Help needed, fish dying enmasse.

[subsonic]

very desperate on finding a miracle to save my little jewels from dying- after being fed with frozen bloodworms one of my beloved discus and now 15 cardinals died. an average of ten a day is sweeping through the school (sp?) of 100. so heart wrenching to see my little friends die with nothing i can do-- sigh.... sniff......snif...

[vinz]

subsonic,

Kindly post in the correct thread or start a new thread in the future. This post certainly does not belong in the 'How Did You Find AQ?' thread.

Thanks.

Have you done anything else different around the same time? Like water change, washed the filter, replant the whole tank, added new plants, new fishes, etc?

How long since the tank went through a major setup?

What do the fish look like when they die? Sunken stomach? Bloated? Pale? Full-colour?

What about the remaining fish? Showing any symptoms or weird behaviour? Listless? Gasping for air?

[subsonic]

oops! sorry for posting on the wrong thread-
well i had a strong 80 cardinals at first and 2 discus, i added 20 more cardinals about 2 weeeks ago- then they just started dying. now other older white tip tetras died too. they died suddenly in full color. its weird that most of the die offs happen during the day w/the lights on.
ph is around 7.5, temp is 84-86 degrees, 0 amonia
125 gal planted w/ java fern, amazon swords, drift wood, pea sized gravel,
filtered w/ 350 magnum- no charcoal, output to a bio balls box. maybe the amonia had risen to the point where it was too toxic for them- telltales are brown algae on the glass surface and plants. (zero total ammonia reading is recent after clean up).
i seperated the remaining discus for it is showing stress and loss of appetite.

[illumnae]

so did they die after feeding bloodworms or after you introduced new fish?

if it's the former, it's likely to be contaminated food as somtimes frozen bloodworms are known to introduce disease as well. if it's the latter, did you quarantine the new fish? if not, there's your answer

[subsonic]

thanks- that shed a light on this problem

[vinz]

Illumnae,

Ehhhh... isn't that circumstantial? It is definitely a possibility, but I wouldn't be 100% sure about it. It definitely warrants more investigation in that direction.

Subsonic,

In any case, better to get more information if possible and treat the illness. If not, go for a general treatment. In all cases, take action to improve water quality.

Symptoms of ammonia poisoning are gasping at the surface for quite a while before they succumb. So quick death without showing symptoms of gasping at the surface points AWAY from ammonia or CO2 poisoning. Any ammonia readings you get may be due to the dead fishes.

[jacian]

Well, this may not be the cause of the fish death but will like to highlight that ph 7.5 is too high for your tetra and discus.

[illumnae]

yup you're right vincent, i was being too presumtuous it's a possible cause but more information is definitely needed

[stormhawk]

Subsonic, look at your frozen bloodworm cubes and tell me what the colour is. If the cubes seem dark and somewhat shrunken, high chance that they are contaminated and may have contributed to your fish deaths among other factors. Fresh cubes should look bright red like how fresh bloodworms look. I never liked using frozen foods, having experienced massive die-offs once. I figure I stored my frozen bloodworm for too long, plus the foil was no barrier to bacterial infestation of the frozen bloodworm.

[subsonic]

thanks guys! my discus grew on 7.0-7.8 ph, partial water change every 2 days, gravel is 'vacuum' every week with 25-30% partial water change. i treated the sick discus (tiger) w/ maracide since he was contantly rubbing agaist the plants, and skittish. tiger is now on tetracycline antibiotic- its appetite is back and its color slowly returning to normal. the cardinals' problem seems to be gone now-although i lost so many. they are also on antibiotics. the bloodworms they were on was bright red in color (sally's). even when i stopped feeding them that, the die offs were constant. one thing that i noticed is that the only 5 neon weren't affected at all. hopefully the recovery will progress here on.
btw- i since removed driftwoods and increased my filter by adding another magnum 350 in series.