Mysterious Fish Deaths

[Revision17]

My roommate's tank is an established 10 gallon tank. In the past ~5 months, fish have just started dropping like flies from one or more unknown causes. Water quality is darned near perfect from all the tests I have (current results.. but more or less the same throughout the past few months):
0/0/~5ppm ammonia/nitrite/nitrate
7.2 pH
2 dKH
4 dGH

Current stocking:
3 tiger barbs
1 unidentified ~4in pleco
1 burmese boarder loach

Mysterious deaths over the past 5 months:
10 tiger barbs
1 dwarf gourami
1 common pleco

Knownish deaths in the past 5 months:
1 dwarf gourami: from cottonmouth or body fungus (probably cottonmouth)
1 tiger barb (which died yesterday): started off the day healthy, and when I saw it later in the day, it was missing half it's right gill and was displaying lots of hemorrhaging. It expired a few hours after this. How half the gill went "missing" is unknown.



The "mysterious deaths" exibited the following symptoms for about a week before death:

1. Loss of appetite
2. Hanging out in the corner, away from other fish. Generally being inactive. In the case of the pleco, it stopped hiding in the driftwood cave and rocks, and just laid out in the open all the time.

No other visible symptoms were present. Feces, body, etc were all normal. I don't think it's the water supply, since I have 2 tanks which are perfectly healthy with the same water.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this?

 

[Spooky76]

Jees - bit of a mess

Well the obvious things like water chemistry are OK then, are you 100% sure the water is OK with ammonia and Nitrite ?
How often do you change the water and how ? Do you use liquid tests or strips ?

10g = about 39 - 45 litres ? If its a common plec etc its way too small for all those fish....If he had all those fish in at the same time its over stocked by my calculations..I know over stocking depends on filtrations and maintenance, so maybe it wasnt that.

Have the deaths slowed down now at all ?

To be honest if they show to external signs, or abdominal swelling, red gills or anything like that im stumped...maybe someone else will see this and have a better answer.

 

[rabidric]

Hi

I have the same symptoms in one of my tanks but fortunately no deaths, well not when I left for work this morning anyway, and it's not all the fish. The tank is 200l and the stats are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and around 25 nitrate so the water's good. My puffer, one of the kribs and a goby are just lying around but they perk up a bit for food but not normal and not for long. The puffer's been like it for about 5 days and the other two only for a couple. I've spent ages at the LFS discussing with their expert and we're at a loss. He knows his stuff as he's just left uni after studying this sort of stuff.

Any ideas would be gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[WILDER]

Have you used a bcterial med in the tank, as the fish died due to bacterial infections.

 

[rabidric]

I've used Melafix, I think, it as it's a natural thing rather than chemicals but doesn't seem to have achieved anything. I've done 25% water changes every couple of days in case there's something I've missed in the test results but they're always fine. I've cut down on the feeding as they are all carnivores and I thought they may be constipated but nothing seems to make much difference.
Sorry revision17 for hijacking the thread but the symptons are so similar.

 

[WILDER]

Melafix is only good on cuts and wounds.
I would do a course of anti internal bacteria med by interpet.
Constipation, cook some frozen peas for a few minutes, let cool down, pop out of shell, much between fingers and add to the tank.
http/www.lifeforceonline.co.uk/fish_dise...product590.html

 

[rabidric]

Thanks for the update on Melafix - I assumed that as they were "drinking" it so to speak that it would work on all bacteria. I'll give the Interpet stuff a go too. As for the peas, how do I get a puffer to eat it? Could I gut load live shrimp? I feed him on them once a week or so and always feed them on plenty of flake to try and mix up his diet a bit.

Could someone remind me why I decided to take up the stress free hobby of keeping fish - they're more of a worry than the children!!

 

[WILDER]

If he won't eat the peas, try some frozen daphnia very good at digesting a fish food.

 

[Revision17]

Jees - bit of a mess

Well the obvious things like water chemistry are OK then, are you 100% sure the water is OK with ammonia and Nitrite ?
How often do you change the water and how ? Do you use liquid tests or strips ?

10g = about 39 - 45 litres ? If its a common plec etc its way too small for all those fish....If he had all those fish in at the same time its over stocked by my calculations..I know over stocking depends on filtrations and maintenance, so maybe it wasnt that.

Have the deaths slowed down now at all ?

To be honest if they show to external signs, or abdominal swelling, red gills or anything like that im stumped...maybe someone else will see this and have a better answer.

Yes, about 40 liters. API liquid tests were used. He used CopperSafe in an attempt to cure the gourami in october.

Other than the one which was missing half a gill saturday, none of them showed any external symptoms that we could notice. Only behavioral changes.

Also, I should have mentioned this, that was just the casualty list. The tank was never stocked with all those fish at one time.

 

[WILDER]

Did a fish rip the gill off.
Damaged the gill on something in the tank.
Or did the gill just rot away.
How does the other gill look.
Is it pale with excess mucas on it, or red and inflamed.

 

[Revision17]

I'm guessing it was aggression. The gill looked like it had been cut/torn off.

The fish was acting totally normal and healthy in the morning. Was missing half a gill and swimming in circles at 4PM, and was dead at 11:30PM.

 

[WILDER]

Bless him R.I.P_.
Justt wanted to check as fish can get bacterial gill rot, to gill flukes.

 

[Revision17]

Ok, another green tiger barb is starting to act funny. Though since I'm looking at it more closely now, I do notice it's darker than the other green tiger barb. They were about the same color yesterday.

I'll report on how this progresses.

 

[WILDER]

Darkening in colour can be a sign of a bacterial infections, but can mean something else also but forgot, sorry.