Cichlids dying

[wilson004]

Hi, i have a 55gal malawi tank and have had it set up for at least a year now. This last week my fish have been acting strange and about 8 have died. It seems all they do now is swim at the top gasping for air. When they are dying its weird too, they turn upsdie down then all the sudden will swim crazy and run into everything in the tank, its really hard to watch. If anyone could help me it'd be great i just lost another 2 tonight and wouldnt like to lose anymore thanks for the help!

 

[khombre]

Hey there wilson, what are your current water readings of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates? And how regularly do you perform water changes?

 

[Hevydevy]

If they're gasping for air it's a sign that there isn't enough oxygen in the water, which would suggest that your water paramaters aren't right?

Do you have a test kit? As khombre said, you need to check your paramaters.

There could also be a problem with your filter.

Unfortunately I had the same problem this week.

I knew my filter was on the fritz but I thought I'd fixed it with a good clean. Unfortunately it died completely while I was asleep two nights ago and I woke up to find five dead cichlids and my other three fish gasping for air.

I raced to the aquarium, bought a new (and better quality) filter and luckily I've managed to save them.

Do you change your water every week? Is the water clear or does it have a green tinge?

It's not nice losing fish at all.

I lost two yellow labs, my electric blue and blue dolphin.

My Red Jewell was the only cichlid that survived (and has quiclky returned to full health with the new filter), so did my synodontis eupterus and rainbow shark.

The catfish is my fav so glad he survived but the electric blue was a fav as well. I was also a bit sad today when I looked at the holes in one of my rocks and there were no yellows there staring out at me

 

[Coler]

As noted above, this is likely a sign that they are not getting enough oxygen. What filters are you using ? How many fish in the tank ?

Test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I am guessing that if your filtration is adequate you have excess nitrite - it prevents the fish from metabolising oxygen. Ammonia on the other hand physically damages the gills; excess ammonia will usually result in fish inacative at the bottom of the tank, and you may see red burns on them.

However, sick fish will head towards the surface - in nature this is where the warmer water is, and oxygen is more available. Testing your parameters would at the least exclude nitrogen cycle problems.

Can you also describe your maintenance schedule ? You need to change minimum 25% weekly with a good conditioner to control nitrates, and perform regular filter maintenance (clean media in tank water).

Finally, if you have no test kit, I would do a very large water change (can't hurt at this stage) and get a kit as soon as possible. If you have some Seachem Prime it will detoxify ammonia, and nitrite (the latter at 5 times regular dose) and will anyway do no harm if you add it. Some aquarium salt dosed as per bottle instructions will also alleviate the effect of a nitrite spike and, again, can do no harm.

 

[Mij]

Fish swimming up side down points to ph shock also. Need water paramters to make more of an accurate diagnosis.

 

[wilson004]

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 30

I think i have fixed the probelm thanks guys, i went and bought a new output piece for my fluval 404 that i lost a couple weeks back so i can direct the water to the surface now and not have it point directly downwards and i also picked up 2 fluval 4 plus internal filters for added filtration/aeration. Just one question, how good of a job do the fluval 4 plus internal filters do for biological and chemical filtration. I purchased tehm from big als and the guy told me they are great for chemical filtration but not so good for biological but they are exellent for oxygenating the tank water. Thnaks for the help!

 

[cgcomeaux]

thats a little high for nitrate levels do at least a 50% water change and try to get it to at least 10ppm. Your fish will thank you for it