Hello - I have a 10 gallon planted tank. Before Friday, it contained three khuli loaches (striped variety), four pygmy corys, and a juvenile betta. I just checked the water, and I've got 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and about 0.25ppm of nitrates. The temperature is at 78 F.
On Friday afternoon, one of the loaches started acting weird. She started popping out what I assume are eggs (teeny little greenish white balls), not moving around normally, and spine abnormally straight. After putting out about 100 of the eggs, she died. There was some red flushing around the gills and a red line down the middle of the body, but absolutely no sign of physical injury.
At that point in time, the other two loaches were doing fine, happily hanging off plants and such.
When I turned on the lights this morning, they were both dead. No sign of eggs this time, but they had the same red flushing around the gills and red line down the body that the female had earlier. Also, they had seemed to produce an abnormal amount of mucus, because the sand in the tank was sticking to them.
Everybody else is doing fine, so I don't know what to make of this. Conditions have been fairly stable - I did do a 30% water change on Wendsday, but that's fairly routine.
Ideas?
On Friday afternoon, one of the loaches started acting weird. She started popping out what I assume are eggs (teeny little greenish white balls), not moving around normally, and spine abnormally straight. After putting out about 100 of the eggs, she died. There was some red flushing around the gills and a red line down the middle of the body, but absolutely no sign of physical injury.
At that point in time, the other two loaches were doing fine, happily hanging off plants and such.
When I turned on the lights this morning, they were both dead. No sign of eggs this time, but they had the same red flushing around the gills and red line down the body that the female had earlier. Also, they had seemed to produce an abnormal amount of mucus, because the sand in the tank was sticking to them.
Everybody else is doing fine, so I don't know what to make of this. Conditions have been fairly stable - I did do a 30% water change on Wendsday, but that's fairly routine.
Ideas?