Fish Dying At An Alarming Rate

[iroc]

I have no idea what is going on, it seemed like my tank was nearly done cycling and yes I think I had wayyyyyyyyyy overstocked it wayyyyyyyyyyyyy to soon but the fish all seem to be doing ok, then BOOM this week the mollies fins started looking really bad almost like they were chewed on and boom one day after the next they all died then yesterday I found one of the platies at the bottom of the tank, I have been doing regular water changes and so far none of my levels have spiked or actually even been very high ( ammonia is .25ppm, nitrite is .05ppm and nitrate is .20ppm ph is 6.9) One of my platies ( who used to be the most active male) is looking really bad and all of the fish except for 1 platy and the tetras have small white areas on them. Is this ich or fin rot or what???

 

[jayjay]

The molly cold possibly have been caused by a disease, as when not kept in brackish conditions they are more suseptable to diseases.

 

[iroc]

another platy down RIP

 

[voo]

There's a number of diseases that look white. Are you able to describe it more? Where abouts on the fish is it?

 

[iroc]

There's a number of diseases that look white. Are you able to describe it more? Where abouts on the fish is it?

On the sides and the fins although at this point all the fish that were showing the white stuff signs have died, the mickey mouse platy kinda has it but she has always looked like that and a lot of pics of them it looks the same. my girl had an idea though thought I would pass it along to the board. I got the mollies after the other fish and they all had seem to be doing fine, I think one of the mollies gave birth becuase I saw a tiny molly like fish swimming around yesterday so whatr I am wondering is if the mollies were sick and one had birth what would happen to the fish that ate her young???

 

[voo]

I'm not 100% on diseases but if it is something like ich then it's water-borne so it wont matter about the others eating the fry.

 

[iroc]

well at this point all the fish that looked sick or had the "whitish" stuff have pasted, so hopefully the dying is over and I can keep what I have left alive. I am gonna let this tank get completely cycled and heathly before adding any other fish I think I might have just done too much too quick

 

[Tommy Gunnz]

I have a 40 gallon tank that I use for breeding platties and mollies. I first bought 4 platties and one molly on advice from a LFS to use them as 'test fish' for my brand new tank and now I have about 60 of them in the tank (most are fry and too young for me to sell to my LFS)

Anyways, I had one outbreak of ICH in this tank and I swear it was never ending. What happened was that my tank must not have been completely cycled when I put in these first 4 fish and as soon as I started having fry, the tank 'mini-cycled', stressing out the fish and letting the Ich grow on the fish.

I tried almost everything I could to stop it, including salt, raising the temp in the tank and almost every tab, droplet, and potion on the market for Ich and in the end, my tank got down to the origonal 4 fish, one of them died (not the molly ironically. they are better off being in brackish water) and then the tank just sort of recovered.

Over the three or four months after this incident, I went through small periods of time in which I was losing fish about one a day. I waited it out though and now I havent lost a fish in about 6 months. Not to death anyways. I do trade them or sell them to a couple of LFS around my house. The money is not good, but I usually dont pay for fish food and I have been getting pretty close to breeding a half black, half yellow platty. (Dont ask my why this is my goal, but it sure is fun to try!)

So, I guess my point that you might be good to just wait a while and check out some pictures of Ich and other diseases (my gut feeling is to look up fin rot since you said they look like they were chewed on) to see if you can put a picture to what you are seeing in your tank. Then treat accordingly, but be patient and never give up on your fish. I wouldnt get any new fish though until you get this sorted out for obvious reasons.

 

[voo]

I think you might have a better chance of getting the illness diagnosed if you posted this in the Emergency Section.

And just because you can't see it, doesnt mean it's no there. It can be water-borne. are the fish flicking / rubbing themselves against objects ?

 

[iroc]

I think you might have a better chance of getting the illness diagnosed if you posted this in the Emergency Section.

And just because you can't see it, doesnt mean it's no there. It can be water-borne. are the fish flicking / rubbing themselves against objects ?

The remaining fish don't have the white stuff on them, I say white stuff becuase I had silver mollies so they kinda always look whitish, at this point the fish arn't rubbing on things and seem to all be ok (ironic since the neons seem to be doing the best) the only thing odd ad this point is a white bubble on one of the neons face, he/she seems to eat just fine and is swimming around the tank normally.


FYI - I didn't post this in the emergency section becuase my posts don't seem to get very much response there, maybe becuase I am not very good (hence the whitish comments0 about saying what is wrong.


I am not gonna get any new fish until I discover that this problem is over with, in the meantime I am contuning to do water changes and trying to get my levels ammina and nitrite to 0

 

[WILDER]

Where is the white stuff on the fish and is it fluffy as it could be columnaris.

 

[iroc]

Where is the white stuff on the fish and is it fluffy as it could be columnaris.

the only white stuff on any of the fish that are left is a small bubble like thing on one of the tetras faces next to his mouth

the other fish that passed had fins which looked like that had been eating away and the platies that passed had what looked like white mold on their sides near the tail

I have talked to some guys at a pretty good lfs around here and they said it sounded like I had overstacked the tank (which I had) and done it way to quickly most likely causing an ammonia spike which I didn't notice becuase I don't know enough to have been doing daily checks of the levels after adding the fish.

he also said that since my ammonia and nitrite levels are not at zero that I have no business adding anymore fish to this tank, let it cycle then add fish slowly as to not cause a mass murder again.

 

[WILDER]

With what you have said it sounds bacterial to me, and yes uncycled tanks can cause desease.

 

[iroc]

I hope I will be coming to the end soon, I have been doing water changes (between 10-20 %) every 3 to 4 days for about a month now.