Mysterious Deaths

[salemchic]

1. H2o Parameters- Ammonia is 0, pH is neutral, and the temp is about 75 degrees F.

2. Symptoms-
About 2 weeks ago, i found my black fin shark bobbing around at the bottom of the tank, with his stress coat peeling off, completely dead. I did some tests and found the pH to be a little low, so after some work, i got the pH to get back up. Well, I noticed one of my barbs was looking a bit ill, so i decided it was time to clean the tank, which i did on saturday. While cleaning it, I found my chinese algae eater, buried in the rocks, dead. It was alive the day before, so I don't know what killed it. Yesterday, I fed my fish in the morning, as always, and all was well. I came home last night, and one was belly-up at the top of the tank. That was a shock. So then i get home this afternoon, and 3 more are floating belly-up...and they're not even dead. The bala shark appears to be having a nervous system failure, b/c he's twitching a lot. The other two are barbs and are just floating around upside down. When scared or whatever, they flip over and swim away, but then they just flip back over and float again. I thought they were dead until i saw their gills moving. They haven't had their usual appetites, and are obviously sick with something. There are no external signs, although their fins are a bit scraggly, but i'm attributing that to the barbs nipping at them....even then though, they've never nipped each other's fins until now, so i don't know where the behavior change has come from...

3. Frequency of H2O changes- Every couple of months...sometimes more, depending on how the water looks

4. Chemicals/treatments- I used something called Had-A-Snail in my tank the past 2 days. They said if i follwed the directions to a t (1 drop per gallon), that it wouldn't harm my fish...liars

5. Tank mates- My tank had 1 black fin shark, 1 bala shark, 1 chinese algae eater, and 5 tiger barbs...odd combo, i know, but they lived harmony for almost a year

6. Size- 10 gallons

7. New fish- nope....none in about 5 or so months

 

[Carolinesugar]

hiya, im so sorry 4 ur loss and for all the problems your having without being able to ID them.

have you got an NO2 aned NO3 testing kit ? If not, your local fish shop can test them, usually for free, or abt 40p a test. try and get that checked, as it will help ID the problem.

it sounds like the barbs have got swimbladder, of some sort, although you would usually see them acting differently, and like they were drunk, but if this hasnt been the case, im not sure if it can still be swim bladder.

the bla shark - not sure how long youve had him, but frm wot i know abt them, and how mine behave, they always twich, its the only way that they can turn or swim really, but mayb you meant twitchin alot more than normal, your have to let me know what you meant by it.

if you have the packagin for the med u used, (had - a - snail) then have a check, and see on the small printed leaflet inside, if there are any known problems that can happen when using it (abit like when you get urself medication, it tells u of the known things that can happen/go wrong) and try and see if you can spot nething that sounds like your problems, if not that, if you could type it out, il have a read through and see if i can make anything of it.

hopefully this will help, and you can get the water test results, and we can help you ID the problem., as im sure ur really upset about losin almost the whole tank.

alternatively, if you cant think of nething and are looking for a quicker way to try and ID the problem, use the link on the pinned posts, that says, fish doctor. and have a hunt on there, il do the same, and hopefully we can find something that could me the problem, and help us treat it.

for the time being, you could do a 20% water change, and add some melafix, just as a startin point to helping the fish have a fightin chance.

let me know if you need ne more help, we are all here 2 help you out, and im sure as a team we will work out wot the problem is.

 

[BobK]

Water changes every couple of months? It could be nitrate poisoning. I agree, get the test kits. How about weekly partial water changes of 1-2 gallons going forward? Sorry about your losses and I hope everything works out for you.

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Woah, back up, you have all of these fish in a ten gallon? And your only doing water changes every couple of months? I think I see your problem right there....

 

[Da_Oz]

Ok first had a snail sould be banned from sale.
1. IT is copper based.
2. If you had 200 snails in there and they all died in a matter of a hour that is you being traped in the swamp in a house with 200 dead people laying around rotting.

Second Water change?
1 if you wait for along time to change your water your fish can get use to the bad water and even grow to live in water they normaly can't. But when you say clean the tank I am guess this is more than just a simple 25% water change. So now you got fish that are normaly living in bad all of a sudden in clean water. This is no different than taking a healthy clean water fish and droping it in a very dirty tank. So at the least you should change atleast 25% every 2 weeks.

PH??
What did you do to raise it and did you do the same after the clean. Fish hate ph swings and even more if it swings alot up and down in a start time frame.

 

[fufanu360]

wow u made absolutly no sense in the begining of ur post da_0z

 

[skye4jc]

well, working at a LPS, i have some knowledge about fish and appropriate homes.

First off, Bala sharks dont live well in 10 gal homes. they get about 12-15 inches, and they are schooling fish (need 3 or more for sanity). also, i have heard it reccomended that tiger barbs be in schools of 8 or more due to thier agressive nature (not always true, but hey, the fact that it could be should say something). they grow 3-4 inches. not to metion your other tank buddies...

Now, i say all that to say this: 10 gallons can take (generally) no more than 10 inches of fish total ... ie 1 adult zebra danio = 2 in. therefore in a 10 gal you can put 5.... 5 x 2 = 10 inches for 10 gal... and thats it! (...unless your filter is higher than your gallonage, in which case you may be able to get away with another 5 - 8 inches, providing you do frequent water changes and keep an eye on ammonia and PH - all that can get complicated so a good rule of thumb is 1 inch of fish = 1 gallon of water.)

so, i really think you have an overcrowding problem. do what you can to save your remaing fishies, but in the meantime... look into a larger tank (prolly 30 gal or more), set em up... and away you go. oh, and get some other balas if you intend to keep the one you have. else you'll prolly lose him regardless.

i hope that helps... upgrading can be expensive, but if you wanna save your little guys, its seems like the only logical solution, sorry.

BTW, if anyone disagrees with me, please say so. i dont claim to know everything... just trying to impart what widom i do posess (or i think i posess, anyhow).

good luck!

Skye

 

[salemchic]

Alright...I'm gonna try to answer all of these at once, lol...

I don't have the kits, so I'll have to take it in to the store. I'm friends with the lady who owns it, so she'll do it for free.

The bala shark died... He was my favorite...

The packaging says nothing about side effects

To raise the pH, I used tank buddies tablets. They only raise it a fraction at a time, and you have to use a bunch over a period of time to get it to the pH you need. That way they don't go into shock or anything.

I've researched tiger barbs, and schools can start at about 5. The bala shark kinda was adopted by the barbs...odd, i know, but I've had him for the longest out of all of my fish...he's been around for at least a year, so the schooling thing obviously was no issue to him. And he hasn't grown any. He was about 2, maybe 3 inches long...he grew to fit his environment.

I'm 17...so if i tried to get a larger tank, i think my mom and dad would spaz, lol...but all of these fish have lived in this tank fine for about a year...and the barbs actually only grow to be 2 or 3 inches...mine got to be about 2 max...

Someone on another forum suggested that it may be velvet...which i think might be the case....they match a lot of the symptoms...i have no idea what to do for it though. I'll have to do some research.

Thanks for your comments...i'll figure this out...worst comes to worst, i'll just need to redo the tank with new fish...