HELP!!! 2 dead fish

M

midiman

AC Members
Jan 11, 2005
11
0
0
Two fish were healthy and eating when I put them into my tank, and then three days later stopped eating. 3 days after that, they leaned over on the bottom and died.

One was a PJ cardinal, the other a Bangghai. The Bangghai was AGGRESSIVE on the first two days, then after the third night, stayed in the background and kind of cowered.

There were no white spots.

There were no growths.

Traumatized by my mantis shrimp? (I'll believe almost anything at this point)


There was no rubbing against the bottom.

If it is some sort of bacterial disease, will allowing my tank to remain fallow (fishless ... I still have my inverts) for a month be sufficient to solve the problem?

Will a month be long enough for other parasites (other than ich, for example)

I'm really growing quite frustrated ... any ideas?
 
Mixing cardinals isn't usually a good idea--they often are very aggressive with each other. The stress from being together may be the cause, combined with the normal stress from moving. Or, could be the fish were stressed at the LFS or during shipping. I doubt it was the shrimp--typically, they don't leave remains.
 
The Bangghai was added after the PJ had died (which was dumb on my part). I'm thinking it has to be some kind of agent in the water, but I have to doubt that it can be a toxin, because if it is, it only kills fish and not crabs, shrimp, snails and mushroom coral, whcih are all thriving.

I'm running strilization now, and will bo water changes and carbon for the next month. In the meantime, I'll put a fish into QT with the same RO water that I use for my tank. IF that one dies in the same manner, too, I have a real problem :sad .

I also am inclined to believe that if it had been ammonia or nitrite, I would have lost the inverts, rather than the fish.
 
Could be a virus. I had 'something' that hit my tank, killed 3 fish, including some resistant to parasites, and nothing new had been added to the tank. It was quick--fish went from fine, to pale and panting, to twitching spastically to dead in 24 hours. The other fish in the tank, and all corals and inverts showed no signs of stress.

Any corals other than the mushrooms?
 
Depends--I'm just guessing it may have been viral. When it happened in my tank, I pulled out all the fish, ran carbon, and quarantine the fish for 6 weeks. Added them back, no problems. If you already have a UV, it may be worth running, but I wouldn't buy one just for this. The fishless period is more likely to help. It's rough knowing what to do in these situations--when you can't identify the cause, how can you treat it? Tough call--I prefer to avoid medications and complicated technology if I can.
 
OrionGirl said:
Tough call--I prefer to avoid medications and complicated technology if I can.
Click to expand...


Me, too!!

Thanks for taking the time to help. I'll go 6 weeks instead of 1 month. In the meantime, I'll hope that water changes, carbon, and UV will do the trick.

Appartnly, I'll be able to wrok on my invert and coral collection in the meantime. S-L-O-W-L-Y

Thanks again,
John
 
Virus or no, the mantis shrimp is still a concern.
These should never be kept with fish.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom