What A Month!

[TiffanyJayne]

I had 29 tanks, 25 full of happy ,healthy, beautiful fish.

I went out a few weeks ago dropped by Star4's picked up a heap load of fish.

Came home, settled them straight into mature tanks and the next morning i wake up to find a tank has a leak...aargh! so i had to set up a new tank and move the fish, sorted!

NO!
I go about my day in the normal way switching between kids and fish i go to one of the biggest and well known fish stores in the east midlands pick up 40 baby corys nip them in the 4 foot and carry on my day i notice a fish not looking well in a newer tank.....i think nothing of it except it's a tetra theyve been with me well over 6 months maybe it's passed it's sell by date. I take him out pop him in a tub and let him find his own way to the sky. Done!!

NO!! later that day i pop out and when i return OH MY GOD i've got like 10 dead fish!!! disaster! I quickly test and retest the water, nitrates a little high but i was a day late with my water change so i do it, 25% in a 4 foot bow front....i watch and wait and they carry on dropping like flies ever the cories where giving it a go. I know alot about all the fish i have and even some i don't what i'm not overly clued up on is exotic illness. I phone around the lfs's and a few fishy mates and tell them the symtoms, NOTHING!!!! Every fish in that tank including the dead and dying looked perfect. I wait an hour add a little salt and acriflavin and that night repeat a water change, the next morning i've lost about a quater of my tank (big bow front lots of tetras/corys/glass cats/rams ect.) I check my filters are working

Then i noticed 6 of my tank begin to pick up white spot.....i treat and nothing works, infact everything i did made it worse. So just to double check i take a few to a friend and they confirm white spot. I carry on treating and still nothing. Fish still dying in the 4 foot and fish being coated in white stringy slimy gunk in the others....i set up a new tank, new water, mature filter from other clear tank and move the 4 foot's into it...still dying. I phone the water board and check there's nothing new in the water Nope. I take scraps and put them in my scope nothing....i treat with salt and they eat it like it's going out of fashion, 1 day 1 death...2 days 3 deaths and the numbers rise back up, i decide flukes! keep treating it slows the deaths down but doesn't stop them, tonight i've lost 6 in the space of an hour.

I lose all my acara's, sevs, brizilli's, elliottis, firemouths, 90% of tetra's, corys, l numbers bar 1, cat's.

I've had my water from 6 tanks tested everything bar 1 was near on perfect, the one that wasn't had a tiny amount of ammonia in it which was a last resort tank..


I'm stuck!!!! To the point where i've seen so much death over the last week i fear turning my lights on to see more, i've asked more questions done more tests and treated more fish in the last week than i have since i've been doing this.

I'm slowly giving up hope and wanting to pack it all in and go back to my 2 gold fish in my first ever tank.
I've lost about £400 worth of fish but i don't even care about that i care more that some of these fish have been with me since i started some have come from such bad homes and i'm truely sorry to anyone i've bought fish off because i've obviously done something wroung along the way to make these fish misserable.

I've spoken to the shop the corys came from and they claim the fish had been in for 3 weeks, no deaths and people who had purchased them didn't mention any problems but will be replacing them as i've lost more due to them (the only thing i can put it down to)

I'm a soppy git at the best of times but even my partners getting down about removing dead fish constantly.

I've tried everythin i can think of and now im our of idea's.

I hope no one ever has to go through what i have these last few days and i hope you all continue to enjoy your fish keeping maybe one day i'll have an answer.

 

[TiffanyJayne]

And just to point out all the fish i purchased from star4 were happy, healthy and stunning in colour when i got them home, no deaths/illness at all from her tanks or when they went into mine. it's not just fish from 1 person/place i'm losing them from and for a few days after there all home they look just fine.

 

[elisew]

Crikey, I`m so, so sorry that you`ve lost so many!! I get upset when I lose just one fish so I can only imagine how gutted you must be feeling

You obviously care a huge amount about your fish and you seem to have done absolutely everything you can to combat the illness/disease that your fish were hit with, I know it`s probably not much comfort at the moment but it doesn`t sound there`s anything more you could have done. Chin up

 

[Sesshis_grl]

I feel the pain. I tried so hard to save my ram and everything I did just made it worse! She finally died, at least shes not in pain anymore. And now I just took a sick kuhli out of my other tank. I think somethings in the water *knock on wood*

I'm very sorry, I hope the deaths stop..it really sucks when this stuff happens

 

[star4]

Tiffany, I feel for you, its awfull when you have no idea whats gone wrong. I know the ich didnt come from my lot, I had no sign of it at all from when we "spoke" via pm. as for the white slimey stuff I can only think thats something the cory's brought in.

 

[Jenste]

I am so so sorry! I can't imagine how awful you feel because it is very clear how much you care about your fish! hopefully the tanks will sort out very very soon for you

 

[hillmar77]

Sorry for your lost.... Looks like a nitemare just happend with you, and you couldn't do anything to stop it. I probly don't know what to do if I ever had to decide to medicate my whole tank and watching it actually make things worst and powerless to stop it.
The cory lost really hit home since I just lost one to a bacterial infection a few weeks ago!

 

[TiffanyJayne]

Thanks everyone for your kind words, i could understand a death or two, fish get old, some aren't as immune as they use to be from over breeding ect i think my upset was more because i'd just about got the tank perfect with all the fish i wanted. The corys were bronze with orange stripes so unusual and pretty. out of the 43 + 12 peppered i bought i have 4 left. Like i say it's not the money it's more than i've spent so much time saving and making sure i've researched all the fish i wanted to make sure they all suited the tank before buying and i'd just got 2 x electric blue/german rams the most beautiful sharp blue i'd ever seen, they'd only been in 2 weeks and they were still perfect when they died.

I sat up until 4am watching the treatment do it's magic and i'm now struggling to sleep, i don't kill poorly fish but if something is to the point where it looks painful my partner will do away with it, in the last two weeks weve not had to kill anything because it's dead before we get there. i've bought r.o water, conditioner, garlic juice. If weve ever been given a tub of food with a tank weve thrown it away, i've got more bottles of ws3/fin rot and all round bacteria treatments i can't get into my cupboards.
It used to irritate me when i couldn't explain a fish getting ill or dying now i'm just used to it which is not a good feeling.

the deaths are still going this morning but i've got it in my head non of the tank will survive so i'm hoping i won't get to upset when the last one goes.

 

[Athena]

Tiffany, really sorry to hear of this terrible situation with your fish.

I read that you've treated for whitespot and flukes...it sounds like slime disease, so I'm wondering if you have any medication for that at home?

What happens in slime disease (which is caused by protozoa parasites) is that the parasites attack the skin and gill chambers, causing the fish to produce all that horrid slimy mucous. The mucous then blocks the gills and the fish cannot breathe, so they suffocate.

If you can treat with an anti-slime medication this should help get rid of the excess slime and unblock the gills.

If you treat asap, you may just be able to save those last few fish that you have...

Good luck - Athena

 

[fluffycabbage]

aww my pygmy cories brought a bad (and quick to kill) infection with them, and caused a lot of upset here too. Quite a few losses, and two fish which have taken 3 months to show signs of recovery. touch wood theyre better. time will tell.

how are they all doing?

 

[TiffanyJayne]

Thanks Athena, our first assumption was velvet but we took it to be scraped and they say it was the last stages of white spot that had just got so bad it wasn't treatable.

The fish with the slime coating are all dead, the brillizi's,acara's and the sevrums.

The other fish that are still dying are in perfect looking health and appear completly normal.

 

[bubble87]

im sorry for your losses.