entire tank nearly wiped out. *sad*

**ahdi** · 21st Feb 2006, 12:19

been keeping a 2ft tank for ard 1 and a half years and most of my fishes are as old as well. All healthy.

but ever since i added in some new fishes last week, they all start dying from the 3rd day onwards. now my entire tank is almost wiped out.

feeling extremely sad bout it cuz some of the fishes had been with me for so long.

i think the most likely reason is that the new fishes introduced into the tank had some disease? and it passed on to my other fishes. am i right to say that? i don't know what disease it is. The fishes will loses it's colour either at the tail portion or under the belly. then they'll appear weak and die eventually.

what can i do now? wat exactly went wrong?

**ranmasatome** · 21st Feb 2006, 12:58

i dont know what to say except that is the reason why quarantine of fishes is so important.. unless you're prepared to incur the losses...

sorry to hear about the fishes..

**BFG** · 21st Feb 2006, 14:01

Where did you bought the fish from?

**michael lai** · 21st Feb 2006, 15:29

Hi Ahdi,
Sorry to hear about your fishes, but it's kind of hard for us to help you with only what you have described. We need more detailed information, 3 days is extremely fast for any disease or bacterial to wipe out any healthy fish. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's too fast. When the tail lose colour, does it turn white or rot?? Suspect it's columnaris, white patches at tail and body. Maybe you could give us a better picture. Thanks.

**ahdi** · 22nd Feb 2006, 06:36

what kind of detailed information do i need to provide? sorry.. though i've kept fishes for 1.5 yrs, it's a really simple aquarium and i'm still unfamiliar with all the things that i need to know about. so would appreciate if someone can enlighten me.
the tail didn't rot. It turned white. Not too sure if it's patches though. it looked more like the entire tail portion turned white.

i bought the fishes from aquastar.

**Goondoo** · 22nd Feb 2006, 09:26

Originally Posted by ahdi

what kind of detailed information do i need to provide? sorry.. though i've kept fishes for 1.5 yrs, it's a really simple aquarium and i'm still unfamiliar with all the things that i need to know about. so would appreciate if someone can enlighten me.
the tail didn't rot. It turned white. Not too sure if it's patches though. it looked more like the entire tail portion turned white.

i bought the fishes from aquastar.

Like tank size? population size? is it a planted tank or fish only tank? what fish you had? what fish you added? when was the last time you change water? how much water was replaced? etc

**michael lai** · 22nd Feb 2006, 10:04

Hi Ahdi,
Besides what Billy has stated, is it possible to get a picture? or a more detailed description of the disease or formation of the disease. Like 1st day like that, 2nd day like that, that kind of description. Did you just added barbs sp or Neon tetras?
It's perfectly alright to be unfamiliar with some of the terms, that's what this forum is about. Don't know just post and ask, I've ask some very silly questions before. I have also rear fish for many years and still I got one tank wipe out by disease last year. It's a never ending learning process, I just hope it was fun for you as it was for me. Cheers.

**ahdi** · 23rd Feb 2006, 01:08

it's a 2 ft planted tank. fishes include 4 cardinal tetras, 5 rummy nose, 1 SAE and 2 yamato.

fishes added were 10 cardinals, 2 oto and 2 leopard cory. Added in some new plants as well. I changed the water 2 days before i bought the new fishes. changed ard 1/3 of the tank.

during the first 2 days, everything was fine. fishes were swimming about freely. on the 3rd day, i realised 2 cardinal dead when i came back home. so i just scooped them up and discarded them. the rest looked perfectly fine. No visible symptoms of any disease and they were swimming fine as well. But the next morning, another 3 to 4 died. this continued over the next 2 days and now i'm left with 1 cardinal and 1 rummy nose. the other species are still alive as well. so basically juz the tetras died.

there's no visible formation of the disease. it happens really really quickly. in the morning they're still kicking alive and at night they're dead. only a few showed symptoms, that is losing colour either at the tail portion or under the belly area. It's not white substance covering the fishes. It's more of from the inside of the fish. red became light pink, and blue became white.

i don't have any pics to show as i've discarded all the dead fishes already.

**Goondoo** · 23rd Feb 2006, 08:38

Originally Posted by ahdi

it's a 2 ft planted tank. fishes include 4 cardinal tetras, 5 rummy nose, 1 SAE and 2 yamato.

fishes added were 10 cardinals, 2 oto and 2 leopard cory. Added in some new plants as well. I changed the water 2 days before i bought the new fishes. changed ard 1/3 of the tank.

during the first 2 days, everything was fine. fishes were swimming about freely. on the 3rd day, i realised 2 cardinal dead when i came back home. so i just scooped them up and discarded them. the rest looked perfectly fine. No visible symptoms of any disease and they were swimming fine as well. But the next morning, another 3 to 4 died. this continued over the next 2 days and now i'm left with 1 cardinal and 1 rummy nose. the other species are still alive as well. so basically juz the tetras died.

there's no visible formation of the disease. it happens really really quickly. in the morning they're still kicking alive and at night they're dead. only a few showed symptoms, that is losing colour either at the tail portion or under the belly area. It's not white substance covering the fishes. It's more of from the inside of the fish. red became light pink, and blue became white.

i don't have any pics to show as i've discarded all the dead fishes already.

How did you acclimatise them? For how long?

**michael lai** · 23rd Feb 2006, 09:33

Hi Ahdi,
I'm making a calculated guess here, since you added about 10 new cardinals and basing on the description of your affected tetras. I think it's the Neon Tetra disease, which is uncurable. You might want to try Waterlife-Protozin which claims that it cures this disease. I might be wrong here let's hear what the other brethrens has to say also.

**ranmasatome** · 23rd Feb 2006, 11:52

if its only the tetras that are affected it might be NTD... however if other fishes start dying then you might have a virus or bacteria on your hands..
i've had a tank of fish die one after the other with no visible external defects.

**ahdi** · 24th Feb 2006, 13:06

other than Waterlife-Protozin, does changing water alone help? not too sure if it's the NTD cuz there's still 1 cardinal and 1 rummynose surviving and they seem ok. and this morning, realised 1 of the cory died as well. which extends the death to not juz tetras.

so if it's a virus or bacteria issue, what could be the possible reasons that it happened? need to know so that i can protect myself from having to suffer this loss again. and wat can i do now if it is indeed a virus attack?

i acclimatise them for ard an hour. pouring away water from the bag and adding my tank water every 15 mins.

**Goondoo** · 24th Feb 2006, 14:51

Originally Posted by ahdi

i acclimatise them for ard an hour. pouring away water from the bag and adding my tank water every 15 mins.

I suspect they died of stressed...
I don't understand the part you mentioned pouring the water away.... you poured away all?

**michael lai** · 25th Feb 2006, 09:46

Hi Ahdi,
Why in heaven's name do you add water to the tank every 15 mins??? Let me grumble a little here, it is in nature's law that something or someone will always survive. There is no 100% way to prevent what you have just experienced because there are just too many unforseen factors which we can't control. But there is help, first aclimasation period as mentioned by Ranmasatome. I usually give 2 hours for temperature to even out between bag and tank. Then another 2 hours to slowly mix tank and bag water together, provided your source for the fish is a good one. Second, good tank husbandry. Weekly or fortnightly water changes 25-40% only. Maintain constant temperature if possible, remove any corpse or rotting materials, check your water parameters periodically. You must understand what goes on in the tank first which is a little bit too long to continue here but in short, you need to mature the tank first. Let the beneficial bacterial set in to take care of your Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.
Lastly, water change alone will not solve your disease, viral or bacterial woes. Even with medication and UV treatment, you cannot eradicate them completely. My advise here, do the water change, add medication and observe. Use Befuran (yellow colour packet and powder because it is for multi bacterial both internal and external) If you constantly change your water, it will stress out the fish because of your ever changing water parameters(temperature included) and also your Benificial Bacteria will not have time to set in. Rearing fish is like everything else in life, a good foundation will go a long way.

**valice** · 25th Feb 2006, 11:24

Originally Posted by michael lai

Why in heaven's name do you add water to the tank every 15 mins???

Err... Mike, think you misintepreted what he is trying to say... Think he meant that during acclimatising his fishes, he added water from his tank into the bag of fish every 15 mins...

But Ahdi, like Goondoo say, did you pour all the water out of the bag or only some?

**ahdi** · 26th Feb 2006, 03:40

yes i think my statement was misinterpreted by mike. wat i meant was i added my tank water to the bag every 15 mins. i didn't pour all the water away at once. i poured out a little bit and add abit of my tank water to it every 15 mins. there was proper introduction of the fishes into my tank.

wat could be the possible reasons that they died from stress? cuz not only the new fishes died. my old fishes died as well. if only the new fishes die, then high possibilty that it might be a aclimasation issue.

sorry if i'm asking too much. just confused on whether it was due to some virus/bacteria attack or is it some other reasons that i'm not educated on.

the surviving fishes in my tank still seem ok till date. they're still feeding as well. so i'm wondering if i should just change some water? or add some medication?(providing there is indeed some bacteria attack). and when will it be appropriate to add in new fishes again?

**ahdi** · 3rd Mar 2006, 12:36

guess i'm indeed asking too much. shall try to figure the problem out myself then. thanks for the info provided.

**michael lai** · 3rd Mar 2006, 13:05

Hi Ahdi,
You are not asking too much but you are not reading enough. The answers were already there. Firstly, just changing water alone will not solve anything. Your fishes died because of an viral or bacterial attack, because it's a 2 feet tank, it spreaded like wildfire. A cory died doesn't mean it's not NTD but there are more than 1 disease here. You need a varied medication to tackle your problems here. Yes, they might not have died of stress here but constantly changing water will definitely freak them out. There are no hard and fast rules here but through experience you will learn. Some of the fitter fish will not get infected and you can never eradicate everything( bacterial )from your tank. Anyway too sterile an environment is never good for anything as in being too extreme in anything. If your fishes are still not responding to treatment in 3-4 days time, post again and we'll see what we can help with. But please observe them and give us a more detail description, that'll help in a big way.

**aqualover** · 30th Mar 2006, 22:28

had similar experience before when I first started. It was either caused by an infected fish that I bought or the frozen daphnia that I'd intoduced to my fishes. Until now, I dare not buy frozen daphina anymore, would rather use dried feed.