Sudden fish loss - please help !!

T

trancecommander

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Feb 28, 2004
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Knoxville, TN
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My tank is about 6 months old now and everything seemed to be moving along just fine until last week. My tank is a 36 gal and here's what I had stocked in the tank (before the losses) :

3 mollies (2 female, 1 male)
3 swordtails (3 female, 1 male)
3 Juli Corys
5 White Cloud Mountain Minnows
10 Cardinal Tetras

I've added the fish slowly over time but all have been in there and doing well for the last 3 months.

Since last week, fish have suddenly started dying :sad The water parameters are fine .... Ph a steady 7.4, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrItes, 20ppm nitrAtes. Temp. is always at 76 degrees. The water is clear and I do weekly 10-15% changes with a gravel vacuum every other week.

Last week, I lost one female sword and one male molly. This past weekend I lost a couple of minnows. Today when I got home from work, I found one more minnow and a tetra dead and stuck to the filter. :sad

One other minnow has a brownish-black color to his skin around the mouth and I'm afraid he's on his way out as well !!

I would appreciate it if anyone could offer suggestions into what might be wrong or what I could do cos I'm pretty new to the hobby and don't have a clue. I can't bear to see any more of my fish die :(

Thank you very much .... I appreciate it !!
 
Doesn't sound like water quality, sounds like some kind of bacteria or fungus?

I don't know.
 
I agree, I don't know what exactly it is, but there are threads on here that deal with diferent kinds of fishy dessises. I know upping the temp and adding a little sea-salt can help. Wait for someone to back me up on this before you try it though!
 
Wow, quite puzzling. It could just be an ending lifespan of your fish, ive never kept any livebearers over 6 month, except maybe my orange guppie..named.."garfield"..lol..anyways... have you recently cleaned the tank?
 
I would add a small amount of salt to the tank and add some Multi Cure and Anti Fungus. Salt for longer periods effects Cories but for a short period to help remove a disease/fungus it will not be harmful.
 
I actually have added some aquarium salt to my tank a month back – I was told that it helps keep diseases away (to a certain extent at least) and in small quantities is actually good for the fish even if they’re freshwater. So I don’t know what the problem would be :(
 
Salt for FW fish--other than when medicating a specific ailment--is not 'good' for the fish. It's not always fatal, but it is not something they need, especially if the amount of salt is not monitored.

However--this sounds like something other than a reaction to salinity changes.

What was the last fish added before the die-offs started? Last water change? Any water treatments? Any changes in routine? Any signs of aggression between fish? Hardness? This time of year, utilities frequently need to add more chlorine/chloramine to the water, might be worth it to call and check on that, and see if there are any other changes they've made, such as cleaning out any lines.
 
OG ... thanks for your reply ... the last fish I added was a male and a female swordtail. As far as water changes go, the last time I did a water change was about 10 days back. I did about a 20% water change.

I'll call my utilities company about the chlorine issue ... but when I add fresh water during a water change, I make sure to add plenty of the "Complete Care" water conditioner to remove the chlorines/chloramines.

One thing that *might* be relevant .... I used to have a red tail shark in the tank ... and I know for a fact that he used to chase at least one of the mollies around during feeding ... and even nipped a bit of the fin (which has since healed) I took the shark back to my LFS about a month back due to the incompatibility issues. Could this be a result of the stress that I'm just now seeing?

Edit: I guess I'll stop the salt addition since it is not really needed as a regular thing.
 
By 'plenty'. do you mean more than the amount needed for the volume of water? I'm not familiar with the Complete Care product--what all does it say it does?

If the last fish were added more than 15 days before this happened, it's unlikely they introduced something, but still possible. Any change is fecal matter?

A month would be a long time for a delayed shock reaction--unlikely to be related.
 
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