Three days ago I purchased 6 Leopard Danios from the LFS. They had just come in that day, so I wondered how many I would lose during the first week or so. When I got them home, I placed them in an established, planted 10 gallon tank that has no other fish, but has 6 ghost shrimp and several ramshorn snails. All 6 fish looked healthy, very active and had excellent appetites.
I was feeding them Top Fin Tropical Flakes and Sally's Freeze Dried Bloodworms. The shrimp and snails were fed Hakari Crab Cuisine to supplement leftovers. Other fish and snail tanks are being fed this same food without issue.
To continue, at feeding time in the morning two days later, I noticed one of the Leopard Danios was missing. I looked around to find all that was left was a skeleton in one of the corners of the tank. Apparently, the shrimp and snails had taken care of the carcass in short order during the night. Since there was virtually nothing left, I could not tell what happened in the first place.
This morning, at feeding time, I found that one of the remaining five was swimming around slowly (highly unusual for this bunch) and it appeared that his mouth was stuck open. While moving him to a separate tank, I took a moment to check and his mouth was closed. I put him in the smaller tank (with water from the original) and again, his mouth was open. Mind you, he he had not been gasping at the surface. At second glance, he also appeared to have his gills wide open. Within a few minutes, he was laying on the bottom of the tank.
I took him out of the tank for another look and could see small red areas on his sides. His gills appeared to be slightly red, but not swollen and there was no evidence of anything else. The other fish still appear to be fine, but I tested the water. Here are the results:
Temp 75
pH 7.2
Nitrates between 5 and 10
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Chlorine 0
Chloramine 0
GH 7
KH 4
Any ideas? All I can think of is it may have been something started before or in transit to the LFS or possibly the stress of it all. I just think it's wierd that the mouth and gills were open, yet the fish was not gasping at the surface or did not appear to be gasping at all. That and the small red areas on his sides are what I observed.
I was feeding them Top Fin Tropical Flakes and Sally's Freeze Dried Bloodworms. The shrimp and snails were fed Hakari Crab Cuisine to supplement leftovers. Other fish and snail tanks are being fed this same food without issue.
To continue, at feeding time in the morning two days later, I noticed one of the Leopard Danios was missing. I looked around to find all that was left was a skeleton in one of the corners of the tank. Apparently, the shrimp and snails had taken care of the carcass in short order during the night. Since there was virtually nothing left, I could not tell what happened in the first place.
This morning, at feeding time, I found that one of the remaining five was swimming around slowly (highly unusual for this bunch) and it appeared that his mouth was stuck open. While moving him to a separate tank, I took a moment to check and his mouth was closed. I put him in the smaller tank (with water from the original) and again, his mouth was open. Mind you, he he had not been gasping at the surface. At second glance, he also appeared to have his gills wide open. Within a few minutes, he was laying on the bottom of the tank.
I took him out of the tank for another look and could see small red areas on his sides. His gills appeared to be slightly red, but not swollen and there was no evidence of anything else. The other fish still appear to be fine, but I tested the water. Here are the results:
Temp 75
pH 7.2
Nitrates between 5 and 10
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Chlorine 0
Chloramine 0
GH 7
KH 4
Any ideas? All I can think of is it may have been something started before or in transit to the LFS or possibly the stress of it all. I just think it's wierd that the mouth and gills were open, yet the fish was not gasping at the surface or did not appear to be gasping at all. That and the small red areas on his sides are what I observed.
