Dying fish, please help!

[LeslieG]

My 30g tank was doing great til last weekend when I added 6 new guppies from Petco . Since then I've lost all 14 baby kribensis, 3 guppies, 1 cory cat, 2 Khuli loaches, 3 black neons, and a female platty. The fish look great til they're dying. No ich or fungus - no spots, fuzz, or strings, flashing or darting, and gills look normal. Nobody gasping at the top. Nobody picking on each other. The afflicted fish dies 2-8 hours after it starts looking subdued - top fin clamped, tail low, and hanging out in a corner.

My parameters are great - ammonia at zero (none registering), nitrites 0, nitrates 20-30, pH 6.8 to 7.2, alkalinity 80ppm, total hardness 75ppm. I check several times a week. Temperature is 78-79 degrees. Nothing has changed in the last month except regular weekly 15 percent water changes. I add aquarium salt at water changes at 1 tsp per 5 gallons new water. I'm on private well water so no chlorine. I have a Penguin biowheel and an undergravel filter. The only change was adding those guppies, who must've been sick. (I don't have a quarantine tank. Regrettably. But there's no room for one.)

I just did a 50 percent eater change because it makes me feel like I'm doing something, but it's not gonna help.

I don't know what to treat? Any suggestions? Antibiotics?

 

[KaraWolf]

Try a flashlight and see if they're covered in velvet? Otherwise I'd consider internal parasites. And fish anyone out who looks like theyre dying before they die. In my tanks fish tend to eat other dead fish which just helps to spread whatever theyve got....

 

[Cory]

Could be velvet it's hard to see a lot of times. And moves fast like that.

 

[lloyd378]

If not an infection, you may want to do away with the salt. I stopped using salt in my water changes about three years ago, and I would argue that they have been healthier since then. Most forums I belong to also have recently done away with salt.

Though I don't think this is the problem, it could add to stress on the fish while they are trying to fight off some sort of illness

 

[LeslieG]

I looked with a flashlight and can't say yes or no to the velvet. I'll go out tomorrow and get a parasite treatment. I went out earlier today and picked up some API furan 2 for bacterial infections. If I stay with the same brand, can I mix them? My male golddust moly and male blue platy, both favorites, are showing signs (clamped fins, lethargy). Before the platy started showing signs, I did see him rubbing on a leaf, so I'm thinking velvet is likely. The gold dust's black tail might be a bit faded looking - maybe that's it?

 

[Madness]

Velvet can be be seen, it looks like someone threw some powder sugar on your fish.

As for making sure this never happens again, I must preach quarantine your fish. Many of us have learned the hard way, as you are learning now. Always QT your fish REGARDLESS of where you got them. QT a minimum of 6 weeks, if you had done this, then you would not be stressing right now.

Throwing meds at an unknown issue in itself can be very damaging and fatal to your beloved wet pets, not to mention certain meds work better, work less or not at all in certain water conditions. To start, if it is velvet then you must use copper, (not coppermine) and turn lights off and cover tank. Velvet reproduces faster with light. I had a case of velvet and my lights remained out for 3 weeks just to eradicate it.

Also I would lower your temp to 74. There are many negative and harmful issues that live in our aquariums and at higher temps, thrive. When your fish are healthy, all is good, once your fish are compromised the warmer temps and the salt are bad ideas.

Now lets talk salt. Why are you adding this? All it does is make it more difficult for your fish to breath, and maintain osmotic balance.

 

[Cory]

I'd chime in and say your parameters are not optimal for livebearers. The water should be harder and the ph being between 6.8 and 7.2 is a big difference. Ideally at least 7.2 for live bearers.

If it is velvet, I have great success treating it with Cupramine by seachem. I run into it at least once a month from the wholesalers and typically the Cupramine will get it in the first day, which is essentially a half dose. I can also kill it with salt at 1 tablespoon per gallon of water but it's hard on many species of fish. So I personally use Cupramine currently as it seems to be effect at the current strain of velvet.

 

[Madness]

That is good to know regarding the Cupramine Cory. I was always steered away from it because it was not effective, so I never tried it.

 

[Cory]

That is good to know regarding the Cupramine Cory. I was always steered away from it because it was not effective, so I never tried it.

Well I think what most hobbyists don't realize is that there are different strains of most bacteria/parasites etc. There are even some that can ONLY harbor themselves from specific countries. So that is why I say currently Cupramine is doing very well on the strains I'm encountering in the last year or so. This could change, it's kind of like a cold or flu, things adapt and mutate and so must the treatments. But when I attended classes on quarantine procedures for ornamental fish trade I learned that some diseases literally aren't found in some countries and some are ONLY found in that country. It has to do with the water structure and temperature. So for instance, something might thrive in Thailand with their water structure and temps, but just die off in Florida water due to conditions not being right to keep it going throughout the whole year etc. So they'd have the problem say till winter, temps drop to only 70 degrees for 3 months. Then all that parasite/bacteria dies off, then warms back up etc. Ties into the temperature thing you talk about quite a bit.

 

[pbmax]

I'd chime in and say your parameters are not optimal for livebearers. The water should be harder and the ph being between 6.8 and 7.2 is a big difference. Ideally at least 7.2 for live bearers.

Agreed. I boost my GH and KH to 10d / 10d for my platies. This has resulted in a thriving platy population, compared with slow and consistent deaths before that. And that was with a PH around 7.8 even - they need the extra mineral content. My tap varies from GH/KH 8d/7d in the summer to GH/KH 3d/3d or lower right now.

 

[LeslieG]

Thank you all for your thoughts, suggestions, and explanations.

It might not be velvet. I've had 6 more fish (black neons and guppies) die in the last 2 days. I'm not seeing powder/dust, and I'm inspecting carefully - its obvious which ones are feeling bad because they become very lethargic with clamped fins. They don't do the gasp for air thing and their gills look normal. Occasionally I'll see a fish rub on a leaf. Early Sunday morning I saw that my female krib (who'd been in her cave) has a badly bulging, cloudy eye. This evening another fish has a reddish bruised-looking rough batch on its side.

Choosing a medicine has been very difficult. I gave them one dose of Furan 2 on Saturday, then Sunday when it seemed parasites were involved I switched to Ecological Labs Microbe Lift Herbtana and Artemiss, alternating doses every 12 hours. So far they've had 2 doses of Herbtana and one of Artemiss. My hope on the Herbtana/Artemiss was that they'd work together to knock out whatever-it-is. The male platy looks a little bit better; both golddust mollies look bad sometimes, then better sometimes; at the moment they're swimming energetically, begging for a second dinner, and look great. I'm very tempted to jump to the Seachem Cupramine based on Cory's recommendations, and add something for bacteria, but switching back and forth isn't good either.

The ammonia, nitrites,and nitrates are still good. I'll drop the temps as suggested to 75 degrees.

I hear you on the livebearer hardness and pH. Over the last month I've been adding crushed coral to the filter medium to try to increase GH, KH and the pH, with some success. My water is soft with low alkalinity out of the tap, and the plants and driftwood made it softer and more acidic. I got these platties in mid-November; they were young and we hoped they'd adjust to a lower pH. The platties and the mollies were doing great until I got the batch of sick fish last weekend. Maybe the softer more acidic water made them more inclined to pick up the illness? The 14 baby kribs, though, were very healthy, growing like weeds, and supposed to do well in softer, slightly acidic water, as were the black neons.

 

[LeslieG]

I may be over the worst of it. I lost four fish yesterday, but none today, and the male blue platy and pair of golddust mollies have both recovered!!! It may simply be that I don't have many fish left to die, but I'm hoping for the best.

The only fish that still looks bad is the adult female kribensis. Her right eye is gruesome - it pokes out about 2 mm and is frosty white and totally blind. I think she's also blind in the left eye, which is slightly clouded. It was sad but fascinating to watch her learn the tank a few days ago. She came out of her cave for the first time in several days and crept along the bottom, following the glass, around and around in circuits of the tank, belly to the gravel, bumping into everything. Gradually she began moving faster and with more confidence until she was actually swimming, still beside the glass, but she was moving and seemed to know where she was going, only lightly bumping the glass at the corners. When she ventured away from the glass she got lost, but she kept trying, and eventually conquered the middle of the tank, too. She still bumps things, but not as often, and she can even find food on the bottom now - definitely not as well as a sighted fish, but she's getting there. I'm putting bits of the Repashy Meat Pie gel food on the bottom for her to find. She's a tough little fish. She never got the clamped fins and lethargy symptoms of the rest of the fish, so I don't know quite what to think; it wasn't caused by poor water conditions. Was she sick in the cave and I missed the clamped fins and lethargy symptoms? Or will they start tomorrow? I hope she makes it.

 

[LeslieG]

It looks like the female krib's right eye is starting to heal! I just got a good look at it - it's not bulging as much and the white cataract-looking patch is smaller. She's acting healthy and her left eye (which had been slightly milky) has fully recovered. No fish have looked ill since Wednesday!

I'm getting a quarantine tank tomorrow from pbmax. (Thank you!) Lesson learned. I'm going to continue dosing meds for another 9 days to be certain it's cleared up (whatever it was) and in hopes that the krib's eye will heal fully, but I think we can call this issue resolved. (HUGE happy face.)