BGK dying i think.

he seems to have no energy and when the air stone is on he seems to just go where ever the tanks current takes him and i saw him get wrapped around the intake which has never happened befor, i put him in a bucket with some blood worms, but i wasnt sure if this would be detremental for him so i put him back in the tank and unplugged the airstone

does this sound like hes dying, he was just being flipped and stuff round the tank. he's been fine until now but i dont think he's eaten today and theres no way i can see to make him eat if he wont in a bucket.

how long is safe to leave a 4ft without the airstone on?

is there anything i can do to save him? i cant stand to loose my second one!

You dont need to have an airstone at all, providing your filter is producing enough water movement with its output.

Apart from the listlessness is there any other signs of illness? Not eating for a couple of days wont hurt him, providing there isnt another underlying cause of appetite loss.

I have to ask, what are you water stats? Ammonia, nitrite etc?

Any other inhabitants that may have caused him some injury?

If he's weak and you feel he would be best in a large bucket, just make sure its heated and preferably filtered, if you dont have a spare filter, 50% w/c daily and test for ammonia, nitrite often.

i may be quite a newb at fish emergency but i think i can help a bit...firstly whats BGK??? how old is this BGK? what are the symptoms of illness? i mean like are there white spots on the body or cotton like growth on the body...what are ur water parameters? how big is ur tank and what are ur stockings? neeed more info for us to help out...
try loking at this link for more help: http://www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...58/And-another/

Oh dear, doesn't sound too good. I had a neon tetra who did the same thing. I could see its mouth moving now and then so knew it was alive but it just wasn't making any attempt to swim, just swished around the tank by the current. Poor lil fella only lasted a short time from the time I spotted him and moved him into the hospital tank. My tank stats were fine so I don't know what caused it.

I hope there's something you can do to help your fishie!

mmm i moved him into my 1ft tank which houses my bumble bee gobies and has the same water stats, everything seems fine so i duno whats going on, only that the same thing happened to the second gk i had befor he died the next day.

just makes me think he hasnt been eating but i really dont know. so upset atm

might just put him back in the big tank and see how he goes, if he bites it i dont think ill be buying anouther ghost knife, they just dont seem to eat and yeah, i mean ive seen him excrete so i know hes been eating usually but yeah.

####s me cause i love them heaps but gahh hes only small to a youngen

Black Ghost Knife Fish






I wouldnt keep moving him from tank to tank as the stress alone will make him feel worse.

When you feed him, do you put the food near him so he can get it, with other tank mates, sometimes they dont reach it as quickly. What do you feed your BGK?

well thats the thing, apart from today because he wasnt in his log like usual, he was off swimming about, i usually swill it into the opening so some gets in and i cant see him eat but im sure he is.

today i didnt see him eat though! but surely 1 day isnt enough to kill him.

bloodworms!. but yeah because he is so young he doesnt seem to come out when i feed so thats why i swill it around inside the log.

No one day without eating wont kill him, but if hes out and about more than usual then it could be a sign that something is wrong.

Try tempting him with something different. Prawns are good one, tubiflex, brine shrimp, daphnia - they love all of those.

Let him settle, if you feel the airstone is wafting him about, then its fine to leave it off.

without any other signs of illness, its hard to determine what could be wrong.

Do you have your water stats at all?

he died ... thats it for me and gk's i think!

Im sorry to hear that.

sorry mate

Awww no! Sorry to hear that.

I was looking at these fish on Saturday at my lfs and hadn't seen them before (so unusual).

Don't give up, though. We all lose fish at times. Maybe a bit more research needs to be done into keeping them but it doesn't mean you shouldn't ever have them again in the future if you really love them.

Chin up! Athena

i think there might have just been to much stress on him,i had a large air stone running along with a 1200L/PH aqua1 filter outake and intake may have just tired him out and killed him in the end. if i buy anouther one i think ill have a smaller tank to start off with cause he was about a bit more a couple of days befor he died which i cant figure out because he had a freakin giant bell to live in which was dark and had not much current by the looks of it and a log to live under so meh duno.

hey well went and bought a full test kit for 70$ and new bottles of prime and stability. turns out my amonia was up, nitrite was at 1.0, nitrite was 10 and ammonia is down to 1.0.



when i first tested it ammonia was through the roof, so brough that down after a 50% change of water and a #### load of prime, gona kill my wallet but gotta get those levels down /sigh. no idea what caused it but possibly the 2 pleco's and 2 large mature jewels i added a week ago possibly. well ill do anouther 25% tommorrow and see how it goes.



gona add some more stability tommorrow too.



any other thoughts?.

Hi Humpy

Well at least you've discovered the cause of the death. Yes, adding several fish to an aquarium at the same time can make the ammonia and other levels rise. Those liquid testing kits are worth the extra money - I found them better than the paper-strip tests - although very time consuming (add this, shake for 10 seconds, add that, shake again, wait 10 mins etc etc - I feel like a scientist doing some huge experiment whenever I get the test tubes out . (One time I had left a tube of ammonia test on the table and my friend saw it and said "Eugh - fancy leaving a pee "specimen" on your table!"

So, seeing as you now know the cause of the deaths in your tank it should be easier for you to keep those BGKs again providing you do regular testing - apparently they are very sensitive and need specific tank conditions to thrive, so you'll need to be on the case regularly, checking all is ok for them. Also, I read somewhere that it's best not to have more than one BGK to a community tank.

Another tip is that when you add more fish to your tank, check your stats a couple of days later to make sure the ammonia hasn't rocketed. The chap at my lfs told me not to add too many fish at one go as this inevitably causes an ammonia spike (more fish + extra food = higher ammonia) because your filter media cannot cope with the sudden surge. Don't forget, the larger the fish, the more waste going into your water.

Best wishes - Athena

Yep that was definately the cause of death.

If it was me, I would immediately do another 50% water change to get those levels down. Test again a couple of hours after the w/c and if they were still high do another 50% water change.

Right now the ammonia and Nitrites are doing a lot of damage to your fish and the chances are if they survive they will never be as healthy as they could be.

Water changes will not harm the fish, but ammonia and Nitrite will.

i know its a bit late... but the same thing happened to my BGK....

.... and my ammonia levels were too high...

best of luck with the rest though

hey guys, finally got my computer back up and running after 3 months of borrowing a friends laptop. all runnin well again, (-1gb ram, -.4ghz processing and -512mb Lcache lol) but yeah.

just finished my second water change in 2 days, did a 30% today and a 50% yesterday. and used about 50% of a bottle of prime in the process . so now i guess all i can rly do is wait and check the water parameters every so often, was good though i think i managed to scoop up all the poop which was hiding in the gravel in the process so yeah .

now onto the rest of todays jobs, mow the lawn, walk the dogs, and anything else i can do to try and scrape a lil money out the oldies hehe. just jokin!

This post has been edited by humpy_the_humphead_wrasse: Jul 3 2008, 02:58 AM