Hi Help Wanted **updated 30.01.09**

[Fisses]

had the tank for a few months now but have now got dissappearing fish syndrome!!!!

we started off with
4 peppered catfish (corydoras paleatus)
5 black neon tetras
5 cardinal tatra
2 guppies

not all at once we've introduced them in stages

however, we had no fish die at first

then i noticed one of the cardinals have dissappeared

on thurs last wk the smallest catfish was dead lay on its side bottom of the tank but i couldnt work out whether one of the fish had tried feeding from it as its underneath was pretty red!!! this fish had been in the tank for about 5 wks and not grown maybe a poorly one from the start

on friday another of the cardinals has dissappeared

then yesterday mon another of the cardinals has gone, so in 5days ive lost 3 fishes

ive tested the water and absoultely everything is fine even double checked it and took the water to be checked absolutely fine!!

There is one catfish that is not big but kind of a bit chubbier than the rest and the only one that u can see has grown on a day to day basis!

could the catfish be eating them??? how are the cardinals dissappearing over a few hours never to be seen again?? and the red stomach on the other catfish that died a cause for concern???

thanks in advance

 

[rabbut]

Loosing fish fairly quickly with no symptoms or traces of a body, and hemoraging (fancy word for the red belly) would surgest to me that internal bacteria may be at work. This is a type of incetion that moves swifty through the stock caursing internal organ failure and death, often without obvious symptoms...

You say the water is fine, but please could you post actualy stats in numbers? Also, what test kit do you use, and was used for double checking the results (brand and strip/tablet/liquid)?

There is a possibility that the redness was an ammonia burn, hence why I'm asking you to post the water stats. Different people have different ideas of what is fine, so I like to ask for numbers, such that people can draw their own conclusions from the numbers

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SharonCC]

There is no fish in your tank that will kill and eat other fish. However any fish will eat a dead fish. Have you looked for bodies, moved decor, checked the filter?

 

[Fisses]

There is no fish in your tank that will kill and eat other fish. However any fish will eat a dead fish. Have you looked for bodies, moved decor, checked the filter?

the only fish i have actually found dead is the catfish!!!

the other 3 cardinals that have totally dissappeared is overnight as i check them every night and morning, moved all the decorations and cheacked the filter there is nothing to be found.

as for testing the water we have used tetra strips and taken it to the pet store for them to test it with whatever they use i just no its not the same product i will get levels later and post!!!

 

[rabbut]

If it's strips, you might as well just as you neibour to make some numbers up for you. You'd get the same level of accuracy

For an accurate test result, you need either liquid drop test kits or tablet based ones. Liquid drop kits work out the cheapest to run test-for-test out of all three types available . Tetra usualy make a good product, but even their strips are unreliable

I'd recomend doing a large waterchange of 30-50% in prepairation for a dose of treatement as is likely going to be required, and get some Interpet number 9 and a liquid regent based test kit ASAP from your LFS Don't dose untill you have posted the water stats and had confirmation that they are OK from us, as ammonia being high will symbolify more action in the way of waterchanges before any treatment can start. Also, ensure you have a good stash of de-chlorinator, as any internal bacterial product that works is very hard on the biological filter IME, and thus a mini-cycle may need to be delt with

What filters do you run in the tank ATM?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Fisses]

If it's strips, you might as well just as you neibour to make some numbers up for you. You'd get the same level of accuracy

For an accurate test result, you need either liquid drop test kits or tablet based ones. Liquid drop kits work out the cheapest to run test-for-test out of all three types available . Tetra usualy make a good product, but even their strips are unreliable

I'd recomend doing a large waterchange of 30-50% in prepairation for a dose of treatement as is likely going to be required, and get some Interpet number 9 and a liquid regent based test kit ASAP from your LFS Don't dose untill you have posted the water stats and had confirmation that they are OK from us, as ammonia being high will symbolify more action in the way of waterchanges before any treatment can start. Also, ensure you have a good stash of de-chlorinator, as any internal bacterial product that works is very hard on the biological filter IME, and thus a mini-cycle may need to be delt with

What filters do you run in the tank ATM?

All the best
Rabbut

currently use a stingray 15 in a 65litre tank

 

[rabbut]

Please tell me it isn't this one here

If so, you are going to be needing a lot of water conditioner for waterchanges shortly... You cannot treat the tank with zeolite and/or carbon presant, as it will remove the medications. Trouble is the zeolite is also removing ammonia for you ATM, and thus you are reliant on the zeolite to keep your fish going without waterchanges. When you remove to treat, the tank will enter a fish-in cycle and force daily waterchanges of arround 50-75% on you the waterchanges will be made more complex by the fact that you are treating your fish, and thus you have to add medications to the replacement water as well as conditioner. On the re-dose day you then have to work out the ammount of medication that you need to add, based on how much you did not dilute down the origional on during the waterchanges.

You then after treatment have the issue about whether or not to replace the catridge like-for-like and instantly stop the cycle again, leaving you in the same situation again if you have to medicate again, or the cut the cartridge open and swap it's contents for some other media to avoid the whole situation next time, but not imediately stopping the daily waterchanges... I'd advise you to do the latter

You could of course choose to not waterchange during the treatment, but be aware that if you do that, you might not have any fish left to medicate on day 4 when you re-dose, due to them all being killed by ammonia poisoning

If you choose to replace the Zeolite and carbon however, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as you could use mature media in the zeolite and carbons' place, and thus speed up your cycle...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Fisses]

hi.

yes it is the stingray 15. it was a complete package from Elite with the 60 litre tank, heater and filter.

the instructions say that to treat the fish with medication just simply take out the carbon, when treated replace with the carbon....

can i ask.... what set up woulf you use, i have a 60 litre elite tank with light on timer for 8 hours a day, 100watt heater and a stingray 15...

i am doing a partial water change probably twice a week conditioning the water before it goes in, and using a weekly water cleaner....

oh and ive also got an oxygen plant

 

[rabbut]

For general trops in a 60l tank, I used to use a Fluval 2+ internal filter, with two sponges, with a 25% weekly waterchanges, adding conditioner only to the new water, with a 150W heater (It was a very cold room. 100W is more than ample in most 60l tanks) I don't use carbon appart from removing medications from the water.

Carbon is expencive to use if maintained properly, but it won't caurse any problems It's the Zeolite in the Stingray 15 filter that is the issue, as it is an ammonia remover, where as carbon is not. The Zeolite starves the bacteria in the filter to death, hence why it can be dangerous to use It has it's uses, but general keeping isn't one of them IMO

My lights used to be 2 11W energy saving lamps on for about 12 hours a day with heavy planting

Asside from the zeolite cartridges, there does not sound to be anything majorly wrong with the set-up. Some will argue that the tank is heavily stocked, but I ran with a similar stocking for many years without problems The 60l has since been scrapped for a marine system and i have a 4ft Discus tank instead for freshwater...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Fisses]

I know i am probably a little bit overstocked, but i knew i would lose some fish anyway over the coming months.

so you say am i probably right with everything i have done??

if i change my filter, can you recommend one that doesnt drop onto the top of the water as i have it in my bedroom so i want noise to be minimum which is why i like the stingray(underwater filter)

 

[Fisses]

i've found out where theyve all been dissapearing to........

the back of the filter!

because the filter all breaks down in to little pieces, at the back of the filter was a little hole where the motor clips to the back casing, and this must have created a suction effect between the back of the filter and the glass and sucked up 3 tetras, and another one yesterday afternoon as i took it all apart last night to give it all a dam good clean(in the aquarium water of course) and found one of the heads sticking out the back, and a big pile of mush inside the filter stuck where the motor clips into the back casing...

as for the catfish, well maybe it was just one of those things, but before i did a 50% water change i used the strip test to try and get some figures for you:

NO3: 50-10 Mmg/l
NO2: 1-5mg/l
GH: 8 degreed d
KH: 10 degrees d
PH: 7.2
CL2: 0

i dont know what the degrees d thing means

i hope these figures mean something. the nitrate levels was coming up just below 'due water change' so all is good, and everything else was showing up in the OK section of the charts

 

[waterdrop]

You are getting good advice from rabbut and I'd keep reading and following his help to get you out of your current situation.

Design problems such as the one you've uncovered are among the things that raised the popularity of HOB filters, although good designs for internals such as the Fluvals rabbut mentions will take care of most problems too.

There is some urgency to rabbut's recommendation that you get a good test kit. Trying to figure things out from your test strips is basically a waste of time, just like the strips themselves were a waste of money. Most of us use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit or the Nutrafin Mini-Master Test Kit. These use liquid-reagent based tests and are much less likely to be so far off that they are misleading, as the strips usually are.

It is also a high priority that you examine and describe in detail the different media that are in your filter and work out a plan with rabbut and other members that will hopefully minimize loss of beneficial bacteria (if indeed you have any in there!) You will need a plan that rids you of zeolite, helps you understand the optional nature of carbon and verifies that you have enough flow rate for your size aquarium.

Setting aside these immediate urgencies, its also likely a good time for you to be soaking up the useful offerings of this "New to the Hobby" forum. You should seek out the pinned articles at the top and read them if you have not already had the chance to do so. You may already know some of the information from your previous experience, but there is always the chance to learn new things. An understanding of the Nitrogen Cycle is a really fundamental thing in the hobby and will greatly help you put all these filtration issues in perspective. The practicalities of a modern "Biofilter" are among the essential tools needed to run a tank.

The little "d" you see in the phrase "degrees d" probably means "deutsche" (the german word for "German" I believe!) as "degrees deutsche" is the "lingua franca" or most common usage that became popular worldwide when referring to a measurement scale for water hardness. Water hardness is a measure of various mineral salts dissolved in your water. GH is general hardness and KH is carbonate hardness (aka temporary hardness.) Temporary hardness got its name long ago from referring to salts that could be removed by boiling, primarily calcium and magnesium ones. GH is nice information to know, but KH is more of an "action item" in aquarium water chemistry. Water that has very low KH is said to be relatively "unbuffered" and leaves the water subject to wild pH swings, which is bad in an aquarium. Your water is likely well-buffered and KH/pH will likely not be much of a problem for you.

Good luck with figuring out your ammonia and nitrite problems!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Fisses]

many thanks for all your help, but now i need a bit more help

1 of the black tetra have dissapeared, not in the filter or behind it, or anywhere, no-where to be seen at all!

my main problem though is out of the 4 peppered catfish, i now only have 1 left which is a bit of a fatty. 1 died last night/this morning but didnt have a red belly or anything(the other 2 that died did have red bellys).

im doing weekly water changes(probably at least 50%) and using the correct tap water treatment stuff and weekly water cleaner and using strips to check the nitrates and stuff like that and everything seems spot on.

please note the catfish that have died, never seemed to grow at all whereras the one that is still alive is always active and a bit of a fatty.

can anyone shed any light?

 

[rabbut]

Bodily swellings could indicate dropsy, a side effect of internal bacteria or internal parasites. The latter would fit with lack of growth... Any chance of a Photo to confirm or rule out this being dropsy over just a fat fish?

 

[Fisses]

Bodily swellings could indicate dropsy, a side effect of internal bacteria or internal parasites. The latter would fit with lack of growth... Any chance of a Photo to confirm or rule out this being dropsy over just a fat fish?

Not a problem, i'll try and take one tonight when he's swimming all over the glass

i took a sample of water to the pet shop last night as they do free water checks with the glass tubes and proper chemicals, and they said it was spot on, couldnt be better. the ammonia level did drop but ever so slightly and they said it was nothign to worry about as they was all at the top of the scale....

i just dont want to buy any more fish if theres a problem as its only the catfish that have actually died normally(all the others died because of being sucked behind the filter, and what happened to the black tetra i have no idea)