Sudden Death!

[DanS]

Well its not so much of an emergency now as the fish died

http/www.fishforums.net/Guppy-On-Brink-O...ly-t196031.html

So these pellets..... I thought i needed to get some for my new Corys so they'd get a chance at all the food. The pellets are approx 2-3mm diameter, but all my fish had a go at them and even the biggest platy was spitting them out, but they have all been eaten.

The lump on the guppy was to the one side, and (and I really didn't like this) I cut it open to see if it was one of the pellets, but i really couldn't tell.

So is it possible that a guppy would eat something too large that would very quickly kill it? Really gutting to get some new fish and then one of the exisiting "clan" to die within a couple of hours!! I just wanna establish the source of the problem.......

 

[mark.w.jones]

Need to know a bit more:

1. Have you fishless cycled your tank using the add & wait method described in the link in my sig.
2. If not how did you prepare tank before adding fish?
3. Over what timescale and order have you stocked your tank?
4. Could you get readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Either using a liquid test kit or by taking water to your LFS in the first instance.

 

[DanS]

Need to know a bit more:

1. Have you fishless cycled your tank using the add & wait method described in the link in my sig.
2. If not how did you prepare tank before adding fish?
3. Over what timescale and order have you stocked your tank?
4. Could you get readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Either using a liquid test kit or by taking water to your LFS in the first instance.

ok, here goes.

1) Tank cycled with fish. 3 platys added first, followed by 3 guppies. It was left at that for 2 months until levels stabilised (no ammonia or nitrite) although I NEVER had an ammonia reading, and the maximum nirite was about 0.3. This reduced to nothing so i assumed tank had cycled so left 2 more weeks.
2. Tanks was set-up 1-2 weeks before adding fish.
3. Apart from the above I added the three corys today who seem to have settled in ok with a plan to add three more corys once i was certain levels have stabilised.
4. As above - no ammonia and nitrite, but i don't have a nitrate reading right now, but I recently checked and it was around 40-50.

It just seemed like a sudden problem. I fed with the pellets to welcome the fish to their new home. All the fish had a try with the pellets but i did think they were maybe too big for them. I left them to it and came back and one of the guppies was laying sideways on the floor. I thought it was dead but then it tried to swim up but was going sideways and upsidedown. Then i noticed the red swelling on the side of it. I left it to see what happen but she just died. This may seem horrible but i removed her (once sure she was dead) and performed the fish autopsy. I didn't want to, but i wanted to see if one of the pellets was lodged in there so i could make sure not to feed with them anymore.

I don't want to blame a particular type of food, but it just seemed so sudden and with the red lump on the side i didn't know what else to think. Do you think a fish could eat something too big and it cause some internal problem?!

These are mini-pellets so are pretty small, but if they're too big - then what am i meant to feed the corys without relying on any food making its way down to the bottom of the tank?!

Hope the info is suitable.

Thanks

Dan

 

[FlyingFarhad]

Sorry for your loss...

 

[poopsydrew]

Feed the corys algae wafers and bloodworms

Drew