HELP - Great Tank Die-off

[wiEngineer]

I have a 55G unplanted community tank filled with a variety of small happy campers. Mostly tetras, a beta, 3 clown loaches, a couple plecos, a some albino cory cats.

About a week ago, I lost a couple tetras. Ok that happens. Fished em out, did a water change.

The next day, I lost a couple more. Hmm. Ok, fished 'em out, did a water change.

Then I lost a red velvet sword. Then a pleco. Then my beta. Then my hillstream loach. the one cory cat.. More Tetras. and today I came down and a clown loach is gone.

The weird thing is that I can't see ANYTHING wrong with them. There is no sign of ick or fungus. They aren't being listless or anything. You simply turn your back for 5 minutes and somebody else is dead.

I can do water changes but it doesn't seem to be helping. I'm not a big fan od dosing with chemicals, but that might be the next step here.

HELP!

[PumaWard]

First off, water are your water readings... Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate... How often do you do water changes? Do you add dechlorinators? Also, is there a big difference between the pH in your tap and the pH in your tank. How often do you clean your filter and how do you do it?

Sorry for so many questions but its hard to tell whats wrong if we don't know this kind of stuff. Hope someone here can help (which I am sure they can). Good Luck.

[wiEngineer]

Quick followup. I did water tests and ammonia, nitrites are all unregistered. ARGH

[wiEngineer]

*sigh*

Just lost another black neon tetra.

Water quality tests still show nothing out of the ordinary. Ammonia and nitrites are **** near zero.

I changed another 25% water out.

Everbody else in the tank looks great right now but I just have this sneaking suspician that a few hours from now I'll look in and find another dead fish.

At this point, I'm almost figuring I'm going to lose the entire tank (I still have about 15 tetras left, a pleco, 5 harliquins, 4 corys, and 2 clown loaches).

Anyone anyone?

[famman]

Do you have large gravel for substrate?
:)

[wiEngineer]

Yes I do. Why?

[famman]

I've noticed on several 'help' postings (an old one of mine, for example) where there are die-offs, large gravel is very often present. In my case, I lost a corydora and an oto or 2. I definately felt that the large gravel I was using at the time was the culprit.
I've recently decided based on my experience and reading on this forum that large gravel for substrate without the use of plants in general invites trouble. I noticed you were having 'trouble', so I asked.
I suggest a planned, carefully implemented change of substrate, to a very small grained gravel, sand, or 2-4 inches florabase/laterite (for planted tanks) substrate. Not only is it easier to take care of, but it is much less 'trouble' in the long run. But not too deep, 2-3 inches max, much less than an inch is best.
sorry for your 'trouble'
good luck
:)

[dethjam316]

famman, what are your theories on the reason for this? i use large gravel in my 50g, but it is heavily planted. i'm curious: what are the side-effects of the large gravel that would cause this? this doesn't make sense to me. i would suggest maybe the water was contaminated by something else, insecticides, etc? perhaps?

in any case, i would suggest 50% water changes every day for a couple days. this may stress your fish, but if they keep dying, it can't do anymore harm...

[famman]

I'm not sure I have a theory, I've just noticed that large gravel, non-planted tanks tend to have trouble.
good luck
:)

[dethjam316]

i wonder if anyone else wants to weigh in on this...substrates seem to have a profound effect on aquariums in general, but usually the negative comments are in regards to anaerobic pockets and such with sand or with lime deposits effecting the ph. i've never read about significant problems with larger gravels. personally, i think it's purely circumstantial...a freak coincedence due to another problem, but you never know. i'm curious as to other's experiences. my newish 50g has large gravel (with a lot of plants, however, as i mentioned before), but prior to this tank i've always used small-medium gravel and/or sand. this gravel just happened to be $2 for a 50 lb bag, and i've found gravel easier to keep clean than sand, so i went for it. i'm not sure if i like the look as much as i liked the sand, but i haven't had any problems.

[dethjam316]

also, it's worth noting that plants seem to make just about any tank a bit more stable regardless of substrate.

[wiEngineer]

Minor Update:

No deaths since the last water change after the black neon tetra died (about 10 hours). Everybody looks happy right now, although they are sleeping for the most part (1am here).

I also changed out the filter medium in the magnum 350 that I use for mechanical filtration and put in 16 oz of activated charcoal (usually it's just filled with floss). I also run a fluval XP3 as a biological filter. I don't know if the charcoal is helping or even will help, but I figured it couldn't hurt of there was some kind of a chemical or other toxin that the tests werent detecting.

I also removed all of the large pieces of lava rock that I had in the tank as decoration. I'm going to boil it tomorrow on the off chance something evil is lurking within it. The pieces are about 12" in diameter so there are lots of pores for things to dwell in I guess.

Finally, I raised the tank temp to 82 from its normal 74 hoping to boil of any pathogens that might be lurking. I'll lower it back down in a day or three.

---

Currently, this tank is unplanted. Getting plants in this town is very difficult because all of the fish stores have absolutely DREADFUL plant stock that is also very expensive. It's usually so full of snails and black algae infestations that your tank ends up looking awful.

That said, as soon as I can get some more-pristine stock (and stabilize this die-off of course), I am planning to plant the tank.

On the topic of substrates, I've found sand, while it looks REALLY nice, to just be too much of a hassle to keep cleaned. I've found that with gravel, whether large or small grained, it is much easier to work with (doesn't get sucked into the gravel vac). Of course, that really only applies to freshwater tanks. I have a 120G reef tank at the office that has a very nice deep sand bed both in the tank and in the 40G breeder it uses for a sump. The clean-up critters there serve to keep it looking good.

I've never heard of any issues that magicly crop up with large-grain gravel beds over small. I have heard that a freshwater tank that has sand that is too deep (over 3 inches or so) can lead to problems with toxins building up in certain areas (whereas in a marine tank, the various critters serve to stir it up so you go 5" or so for a DSB). I have no real evidence of this, just ghost stories told late at night around the fishtank.

If there are any more thoughts or ideas, I'd love to hear them. I plan to do another 25% water change out tomorrow (I've always used slightly salted water, about 1tbs/10g), but I'm trying to avoid dosing the tank with any chemicals/

[dethjam316]

i would stay away from chemicals. that's my personal view, and you seem to share it in that it's a last resort. keep doing water changes and keep close watch. i think you're doing the right things, though i wouldn't have raised the temperature so dramatically. i would have advised "stepping it up" a little at a time, though in a 55g, at least the change won't happen instantaneously.

i wouldn't think the lava rock is the problem, nor do i think the large gravel is the issue here. as i said, i think it is probably a coincedence more than anything else. what's your ph?

[anonapersona]

That lava rock may be a major help to your filtration. Those pores are full of bacteria.

When was the last new purchase added to this tank? Could you have brought in some parasite or disease with a new fish?

[wiEngineer]

Update:

Lost another clown loach and 2 more tetras (a neon and a black neon).

The loach was literally swimming around fine with the other remaining clown loach mere minutes before I found it dead.

If I lose any more by the time I get home from work tomorrow, I think I'll have to either resort to chemical treatments or be prepared to write the entire tank off. :(

As for something riding in, it's possible. I added 5 black neon tetras about 2 weeks ago to the already 5 I had (from the same LFS). It's possible they were the culprit, but I talked to the LFS I got them from and their stock is doing fine.

*sigh*

[dethjam316]

after such high losses i think i would consider moving everything to another tank or container and stripping the tank down to nothing and re-building, boiling gravel and rocks, changing the filter cartridges and cleaning the filter, 100% new water. chemicals might just add to a bad mix of things and make matters worse in the situation you have at the moment. who knows what you're dealing with?

[wiEngineer]

Here's an update:

I haven't had any deaths for about 48 hours. I'm doing once-daily water changes of 10 gallons (about 15-20%) and keeping the temp at 82 through the end of the week.

All told, I lost: 2 Red Velvet Swords (1M and 1F), 2 clown loaches, a male beta, 1 rubber-lipped Pleco, 2 albino cories, 1 harliquin and maybe 10 to 12 various small tetras. Interestingly, I didn't lose a single rummy-nosed tetra (I have 6) nor any black or white-skirt tetras (4 of each).

I suspect this is probably not over, but at least they aren't dropping like flies any more.

[BettaFish]

Some questions:

Are you married? Does your wife/husband do the cleaning in the room with the aquarium? Is it possible that an airborn toxin is getting into the aquarium that way?

Have you put in new carpet recently -- carpet fumes may be the culprit.

Do you smoke? Inside the house?

Call your water company and ask about chlorine/chloramine usage. Have they recently added something? Increased the dosage?

Frankly the "large gravel" theory sounds preposterous to me.

[125gJoe]

I would hope everyone uses them, but how toxic can they be when one plunges their hand(s) in way up the arm? Since this fish kill is a mystery, this is one more consideration.

Ever looked at all those chemicals on the bottles and sprays?

[anonapersona]

Let's go back to the obvious.

Adding fish to a rather fully stocked aquarium with no quarantine time.

No pretreatments to knock off parasites, like a quick salt dip would have done.

No 4 weeks of observation, to see if the newcomers were full or worms or parsites that killed them.

BTW, how many fish did you have in this 55 gallon tank?

[famman]

Actually, I like anonapersona's methodology. Good level-headed call.
good luck
:)

[Tiger15]

If there is no ammonia or nitrite reading, and the fish died of no desease symptom, then it appears to be toxis effect from some unknown source. Did you put anything new to the tank that could release toxin? I once placed some ornamentl sliver shining rock in my tank that I bought from rock shop. The fish kept dying for no reason, not right away in a one to several days. I kept replacing new fish and they kept dying. I lost many fish before I realized that one little piece of silver rock must be releasing heavy metal that killed my fish. Once removed and I did a large water fish, the fish stopped dying.

[anonapersona]

Unless you have done a scraping of the fish that are alive and examined that under a microscope, and done a post-mortem on the dead, with full examinatin of internal organs, you can't just jump to "no disease".

Two weeks ago new fish were added. Now fish are dying right and left.

How were they added? Did any fish store water mix with tank water? Were there any dead fish in this store tank? What sort of procedures does this place use for new fish? Are they isolated in a tank all alone, just the new shipment, or are they dumped in with all the shipping water into a tank with the other fish of the same sort who have been there for weeks or months? If so, how would they know if there were any problems with these fish, vs the other older fish? Do dead fish stay in the tank long enough to be eaten? Do all the tanks share filtrations, so that what is in one tank is in each tank?

It is quite likely that these new fish had some bug of some sort that they were tolerant of, but the old fish had never been exposed to. Like small pox killing the Indians, it has decimated the tank.

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by Tiger15
If there is no ammonia or nitrite reading, and the fish died of no desease symptom, then it appears to be toxis effect from some unknown source. ...... Exactly.

My previous post is not at all that 'far fetched'.....
You may never find the toxin unless you have a positive test on the specific toxin.