12 fish died in less than 2 weeks!!! Please help! :(

WinterWind

WinterWind

Mad pianist
Feb 11, 2005
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Okay, I started with 7 fish in my 10 gallon tank. 3 serpae tetras, 3 zebra danios, and 1 skunk cory cat. They were thriving fine for 2 years, then suddenly all the danios and serpaes died off. I initially thought it was age killing them (I had one of the danios for almost 3 years). But then it was odd that all of them died within the same few days. Then I reasoned that it must be the chloramine that the city recently started to add to the water, and I forgot to add a chloramine remover.

Before the fish died, they had a distinctive red patch before they died. They seem pretty healthy a few hours before they die, but then suddenly fell ill with the red patch and just died after lying around.

Since I thought it was the chloramine, I went out and bought some chloramine remover, and 6 cardinals because all I had was one cory cat. I changed the water and added the chloramine remover. The next day, one of the cardinals died. I was puzzled. The other 5 cardinals seemed fine. Then another one died. Then there was four, which seemed fine. They played around more than usual and seemed very well. I mean, there seemed to be nothing wrong with them! Then I went someone for 2 hours and returned, and discovered 2 more dead. How could they die?! They were perfectly fine 2 hours ago!!! Now, as I am typing this, two more are dying, yet nothing was wrong the night before.

The weird thing is that nothing happened to my cory cat at all. My cory cat is doing very well, though all 12 other fish died. Is my cory resistant to this weird disease or water condition?

Can anyone tell me why my fish are dying and how to prevent it? What is the problem here? Any help would be very much appreciated.
 
I think that the deaths are unrelated from your initial loss of danios/tetras to the cardinals. The first group could have succumbed to chloramine in the water. The cardinals are a bit infamous for being delicate, and I wouldnt have added them right away to a tank that was unstable (had fish deaths in it just days before). Cardinals need very clean water, lots of space, a shoal, high temperatures in general (76-82F being prime). They're very sensitive to ammonia in any form.

I think your cory is just a tough guy to take down. Stabilize the tank by keeping up water changes and remember that chloramine remover. Hard lesson to learn, went through it myself recently.

Once your tank is stable I'd wait a week or two and then slowly restock with what you want.

>Sarah
 
Thanks for your input, Samala, but could the deaths have been unrelated? They died in pretty much the same way. In my observations, at least. It's weird because they seemed quite healthy a few hours before, and I came back in two hours and they were gone. Weird. Hopefully, it's not some type of parasite or disease. I DID add some new plants earlier that month. I added a bunch of anacharis that was kept with feeder goldfish at the LFS and a bunch of withering wisteria. I got the wisteria a week and a half ago, and took it out yesterday since it didn't look so good. It looked very yucky, and the stems were rotting. Some were like brown mush. Could that have added to the ammonia?
 
I just did a water change of 30% of the water or so.

I will be doing about 3 water changes per week for the next 2 or 3 weeks to see if I can get this mystery disease out of my watter, and hopefully it will help. If it is ammonia, will frequent water changes help?
 
Kasakato said:
Did you test your water? When was your last water change before the 30% one?
Click to expand...

I've never tested the water before, but I'm pretty sure it is ammonia poisining.

I just read a few articles about ammonia poisining, and the symptoms (red skin, inflamed gills, thrashing, sudden deaths & lethargy), and the causes for ammonia poisining were dead organic material, and infrequent water changes, which were what I had. I put in an almost dead wisteria that was rotting for about a week( I took it out) and then there was a dead zebra danio I didn't know about for 2 or 3 days, and then I hadn't changed the fish water for like more than 2 weeks, so it must be ammonia poisining because of the causes and symptoms.

How will I be able to lower the ammonia level quickly and efficiently, and keep it at 0 ppm?

This is what I plan to do:
Change water 3 times a week for the next month
Only keep my cory cat in the tank
Feed only once a week for the cory
(do you guys think stocking more plants at this time will be a good idea? Will more plants help the ammonia problem?, or will it be worse, or just not affect the problem?)

What else can I do?

Thanks a lot for your help.
 
WinterWind said:
how will I be able to lower the ammonia level quickly and efficiently, and keep it at 0 ppm?
Click to expand...
First I'd really recommend a test kit. To best plan your attack, you really should know what you are attacking. I have this one. It isn't top of the line, but it is cheap and accurate and will test almost everything you need to know.

Perhaps it was ammonia poisoning on your last batch, but if this tank has constantly had fish in it for 2 months you almost certainly have enough beneficial bacteria built up to support one Cory. Does your chlorine/chloramines treatment also detoxify ammonia and nitrite? If not Prime is a great candidate. Change 50% of your water and then treat your replacement water and your remaining tank water with a Prime like product. That should knock out any ammonia and nitrite if there is any.

Really though, get that test kit and test for ammonia and nitrite daily, extremely important. If ammonia/nitrite reappears, keep doing those 50% changes daily. If not, just do 30/50% weekly/bi-weekly depending on your fish load.

When you has concluded your water is stable and that you can add new fish, don't add them all at once. Add roughly two at a time and then wait 2 weeks before adding again. (Sorry if this is repetitive knowledge to you, just wanted to help just in case).

If you keep that water clean it should knock out your problems permanently.

(do you guys think stocking more plants at this time will be a good idea? Will more plants help the ammonia problem?, or will it be worse, or just not affect the problem?)
Click to expand...
Plants shouldn't hurt provided they come from a good source and don't introduce any disease. They do have a lot of good benefits though if you buy the right kind for your setup.
 
Ok, thanks for your help. I will be getting a test kit hopefully today, but maybe this weekend. Do test kits that test PH also can tell you what your CO2 levels are?
 
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