help : fishes dying one by one daily

[neon]

Hi,

Need help for my fishes in my planted tank. Apparently the fishes (rummy noses, blue tetra,cardinal) are dying one by one daily.

Not sure what the cause of this .

Recently introduce one type anubias either barteri or gracilis, but was more 3 weeks ago. Since 1 week ago, 1 or 2 fishes will die daily. Also done few water change 50% weekly.

Also, notice there was a lot of small little flea like bug perching on the frogbite , easily around 200. Clear out all the frogbite, and water change to get rid of them. That was already 1 week ago, yet fishes still dying.

All normal fertiliser dosing routine still follow, co2 around 30-40ppm, 4dKH, 6.6 PH,etc .

Any one has any clue ? appreciate your comments. Thanks

Cheers

[vinz]

Any change in the appearance of the fish? Any new fishes added recently?

[neon]

nope !

I have major rescape 1.5 - 2 months ago and no casualty !

[PeterGwee]

More details of the tank and regime will help things. Do you have any surface movement? CO2 24/7? 30-40ppm of CO2 at when? Does it go higher without you noticing?

Regards
Peter Gwee

[neon]

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 6 x 2 x 2
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 2 x 150w (MH)
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : MH
No. of Hours your light is on: 8hrs
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) :
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : tank
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): external reactor from NA
Substrate Used : JBL aquaplus
How Thick is your base fert : 2" mix with lapis sand
How thick is your gravel : 4" total
Liquid Fertilizers Used : KNO3, K2PO4, MgSO4.7H2O, K2SO4, Rexolin APN
Frequency of fertilization : 3 times micro , 3 times trace (Rexolin APN)
Tank Temperature : 25 deg c with chiller
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : 2260
Filter media used : ~ 10 kg of biohome (red & normal), bioballs, sponge
How long has your tank been set up : 11mths +


Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------

Carbonate Hardness (kh): 4 dKH
Total Hardness (gH): ???
PH : 6.5
NH4 (ppm):
NO2 (ppm):
NO3 (ppm): dosing 10ppm x 3 times per week
PO4 (ppm): dosing 1ppm x 3 times per week
Fe (ppm): dosing 0.5ppm Fe from Rexolin APN x 3 times per week
MgSO4.7H2O (ppm) : dosing ~2 ppm x 3 times per week
K2SO4 (PPM) : dosing 17 ppm x 3 times per week

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
------------------------------

State what fishes and plants you have to the best of your ability
Fishes
---------
~70 big size cardinals
~50 medium to big rummy noses
6 rasboras
5 otos
5 big bleeding hearts
4 medium diamond tetra
3 big pencil fish
1 coral red
3 hatcher fish
4 rocket fish
~10 others 2" fishes
Plants
--------
big bunch of java fern narrow leaves
big bunch of java fern windelov
few bunches of anubias gracils or anubias spec. barteri
few bunches of anubias barteri var. nana
lots of crypt (balansae,petchii,parva,willisii,wendtii)
lots of vallisneria gigantea
2 stalks of Crinum thaianum
lots of e.Tenellus
some hairgrass
echinodorus horemanii 'Red'
echinodorus oriental
Aponogeton longiplumulosus
Crinum Calamistratum
Samolus parviflorus

[vinz]

If there are no outward signs of the fish being ill, then I can only guess that there's an unknown virus/patogen in the tank that's killing them.

Happened to me before... my rocket pencil fish would take turns (all in one day) to thrash about for about 5 mins, then keel over and die. Only 3 of 8 survived. The disease dissappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

If no one can offer a solution or explanation, then I would suggest you stop adding fishes until the existing fishes all die out or stop dying. Then wait a week or two before adding a few new fishes. Allow the first new batch to settle in for a week or two. If no reoccurance of the mysterious illness then continue to restock. This would take care of any parasites/patogens that cannot survive long without a host.

A light salting of the tank might help.

Since it's unknown, you might want to consider using a commercial water conditioner... something that claims to improve fish health/resistance or help build the slime coating of the fish, etc. Use anti-chlorine/chloramine. Basically, improve fish health and water conditions.

[GaspingGurami]

[quote:a7a373482e="neon"]Recently introduce one type anubias either barteri or gracilis, but was more 3 weeks ago. Since 1 week ago, 1 or 2 fishes will die daily. Also done few water change 50% weekly.[/quote:a7a373482e]

Also encountered something like that with my low light tank till I realised one of the plants I newly introduced is a poisonous plant, and when I damaged/hurt the leaf during planting/waterchange, fishes will slowly die one at a time.

The plant looked like a long leafed Anubias angustifolia, tied onto a piece of driftwood. Sadly, WRONG. This plant actually is a terrestrial plant called Spathiphyllum wallisii. The immersed leaves look the same as when it is grown emmersed. Pic here: http://home10.inet.tele.dk/sveri/foto1/spat-wal.html Description here: http://home10.inet.tele.dk/sveri/pla.../spat-wal.html

If you, like me, mistakenly got this plant, you know who the culprit to those deaths is now.

[scoobydoo]

I was just experienced a similar situation recently. The cardinals, emperor tetras and rummy noses dying one a day. There was no outward appearance of disease etc. So I did a water change and added salt. After that, no more fishes died.
Good luck.

[neon]

sigh !!

Slowly but surely one fish die at a time , rummy nose, cardinal, emperor tetra, blue tetra.

Other fishes, rasboras, cherry shrimp, diamond, bleeding heart, one line pencil, coral red pencil are totally fine and no casualty.

Any one any clue on this ?

Thanks !

[JT]

yes, in fact, from my knowledge, there are a couple of reasons to such happenings...Quite a number of reasons. need to take a look at the tank and do some tests, try out a few things before I will really get to the source and reason. Use to go to my friends house when they report such things to me.
However, the more commons ones are 1. lack of oxygen or not enough plants (Mostly for the start of planted tanks). 2.water properties...high PH, ammonia..etc. 3. Disease..should be able to see the dead/dying fishes with some white patches...etc. 4. Stress - Fishes sort of deform...become odd shape look (quite common) 5. Fishes not introduce properly. 6. Filter 7. Bought fishes not healthy. Many others...

[neon]

Hi,

Latest update !!

The last thing I tried now to dose medicine for treating internal bacteria or worm. Can't recall the name which I used to treat for fish scale problem last time. I consistently daily dose 40ml for my 6' for 4 days. After that, no single casualty any more.

Cheers
CHOK

[JT]

Congrates!!!... Well, I think prevention is better than cure... I give my fishes(tetras) some resistance booster once every month. I believe to give them some resistance is better than medication. Of course, I add blue solution(cure white spots) once every month to keep away the deadly "killer disease" as well.

"Herbal - Resistance Booster" - Ocean free brand

[joelwong]

Hi,

Latest update !!

The last thing I tried now to dose medicine for treating internal bacteria or worm. Can't recall the name which I used to treat for fish scale problem last time. I consistently daily dose 40ml for my 6' for 4 days. After that, no single casualty any more.

Cheers
CHOK

Hi when you guys dose medication, do you dose straight into your main tank or do you move your fishes to a seperate hospital tank?

Also, when you dose medication, do you remove your charcoal layer, after dosing the complete course, do you do a 100% water change and change your filter media?

[freezze]

check the corpse of the fish.. issit bend or shrinken.. if so u got the infamous neon tetra disease... which seem to affect tetra..

[joelwong]

Deleted....sorry, reply to wrong thread

[freezze]

cos.. i think my cardinal r down with this disease.. 2 of the cardinal body is bending n look very skinny.. trying to catch it out .. but too many plants for it to hide... an idea on how to catch it..

[ms]

Same problem happened to my Congo Tetras. I had them for more than a year, then they died one-by-one after every few days. I tried everything I knew, but still was not able to control the problem.

I told myself that it's old age, because there were not sign of injury or desease.

MS