Dying Fish :(

[SueB]

Hi

1. Water parameters. (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, PH, temp', Hardness etc) - cant answer this myself but will ask tomorrow. The levels are checked every other week though.
2. A full description of the fishes symptoms. No symptoms except they start to look raggy once they are dying
3. How often you do water changes and how much. Water is topped up and part changed every 2 weeks.
4. Any chemicals and treatments you add to the water. None since we established the tank last year.
5. What tank mates are in the tank. As below
6. Tank size. 5 ft long
7. Finally Have you recently added any new fish? Not for about three or four months.

I wrote in the forum a while ago about grieving fish - two kissing gourami, after the big plec died. We bought over a dozen smaller fish, including two new kissing gourami, and the other two immediately came back to life - they've been amazingly healthy since.

However, over the last week we've been losing fish every day. We have a fish keeper who comes fortnightly to top up the water and check the chemical levels, and filter, and keeps an eye on them for us. He put plants in and we feel he's doing a good job (after all the trouble we had, we wanted someone who know about fish to look after them for us).

His speciality is marine aquariums though. He's checked out one of the dead fish and says there's no apparent reason for the deaths - the water quality and temperature are fine, there's plenty of oxygen and light, and there is no sign on any of the fish of a disease of any kind. They just die. From when they show signs of trouble it's only a matter of an hour or two.

Does anyone have any ideas please?? At this rate we will lose all the fish within another few days The gourami look fine but they are bigger than the others. We've lost the siamese fighter, a small catfish, two sharks and several tetras, all within a week to ten days.

Thanks

Sue

 

[WILDER]

Can you say how many gallons or litres the tank is.
Full stock list of fish, how many and which type.
Water stats would be good.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing against objects, or laboured breathing.
Have the fish gone pale or darkened in colour, any clamped fins.
Check the gills for excess mucas on them and being pale, or red and inflamed.

 

[WILDER]

Should be doing a gravel vac or sand vac with a water change once a week.

 

[SueB]

Can you say how many gallons or litres the tank is.
Full stock list of fish, how many and which type.
Water stats would be good.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing against objects, or laboured breathing.
Have the fish gone pale or darkened in colour, any clamped fins.
Check the gills for excess mucas on them and being pale, or red and inflamed.

Hi! Thanks - I'll research the more complicated (for me) stuff tomorrow, but I can say that they are showing no unusual signs at all - no flicking, no apparent breathing problems and their colours havent changed until they are about to die and get pale and raggy.

Actually, I just checked again and the remaining tetras have very shabby looking fins and tails now, and the one that looks ill is opening and closing his or her mouth rapidly in a very strange way. The gourami look fine and there are no outward signs of anything wrong in the others.

All that are left are three kissing gourami, one shark, and five tetras. We did have about a dozen tetras, three shark, four gourami, a siamese fighter and a small catfish.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific about the other things you mention yet, but I will ask Alan tomorrow.

Many thanks for answering

Sue

Should be doing a gravel vac or sand vac with a water change once a week.

Our 'fishkeeper' comes every other week and does a gravel vac and water change.

Thanks

Sue

 

[WILDER]

Water change fast as that fish shouldn't be heavy breathing.
The guy who looks after your tank is he doing the substrate with a vac.
You have finrot that can be secondary infection.
With the laboured breathing looking at parasites, bad water quality, to bacterial infection.
Without stats hard to say what's going off, first thing to rule out.
I would get the guy who looks after your tank round fast, tell him to take some water tests then post the results on the board.

Should be doing a gravel vac and water change every week.
Get stats up on the board, then we can take a closer look at whats going off.

 

[newtotropical]

Sounds to me like you have gone into a mini cycle which has stressed this fish leading to infections. I would say that a bit of water change every 2 weeks isint anywhere near enough....I would say your wasting your money with this guy unless you get him in every week. I would have thought the first thing he would have done when this problem started was check stats and do a big water change....are you sure he knows what hes doing? I could be wrong but that the way i read your post.

 

[SueB]

Sounds to me like you have gone into a mini cycle which has stressed this fish leading to infections. I would say that a bit of water change every 2 weeks isint anywhere near enough....I would say your wasting your money with this guy unless you get him in every week. I would have thought the first thing he would have done when this problem started was check stats and do a big water change....are you sure he knows what hes doing? I could be wrong but that the way i read your post.

Thanks to you both for your answers, and for your time and patience. This morning I took a couple of tests of the water myself and was horrified to see that the PH reading was down to 5 - really acidic I drove straight in to the pet shop and asked their advice and am now putting two caps of the balancing liquid in each day until the water is at a normal level.

I had thought that he was checking the water every fortnight, but apparently not. There may be a possibility that he has been told the wrong tap to use outside, or he forgot, because there's a mains water tap and a river water tap (different coloured pipes to avoid confusion). The man at the pet shop, who specialises in tropical fish, said this reading is more likely to be the river water.

However, ultimately the responsibility for the maintenance of the tank is down to us, and I will be checking the water myself at very regular intervals.

The odd thing is that I first tested for ammonia and the water is fine for that, but the pet shop man said it really should have been higher too with this PH reading.

Three more fish died overnight, and I'm really hoping that this slow return to normal levels will save the rest.

Thank you again - what a great place to come to for my fish

Sue

 

[black angel]

Buy your own test kits for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph so you can keep an eye on it yourself.

I would test both the normal and the river tap to see what the levels are for those and then compare them to the ph of the tank.

Water changes should really be done each week to keep the tank balanced, even if its just 20%.

Dont add any boosters, do small daily water changes of 10%, adding the higher ph water and it should sort itself out.
Do you know how he was cleaning the filters?

 

[SueB]

Buy your own test kits for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph so you can keep an eye on it yourself.

I would test both the normal and the river tap to see what the levels are for those and then compare them to the ph of the tank.

Water changes should really be done each week to keep the tank balanced, even if its just 20%.

Dont add any boosters, do small daily water changes of 10%, adding the higher ph water and it should sort itself out.
Do you know how he was cleaning the filters?

Hi

We already had the test kits, which I thought he'd been using, but apparently not - my fault, I should have checked that - I am going to check the water supplies with them also, yes. The man at the pet shop has sold me a balance for the water and we've done two treatments so far, so I'd best keep on with that.

As to the cleaning of the filters, I dont remember him doing that very often to be honest. He does change the charcoal occasionally. I'm sorry, I must sound daft, but as we were paying him to do the maintenance I assumed it was all safe. Now I will be checking just what he does, and arranging for the rest of the requirements to be met, either by him or by ourselves inbetween his visits.

In our defence, I would add that we hadnt been planning to have tropical fish, but had bought the original ones in an old tank from a friend of our older sons. He was moving house and needed to home them urgently. We then purchased a larger tank to give them better surroundings and when one of the three died we bought more to keep the others company - a plan which worked well. As we hadnt planned to keep fish and knew little about their care, we employed someone who kept fish himself to do that for us. He's been very good and keen, but he has marine fish, so perhaps the differences are more important than we realised.

Thank you everyone

Sue

 

[WILDER]

Ask him if he's being doing a gravel vac with the water change.

 

[SueB]

Ask him if he's being doing a gravel vac with the water change.

Will do! Thanks Wilder

Sue