Help Needed Identifiying Cause Of Death.. Details Inside

[ederoi]

Hi

I've got a 200Litre tank.
Currently it is home to tropical fish.
I've had the tank for about 4 weeks now everything is running smoothly except for some unexplained deaths,
this morning I had a clown loach and drawf neon rainbowfish dead.
Now in my tank is 2 silver sharks, 1 red tail shark, 1 dwarf neon rainbow fish and 1 angelfish they are all still babies too.
I doubt overstocking is my problem because these fish werent all placed in on the same day and have plenty of space.
I've tested the water,
ammonia reads 0ppm, nitrite reads 0ppm, nitrate reads 10ppm and the pH level is 7.6
The water is slightly cloudy though I think this may be bacterial bloom..

Please help?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

was the tank cycled before adding fish? what tet kit are you using?

 

[ederoi]

Yeh I'm pretty sure it was cycled the guy said it takes 2weeks so to be safe it was 3 weeks when the first 2 fish were adding the guy at my local pet store assured me it'd be fine.

And I don't know the make of the kits but they were recommended in a book I had.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

how did you cycle, was it the 'leave it all running for 2 weeks' approach.... if so then i'm afraid that's an outdated method that doesn't actually work, have a read of the link in my sig 'whats cycling' which should explain more.

are the test kits liquid or paper strips?

 

[ederoi]

Yeh it was and I had some bacteria stuff I added to help speed up the tank cycle.
Do you think its because my tank hasn't actually cycled then?

And Thanks I'll take a read now.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i suspect so, most of these bateria in a bottle products are rubbish i'm afraid.

 

[ederoi]

Oh I forgot to add the test kits are not strips.
I thought they'd be more accurate not to buy those ones.
I take samples of the water then add various chemicals then match the colours to card charts..
Is that ok?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes the liquid ones are much more accurate..... so that's a good start. it could be that the cycle is done now but was happening before which would explain the deaths

 

[ederoi]

Hmmmm I hope so then. I'd hate for more of them to die.
Is there anything you think I should do to my tank or is it fine left?

thanks for all your help too.
and the link is really informative

 

[Miss Wiggle]

have a very good look at the fish, watch their behaviour over the next few days and post back if you see any symptoms of disease, common things to look out for are

-gasping at the surface
-sitting on the bottom of the tank (obviously different for gottom dwellers like catfish!)
-flicking or rubbish against things
-white spots on their body
-white/cottony growths
-torn fins
-red marks
-lethargic
-not wanting to eat
-white stringy poo

there's more but that covers most of the basic things to look out for

also keep monitoring the water quality, if you see any ammonia or nitrite then do water changes.

there's a thread floating around about bacterial blooms which may be useful for you too...... i'll try and dig it out.

http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...cterial-Blooms/

there's the link about bac blooms

 

[ederoi]

Ok I will do but at the moment they all seem fine.

I've been doing my tests every 3 days and I've got it all recorded too.

I'll take a look at the thread now.

Thanks

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if you can post up the history of your test results day by day that would be helpful for us.

dunno how much info you have, but if you can identify which days you had deaths and stuff like that then that may also help.

when we're trying to diagnose remotley over the internet the more info we have the better. something which may seem insignificant to you may actually be very important so best to just explain as much as you can.

 

[ederoi]

Yes i see what you mean, you can't actually witness the problem so that makes it alot harder on your behalf.

I've only got 4 lots of data because I'd only recently brought the kit.
I'll post it shortly because I may have to go for a bit.

Also when i brought my angelfish i was rang because the tank she was from was suffering cotton wool disease and she might show symptons they gave me free treatment and shes thriving.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

what treatment did they give you. some medications can kill off your filter bacteria (anti bacterial medicines do not discriminate, they can kill all bacteria, the good and the bad) so it's important to know exactly what you are using.

 

[ederoi]

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