all died within the first 2 days)
2 black sword tails (aggression from the tiger barbs (died first day) yeah i was a noob)
5 peppered cories (eaten the first day)
3 blue rams (2 starved, 1 got ich)
6 julii cory (ich)
10 or so rosy barbs (their deaths were always a little mysterious, i assume it was aggression with the tigers, because they'd have no lower jaw, and then die a week later)
3 pictus catfish (ich)
3 white clouds (jumped/eaten)
1 blue acara (stress, didn't last a day)
1 surinam geo (stress, didn't last a day)
5 keyhole cichlids (1 died of stress the first day, 4 from ich)

yeah i've lost a lot...it wasn't too bad until that damn 55 basically had a meltdown

and i mean mind you its not like i bought them all at once and they all died at once, it'd be one fish here, one fish there

eh, live and learn

 

[dwarfgourami]

5 in the last year, not counting fry eaten (numerous) or culled because of severe deformity (1). 4 of these to bacterial infection brought into tank at purchase, not a lot I could have done about that, I don't think. The fifth death due to heat wave, that I do feel guilty about. All 5 were bought at the same shop on the same occasion.

As for the fish I kept 30 years ago...I expect they're all dead now. But they would be. Which reminds us that not all fish deaths are to be counted as disasters. I have also lost a fair few relatives in the last 42 years, but I don't think this indicates any particular carelessness on my part; most of them were well over 80 at time of demise. Even the best fishkeepers will eventually lose their fish to old age, and all the quicker if they keep shortlived species, like guppies or even annual killifish.

I did lose a fair few to probably avoidable causes though in my first years of fishkeeping; can't remember any figures, but have a feeling that if I had not tried to keep mollies (soft acid water) and had kept numbers down, we might all have been happier.

 

[onemisterchristian]

I've watched my female jewel cichlid gobble up about 100 fry. Ugh! Weird how nature works out that way. I'm definetly going to seperate her next time. She devil!

 

[cane76]

since i started out a year ago ive lost 3 clown loach 2 pictus 1 bgk and 1 dragon goby the loach,pictus and bgk all died in one week

 

[squishy_1984]

i didn't think so many people were going to own up when i saw this thread.lol.

i've had one mysterious cory death in my 20g community
and 6 harlequin rasboras died within 3 weeks before leaving my quarentine tank

but none down to bad housekeeping thankfully *touches wood!!!


JD

 

[ceilidhgirl]

I just got my first ever fish last week

unfortunately two of them have died (blue guppies)

but although i have an 'ich' outbreak (which i'm medicating for) everyone else is doing fine.

i expected a few losses when starting out, but it still brings a few tears to my eyes

 

[Dragonscales]

Deaths related to breeding aside (it is practically impossible to have at least a couple of deaths per spawn due to canibalism, birth defects, etc) I could count the deaths in my tanks on my fingers. I am pretty sure I've only lost 5 but on the chance I am off by 1 or 2 I voted 6-10.

All in all, I have only ever had one outbreak in my tanks (one case of ich) which most survived (one death), a blown heater which took out 2 bristlenosed catfish but everyone else pulled through ok and 2 tankjumpers (both peacock eels).