jessica653
New Member
A Quick forewarning, this isn't my tank and I don't know many technical terms to do with fishkeeping. My father is the main keeper and has been into fishkeeping for decades. I'm posting for him because he's rather upset about all this.
The tank in question is a large, long established tropical tank. In december we began the process of adding new fish, so I'll split the population/casualties into new fish and established ones. Starting with the older fish:
Over the course of the next few days two of the cardinals disappear. We don't worry at this point. Then shortly after that the largest spotted corydoris starts to have swimbladder problems. We still don't worry because he's older than the others and is nearing his time, but when one of the younger spotted catfish joins him, we start to worry. They kick the bucket within hours of each other. We noticed they both seemed a bit on the red side shortly before dying, especially underneath. After that things start getting ridiculous. The siamese fish, having been completely fine for a month, suddenly starts to get his fin shredded. We initially suspected injury rather than sickness because the shred was localised to the top and travelled downwards, but it kept getting worse until he died two days later. Both the bronze corydorises were next to perish, and as of today all but two of the cardinals have also died (3 of them disappearing in one day). We at first blamed the deaths of the cardinals on the raphael as there were no boides, but the last cardinal to go showed signs of distress for several hours before being found dead- let's just say it seems the bristlenose has been taking care of the bodies posthumously. Besides, we used to have guppies and the raphael never once ate one of them. The final straw was the death of one of the loaches this morning, who showed absolutely no signs of distress.
Several things strike me as odd- for a start, its as though each species of fish to fall victim is suffering from a seperate illness, eg the siamese fish was completely fine minus his fins while the catfish all had swimbladder issues. Secondly, the glass catfish- being old, weak, blind and worn out from age, are both absolutely fine. My theory is that one of the last cardinals brought an illness (funny story actually- there was a shortage of cardinals in my area due to coronavirus shutting down the asian importers, so we went to three different reputable shops in one day , until when we finally found two cardinals in a tank next to a dead catfish we brought them anyway just so we could say we'd achieved something). But that doesn't explain the huge variation in sickness.
The problem is, we have no idea what to do next. We make a point of removing the bodies- even going as far as to do a thourough search everytime someone goes missing. With the catfish we tried isolating them, but that didn't stop the others in the tank from catching whatever it is as well. It seems the rest are just going to keep dying one by one, which naturally we don't want as some of our fish have been with us for years. Any ideas?
The tank in question is a large, long established tropical tank. In december we began the process of adding new fish, so I'll split the population/casualties into new fish and established ones. Starting with the older fish:
- Three clown loaches- two of whom were about seven and the third being older than I am!
- Five spotted corydoris catfish
- A female raphael catfish
- A male bristlenose catfish
- Two very old glass catfish
Over the course of the next few days two of the cardinals disappear. We don't worry at this point. Then shortly after that the largest spotted corydoris starts to have swimbladder problems. We still don't worry because he's older than the others and is nearing his time, but when one of the younger spotted catfish joins him, we start to worry. They kick the bucket within hours of each other. We noticed they both seemed a bit on the red side shortly before dying, especially underneath. After that things start getting ridiculous. The siamese fish, having been completely fine for a month, suddenly starts to get his fin shredded. We initially suspected injury rather than sickness because the shred was localised to the top and travelled downwards, but it kept getting worse until he died two days later. Both the bronze corydorises were next to perish, and as of today all but two of the cardinals have also died (3 of them disappearing in one day). We at first blamed the deaths of the cardinals on the raphael as there were no boides, but the last cardinal to go showed signs of distress for several hours before being found dead- let's just say it seems the bristlenose has been taking care of the bodies posthumously. Besides, we used to have guppies and the raphael never once ate one of them. The final straw was the death of one of the loaches this morning, who showed absolutely no signs of distress.
Several things strike me as odd- for a start, its as though each species of fish to fall victim is suffering from a seperate illness, eg the siamese fish was completely fine minus his fins while the catfish all had swimbladder issues. Secondly, the glass catfish- being old, weak, blind and worn out from age, are both absolutely fine. My theory is that one of the last cardinals brought an illness (funny story actually- there was a shortage of cardinals in my area due to coronavirus shutting down the asian importers, so we went to three different reputable shops in one day , until when we finally found two cardinals in a tank next to a dead catfish we brought them anyway just so we could say we'd achieved something). But that doesn't explain the huge variation in sickness.
The problem is, we have no idea what to do next. We make a point of removing the bodies- even going as far as to do a thourough search everytime someone goes missing. With the catfish we tried isolating them, but that didn't stop the others in the tank from catching whatever it is as well. It seems the rest are just going to keep dying one by one, which naturally we don't want as some of our fish have been with us for years. Any ideas?
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