Fish dying not all at once

[Deb0]

My daughter's tropical fish seem to be dying one after the other, not all at once.

The symptoms that I have noticed are:

Top fin seems to collapse, seem to spend time on bottom not doing much apart from gasping a lot, then will occasionally swim off, will go to the top and hang around there. Towards the end they are gasping a lot and usually just lying on the bottom. The first to go was a cat fish, gurami, 2 mollies, and now it looks like some of the guppies are going down with whatever it is.

She has another molly in the nurse tank and that is laying on the bottom now gasping for air, I'm not sure but it also looks like it has brown spots here and there.

My daughter spotted a leech on one of the plants yesterday, we haven't seen any on the fish.

We did do a water quality test and that seems to be ok.

The other query we have is, is it suitable to keep frogs and crabs in with these fish?

Some of the plants have brown patches on if that helps.



Any ideas on what is causing the fish to die off gradually?

 

[Alien Anna]

First thing I'd suspect would be ammonia and/or nitrite poisoning. When you said the water tested "OK", what exactly were the values? I need ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and temperature.

 

[Deb0]

Hi there

My husband says when he used the water testing kit, everything was as it should have been according to the strips and colour chart.

That's why we ruled out water quality problems.

 

[suemack]

hi Deb

sorry to hear about your problems with the fish. Now - how big is the tank, what sort of filtration, how many fish are in it and how long has it been set up? Have you added any new fish recently? Can you ask hubby what the water test results were and post them will you - if you can give us a bit more info we hopefully will be able to come up with some help for you.

regards

sue

 

[MAM]

was the tank ever cycled before you put the fish in? when i first started, didn't properly cycle, loaded up with fish, and one by one,they died off................
check the links on alien annas replies if you haven't cycled

 

[Cian McLiam]

Sorry to hear about your fish, I hope things improve.
It does sound like nitrite or ammonia poisoning, but gill flukes are another possibility and are buggers to eradicate, especially if you dislike adding botled nasties and snake oils to your tank. Dissolved oxygen could also be something to look at, if youve got an internal filter point the outlet gently to the water surface to agitate it.
You should have a healthy tank for over a month or two before considering crabs as many meds can kill them as can the oxygen depletion they result in, even if they are safe for fish.
Some crabs are fully aquatic, like the Red Claw Crab, Sesarma Bidens but others such as rainbow and hermit live mostly on dry land. All freshwater crabs are more comfortable with both land and water access and are very good at escaping!
They also will not do well in very soft or acidic water and do not eat flake food!
Good Luck,

Ken

 

[Deb0]

Hi, thanks for your interest. I've just got my husband and daughter to do a water test, the results are:

NO3 - 0
NO2 - 0
Gh > 10
Kh - 6 degrees
Ph - 7.2

According to the outside temp gauge it is 26.

The tank is 3' x 18" x 15".

Originally my daughter had (and my husband told her she had too many):
He also told her not to overfeed them, as we think we may have done at first with fish food and some frozen squares of food.

9 guppies
2 catfish (both died) replaced with 1 catfish and he's OK
2 Goramis (died)
3 Mollies (2 died) 3rd one nearly gone in hospital tank
10 tetras (they all seem OK)
2 Platies (they look OK at mo)
2 crabs (very shy)
2 frogs

Numerous different plants, sand bottom, wood (ready cleaned from shop), air bubblers, filter of course.

Hope this helps.

 

[Cian McLiam]

Parameters seem fine, I would suspect flukes or other parasite, do they show signs of stringy poo?

What size and colour are the crabs?

Ken

 

[Deb0]

Sorry just spotted some other questions which I forgot to answer.

The tank has been going about a month now, some of the plants are (forgive the spellings) coboomber, amazon swords, grassy stuff, bavalisnerio (?). Apparently they did soak the wood for 24 hrs, and also the stone.

There is a 1' long define diffusion bubbler.

Not sure exactly the make of filter but is charcoal with woolly stuff?

Plus, as I mentioned at the beginning we spotted a leech on one of the plants.

 

[Deb0]

The crabs are small about 1" and brown with reddish tint. We hardly see them at all, found them in the filter compartment to start with.

My husband said he just put an airstone in the bottom of the hospital tank where the molly is laying on the bottom gasping, and said it shot up with such speed.

 

[Deb0]

Ken, no signs of stringy pooh

 

[Cian McLiam]

hmm sounds like external parasite alright, stringy poo means usually internal protozoa or flukes/worms etc.

Raising the temp to 30 Degrees Celcius will kill most protozoa but not some flukes who just curl up at the bottom then become active again.
Potassium Permangenate is a cure for flukes and formalin/malachite green mix like quick cure is good at killing protozoa but I would only use them as a last resort and folow instructions very carefully.
I always use half dose with tetras. Heat is much preferred by me tho.

Any help out here guys???

Ken

 

[Feline]

Sorry to say, but I don't think your tank is cycled if NO3 is still at 0. A cycled tank should have a reading of at least 5ppm. What's the NH4 value (ammonia)?

To cycle a tank takes 4-6 weeks so if ur tank has just been running for a month, it could be in the middle of the cycling process.

The "leech" u mentioned is actually planaria, a nonparasitic worm. It won't do any harm, don't worry.

Edit: When do u normally do water changes?

 

[Deb0]

Hi feline

I will check tonight with my daughter about water changes, but I think it's been once a week.

I checked that worm thing against a picture in our book, and it did look very much like a leech with hairy bits at the end and faint stripes. However, saying that as leeches suck blood I couldn't understand why it wasn't attached to a fish.

 

[aquamanis]

Hi Debo, unfortunately it does sound like nitrite posioning to me. I went through new tank syndrome about 3 months ago and what you are describing is exactly what happened to me. Even after water readings levelled out fish were still dying for about two weeks from damage already done. If you havent done it yet, read Alien Annas article on new tank syndrome. Hope things work out for you.