Unexplainable deaths!

[simer]

Hi

I have suffered two deaths in the last two days. One I was expecting - I had two Red Robin Gouramies and one of them had been listless for days. I also noticed he had white, stringy faeces so I took him out and put him in a smal tank on his own and treated him with esha heximita, but he got more and more listless and eventually gave up the ghost.

I have been treating my two rams for white spot also (in teh main tank), but apart from this I have noticed no other symptoms. All sem well, active and happy. However I came back this evening to find one of my two rainbow fish dead at teh bottom of the tank. I have run one course of esha exit to cure the rams of the white spot, but it does not seem to have completely shifted it so today I bought some WS3 on the advice of an LFS, but now I am scared top try it in case the previous medicine was what killed my rainbow!

I am confused because I have tested my tank every day and the parameters have been fine for weeks now - ammonia 0ppm, nitrites 0ppm, nitrates 20ppm.

Any advice?

 

[WILDER]

Long stringy white poo can mean, constipation, bacteria infection or internal parasites, if the whitespot can invade the gills causing damage and death any sign of laboured breathing.

 

[OrkyBetta]

My advice, quarantine the healthy fish into a temporary bucket or something of clean water the same temp as the tank. It sounds like internal parasites to me, and if so, your whole tank might already be infected, and they live in th water. So my bet would be take the healthy ones out. Then buy some medicated food and feed them all with it.

 

[simer]

Thanks for the replies!

A couple of questions. How long do I leave them in the bucket for? How do I tell which ones are healthy? They all look ok. Even the rainbow looked fine until I saw him this evening. The only ones that don't look ok are the rams - they still have white spot, but they are very active. Should I treat the tank with the new medicine or not?

BTW there's no signs of laboured breathing that I can discern.

I think there are too many fish in my tank any way so I bought a 4ft tank which I am in the process of fishless cycling. I have had a nitrite spike for a few days now and ammonia is going straight away so I must be near cycled. Should I leave off transfering fish for fear of infecting the new tank?

Thanks again

 

[WILDER]

If they stilll have whitespot they need treating, what do you feed the fish, any sign of the fish being bloated.

 

[simer]

Not that's obvious. I feed them flakes and frozen daphnia. I've alos fed them live brine shrimp. I feed them twice a day. Anything wrong with that?

 

[WILDER]

No looking for causes of the the long stringy what poo as too many dried foods can cause constipaion and bacteria problems, before we go for internal parasites, other signs are being bloated, skinny with a sunken in belly, red inflamed large anus.

 

[simer]

I can't see any of those symptoms. I have quite a fat danio and my female mollies are getting fatter and fatter, but I assume they're pregnant. They go mad for the flake food, but I assume they don't have the smarts to know if it's bad for them.