Multiple Fish Deaths

[Gozza]

Last week on Sunday 13th I bought 2 Bolivian Rams to go into my tank (mature, 60L, no fish deaths in the last year) and they went in fine, no problems, I had also carried out a 25% water change the day before. 2 days later one of them died with the other following only a few hours later.

The next day I then found my female bristlenose catfish dead along with one neon.

The next day one forktail rainbow fish died with dropsy.

The next day another neon died along with my one and only albino cory, no visible discolouration on these fish or missing scales etc.

So it got to Saturday and I decided to pay the lfs, where I bought the fish, a visit with some of my tank water for them to test. I had tested the water prior to this (I only have the dip strips) and my readings were:

Nitrite 0
Nitrate 100
ph 6.5 - 6.7
ammonia - dip strips don't read for this

The guy at the lfs was confused as I had different fish species dying all over the place. He tested my water and confimed my readings and said that ammonia was at 0 and that my water quality seemed fine. I got back and did my weekly water change.

That evening my remaining forktail rainbow died. I noticed it had been swimming near the surface that morning and only an hour before it died I noticed a white furry patch just below its dorsl fin.

Then only yesterday my male siamese fighter died I am absolutely gutted. He showed no signs of any discolouration, fin rot, missing scales, bloating or anything. The evening before he died he was swimming around rather lethargically and I felt he might be gone by the morning. Prior to that he had been fine.

Water temp has been at a steady 26-27 degrees C and my water readings haven't really changed much, although Nitrate will be a bit lower due to the recent water change last weekend.

The deaths have been rather sudden as you can see. I have 3 neons left, 4 bleeding heart tetras and 3 white tip tetra.

The guy in the fish shop didn't seem to feel that my tank was overstocked and said the water chemistry was fine. Could it be an amonia/nitrite spike?? Or could it be an infection being passed round? The other remaining fish all seem fine.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.

 

[hughessomefish]

i would suggjest to go back to the store

 

[Darkfung]

Same thing happened to me - seemly healthy fish I'd had for months would be dead within a day - no symptoms at all.
I checked the water chemistry and it was perfect ..... water changes done regularly - I lost neons, guppies, mollys and catfish - the only species that seemed impervious to it were my 4 blind cave fish ....
I came to the conclusion it was a parasite and dosed the tank with anti-fungal medicine etc ...... no deaths since really...
but as I say, what really shocked me was I had no time to treat any ill fish as there were no visible symptoms.

 

[Spishkey]

may i ask altogether how many fish were in the tank..and how many of which types?

for a start male fighter fish (bettas) should be housed alone...not in a shared community tank....rams im pretty sure need more space for their territory than what they would have had in with all those other fish? maybe stress played big part in their deaths coupled with perhaps something the rams brought in with them from the lfs?

 

[misspiggy78]

I'm fairly new to this, but shoudn't the nitrate be below 40?

 

[Marve99]

Yep nitrate of 100 is pretty high although I'm not sure it would kill off fish at that rate.

Need to get a better test kit and monitor ammonia as well as nitrites/nitrates.

 

[21rm]

I reckon it was a parasite or somethin. Clearly some disease that was brought. A quarantine tank would be a good investment in the future.

I had a similar problem before, 4 new males guppies i bought brought some disease that killed all 17 guppies in my tank,.

 

[pippoodle]

do a 60-75 % water change via gravel vac to get rid of any mess in the substrate to reduce the nitrates and any ammonia thats present

I would add some Myxazin incase it is an internal bacteria in the tank

and increase your water changes to keep nitrates down - i know bettas dont like nitrates over 20 not sure on the other fish

 

[Gozza]

may i ask altogether how many fish were in the tank..and how many of which types?

for a start male fighter fish (bettas) should be housed alone...not in a shared community tank....rams im pretty sure need more space for their territory than what they would have had in with all those other fish? maybe stress played big part in their deaths coupled with perhaps something the rams brought in with them from the lfs?

I'm aware that bettas can be trouble in a community tank. I've had mine for the past year with these fish with no problems, fin nipping etc. I pretty much mentioned all the fish I had in the tank in my first post. So originally had 5 neons, 1 bristlenose, 1 albino cory, 2 forktail rainbows, 4 bleeding heart tetras, 1 betta and 3 white tipped tetras.

do a 60-75 % water change via gravel vac to get rid of any mess in the substrate to reduce the nitrates and any ammonia thats present
I would add some Myxazin incase it is an internal bacteria in the tank
and increase your water changes to keep nitrates down - i know bettas dont like nitrates over 20 not sure on the other fish

I checked the nitrate level at the tap and nitrate is at 10 so I would have thought that trying to keep it at 20 would be pretty tough wouldn't it? Even so, I'll do a larger water change, as you suggest, and I'll look into the meds. I have seen a product that can be used to absorb nitrates but it just doesn't sound right to me.

Cheers for everyone else's comments, it definately looks like a good idea to get a better water testing kit so I can monitor the ammonia level.

 

[tropic_john]

When, you said a fuzzy patch I thought columnaris, but it probably was a parasite that triggered everything else off. Add some myxazin p [coldwater] as this is stronger than the tropical myxazin p [Trop] IMO