What The Heck Is Killing All My Fish?

[metalcherry]

Another one has bitten the dust - after lastin nearly a wee my baby oscar is gone *biiiiiiiig sob*

i have checked all the items and i have been replacing the water (25%) everyday as advised.

Last results are below.

ammonia 0
nitrite - 0
high ph 7.4
ph 7.6
nitrate 0-5.0

Before i began putting the fish in (after my previous died of an ammonia spike) i fully cycled the tank for over a week (maybe two), i put in the chems i.e. removes slime, chlorine, metals stuff.

I first purchased an albino oscar and a tinfoil fish
Nothing at all looked out of place with the fish - they both swam about happily
by day 2 i found the tinfoil swimming upside down, i put in metholyne blue to see if it could help but we found him next day dead in the plants. he had a slight strand of blood in his fin and a spec of blood in his eye.

Oscar was unphased by this and swam about happily.

after 5-6 days i decided to get oscar a friend, krisansis, as soon as i put him in, he chased oscar all about the place, i was ready to remove him but just left it a bit longer to see if they got on.

since then (3 days ago) oscar began acting funny, he was being very floaty, usually he used to swim everywhere but all he did was hover and one of his side fins hardly moved, he used to use the other one and his tail to move him about.

i was getting really worried about him, when i put my hand in to do something he would come over and brush against me but he never moved.

I again tried some metholyne blue to see what was wrong as over the previous couple of days he was pinned to the top of the water poking his head out - it looked like he was needing air.

Yesterday night he was looking the worse of it, i thought he had a small spec of blood on his right side but it looked like it was a scrape or the other one had hurt it and there was the tiniest spec of blood (again like the tinfoil) at the bottom of his eye but suddenly last night about 1am he had a burst of life and was swimming about like his usual self again.

woke up today and hes dead on the airstone
The krisansis however doesnt seem affected....yet but we will see in the next couple of days if the aquarium monster will take him.

i dont know why oscar would be looking for water, i have an external filter aswell as an air stone to circulate the water and i have been doing water changes.

there are no signs at all of distress then oneday they get very ill and its too late to save them.
all results are coming back normal but i dont know why its doing this

can someone tell me what im doing wrong, its really putting a stopper on my fish collecting -its coming up for my birthday soon and i have told my family to buy me a fish to add to my collection but i dont think i could face another corpse

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

How did you cycle the tank exactly and how long have you been taking out the water everyday for now?

Blood on the fish would indicate septicemia, which is an internal bacterial infection. As far as i am aware Methylyne Blue can damage the beneficial bacteria in your filter, which is not good if you are trying to keep the tank cycled- its not really good to medicate fish unless you have good idea of what exactly they are dying of.

Personally i would advise stopping the Methylyne Blue treatment and leave the fish unmedicated for a couple of days while doing your water changes and then treat the tank with "Anti internal bactetia" by Interpet, as i strongly suspect it is an internal bacterial infection that is killing your fish.
What have you been feeding your fish and how much anf often? What fish do you have exactly at the moment and how many?

 

[afishdude]

i fully cycled the tank for over a week (maybe two),

it takes 6-8 weeks to fully cycle.

 

[metalcherry]

I have had the a friend who does a lot of fish breeding etc up to check on it and i have been told everything is perfect.

I removed oscar and checked him over and there was no blood, it must have been the colour of the gill inside and his eyes were fine, a slight spec of red but was told that its just a bit of rim of the eye.

The only thing different to this death is that oscar never rose to the top - he lay on the stone, according to my pal, the symptoms etc that oscar had been displaying (i.e. sitting at top of tank, hardy moving etc) is trademark signs of him being bullied and most definately by the Kribesis.

I only have one left - the krib - and he is swimming about happily - hes been in for 4 days and there is no signs unlike the others - of any problems, hes still full of health, eats fine, swims about like normal.

Im gonna keep him and see if hes ok, it looks like its just a bullying killing since oscar was a baby and the krib is maturer (and apparently female) while the tinfoil appears to be a swimbladder prob by the way he was upside down.

if he survives another 3 days hes done better than my oscar

the pal says keeping fish is about keeping the water and unit perfect - if its perfect nothing can go wrong and according to him the water and unit are in top knotch condition.

maybe when i get my bigger unit, i will get a seperate tank to keep my oscar babies

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hmm i have to say i agree with afishdude that the tank wouldn't have been cycled in just a week if you were doing it the old fashioned traditional cycling with fish way.
However, although i am sure your friend is quite knowledgeable on fishkeeping, you really need to do your own research and take responsability for your own tank in this sense, so you know exactly what you are doing and what is going on with your tank etc- one place where your friend was wrong on was that the tank was cycled after just a week with fish in it, which is basically imposible unless you put some established filter media in the new filter while you were cycling the tank and basically did the "clone" tank process thing.


How much do you understand about water quality? Your friend is right that keeping good water quality is the key to keeping healthy fish, although he is wrong in saying that if you water quality is perfect your fish will never fall ill, as for example there are many fish diseases and parasites that can infect fish regardless of how perfect your water quality is, which is why quarentining fish beforehand can be a very good thing to do etc.
For understanding water quality like stuff like the Nitrogen Cycle and how cycling tanks work, the article in the link below is a good place to start on learning the important basics of water quality and how cycling tansk works etc;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=10099

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With the kirb and the oscar, it wasn't really a good idea to keep them together to start with- many types of kribs are very tempermentle and can be quite agressive/territorial depending on the exact type of krib (as there are many types of kribs), and the oscar would have definately ended up eating the krib either way once it was large enough, which wouldn't have taken that long. The tinfoil barb also had the potential to outgrow your tank depending on the tanks exact dimensions, as these are big shoaling fish which can grow to 14inches long.

But either way, you pretty much have a fresh start to restock your tank. Ideally the ammonia and nitrites should always be 0 and the nitrates kept preferably under 40. Anytime you see ammonia or nitrites above 0 or excessive nitrates, you should do a water change (about 20-30%). After a while, your tank will become established and will stop experiencing unstable water quality and water quality problems, but you will need to stock the tank very slowly and gradually from now on, as you need to give time between introducing fish to the tank for the beneficial bacteria to build up and adjust to each increase in the bioload. If you stock the tank too quickly the water quality will become very unstable, which will put quite a strain on your fishes health.
Are you planning on keeping the krib? Do you know what type of krib it is?