My First Dead Fish...very Worried About The Rest Of Them

[Lisa67]

My mbuna tank has been successfully stocked for several months. Everyone has been growing and healthy. This morning I came home and found one of my younger fish lieing on the bottom of the tank. It then swam up to the top and gasped a few times then slowly swam/sank to the bottom again. I easily caught it and put it in a little holding tank where it died within minutes.

In addition to being sad over the loss of this fish, I'm worried sick about the rest of them. The dead fish looks completely normal. No puffed belly, bulging eyes, etc. Absolutely nothing unusual that I can see. Every other fish in the tank appears completely healthy, active and eating well.

So, the biggest change I made to the tank was adding a pleco yesterday afternoon. The pleco also appears completely healthy. I asked at the LFS what day they get their fish shipments and they told me Tuesdays. So, that means that they had the fish there atleast a week without signs of illness. Even if it did have something, is it possible that it could have spread to my other fish so quickly? It hasn't even been in the tank 24 hours yet.

I tested my water this morning: Amonia 0.25, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5. I did a 50% water change 3 days ago.

Is there anything I should be doing? I just worked a 12 hour night shift and now I'm sitting here staring at my fish waiting to see something else bad happen (and regretting the pleco). Thank you for any help/advice. Lisa

 

[Athena]

Your ammonia reading should really be at 0. I suggest doing another partial water change and then re-test. I don't have any firsthand experience of Mbuna's or plecs but, that aside, if your water is showing an ammonia reading then this can affect the younger/more fragile fish in the tank before the sturdier ones.

Hopefully this will be a one-off casualty of the ammonia problem.

Regards, Athena

 

[Lisa67]

I hope you are right. I will do a water change when i get up. I have found that various cleaning activities (eg. Cleaning the filter intake) have caused my amonia to rise slightly. Every fish in the tank has survived this, including the one that died today. I wont take chances though. I will do another water change.

 

[Athena]

Ok, that's good. Doing a water change and re-test is the starting point to get your stats back on track. Once that is sorted, keep a close eye on them all and if you start to notice anything different in their behaviour or appearance let us know and we can take it from there.

Just out of curiosity, how big is the plec? I've read that certain plecs can sometimes be a bit brutish towards other fish (mostly when the lights are off and the plecs are more active) and even been known to attack/stress/kill tankmates. But as I've never had plecs I really can't base that on anything other than hearsay. They always look so docile in my LFS lol.

Regards, Athena

 

[Lisa67]

OK, water change done. Everything is back to 0. Everything else looks normal so far. I'm hoping that if any others were going to get sick it would be apparent by now. No more fish for me until I have an isolation tank. It probably has nothing to do with putting a new one in there but I can't rule it out.

The plec is a good size, maybe 4". I got one that was bigger than the mbuna because I was afraid they would pick on him! I didn't see any signs of injury to the fish that died.

This is the first fish I've lost. Do fish frequently die for no apparent reason?

 

[Tizer]

There is normally a reason for any death but being able to identify it can be very hard. For one, you dont know what happens in your tank when you sleep so bullying could be hard to spot. I would keep monitoring your water for the next week or so, see how it goes.

 

[Athena]

Lisa, yes, fish can suffer a sudden-death, just like humans or any other animal, with no apparent illness.

I had a pair (male and female) very healthy, beautiful Mexican sailfin mollies a few years back - full of beans, no signs of illness, perfect condition to look at etc.

Then one day I saw the pair acting very frisky, lots of chasing/frolicking around the tank and suddenly the male went belly up. Died in an instant! Almost like he'd had a heart attack from all the excitement.

All we can do is try our best to ensure we provide our fish with a compatible tank environment to live in, keep their water clean, feed them correctly, treat them for any illnesses we become aware of etc...but the fact is fish do die sometimes for no apparent reason and we mustn't feel guilty about this if we know we are doing everything we should be doing.

Hopefully things will be fine in your tank now but keep a check on how the plec and Mbuna's are getting along (even sneaking a peek at what's going on at night when the lights are off).

Regards, Athena

 

[seizethecupcake]

I'm sorry for your loss

 

[Lisa67]

Thank you to all of you. Today I tested the water and the ammonia level is right back up to 0.25. My tanks are only a few months old and I've never given the filters a realy good cleaning (afraid of loosing all of my good bacteria). I just posted on the "new tank" forum for instructions on cleaning my filters. Hopefully that will prevent loosing any other fish.