Fish died, one dying...feel like a failure

L

Lesmiz4

AC Members
Nov 1, 2005
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Hello.

I have a 30 gallon cube tank. It was stocked with:

5 Zebra Danios
5 Neon Tetras
4 Sterbai Cory's
3 Cherry Barbs
2 Dwarf Gouramis

I bought the gouramis and the cherry barbs about a month ago. A couple of days after I put them in the tank, I noticed that one of the gouramis had a spot, or a lesion on it's side. The other gouramis were chasing it around, so I thought it had gotten bitten. The lesion got bigger, and that gourami died. I thought it was killed by the other gourami. Then a Danio showed up one day with a HUGE lesion on it side...so I decided to set up a hospital tank, and put him in it...because I started to think it wasn't a bite after all. I got home today after being gone for a night and the Gourami was dead...the one I thought was biting everyone! He seemed fine, eating and swimming so I checked him out when I got him out of the tank but he had no marks on him.

Meanwhile the Danio in the hospital tank is sitting in the bottom gasping...his gills are going a mile a minute. I feel awful, and I feel like I'm killing all these poor fish.

My water parameters are good...I just checked them.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
PH: 7.8

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.
 
how long has the tank been established? sounds like nitrate poisoning-long term. change 25% every other day for a week. how deep is your gravel? how do you clean it?
 
I do a 50% water change every week, sometimes twice per week. How can it be Nitrate poisoning at only 10? I have about 1" of gravel on the bottom, and I vacuum the tank every week. The tank has been up and running and completely cycled about Mid-November 2005.
 
That's kind of what I'm figuring at this point. So my plan now is to leave my tank as is for a couple of months and watch and wait. If everything looks good I can turn my hospital tank into a QT so that I don't invite infection again. *sigh*
 
I Think Ur Ph Level Is So High, Bcoze All These Fishes Are Needed Neutral Ph. It Is Not A Final Thought Just What I Understand.
 
It's the PH of my water...we have a well. It's never flucuated...and everything I've ever read said it's better just to have the fish acclimate to the PH you have. I just use regular gravel.
 
It's not PH. My local water is also very alkaline (7.6-7.8) and even acid-loving fish can thrive if properly acclimated. My discus, rams and neons are happy little piggies. I even know someone who is breeding discus commercially in this same water. Your nitrate level isn't particularly dangerous, either. My guess is that your dwarf gouramis were infected with who-knows-what. I lost almost an entire tank of fish a few years ago from disease brought in by some dwarf gouramis (which I, foolishly, didn't quarrantine because they "looked" so healthy at first).

The most troubling aspect about open sores on fish is that it could be tuberculosis, which can be transmitted to humans. If you have any broken skin on your hands/arms, do not put them in the tank unless you're wearing gloves. Or, it could be a much less dangerous bacterial infection. At any rate, a small fish with a huge lesion will almost never recover and should probably be euthanized.

The tricky part is deciding whether to medicate the entire tank and run the risk of compromising your tank's cycle vs. treating only the fish that appear sick (in the quarrantine tank). Start by treating in the quarrantine tank, but if you discover that the ones in the main tank are starting to show symptoms, then I think you need to consider using a full-spectrum antibiotic and then do lots of water changes after the treatment. I hope everything turns out ok for you.
 
actaully, 30% water changes are a little much, i'd go with 10-15% once a week for maybe 4-5 weeks
 
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