Brennos Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 I have lost 4 fish in the last few days. Fist I found a dead guppie female, with no signs of sickness or nipping, or anything at all, dead on the gravel, the next day, I found a male guppie with almost no tail left stuck to the filter stalk thingy, then I noticed that a second male, was swimming around with very little tail left, just a small fork shaped end, he died yesterday, 24hours after I first found him, and then today I noticed my betta (who has been in the tank with the guppies for ages, and never nipped or even went near them) dead in the long grass plants I have up the back of the tank, he also has no signs of sickness or fighting. I assume the two males fought with each other over a pregnant female in the tank, but i can not explain the betta or the first female found. I have two Bristlenoses in the tank, and they are fine, and the rest of the guppies, 2 males 5 females, seem to be doing great. I have done water tests every 2 days for the last 4 weeks, since setting up this tank, and nothing has been out of the ordinary, The ammonia is never out of the first colour range on the API test kit colour chart, same with the nitrate, and nitrite, and the ph is good. The temp varies a bit, (warm house) average is around 26, but i have seen it up as high as 28, and as low as 25. I am sort of stuck, I would like to add some more fish to the tank, to replace those I have lost, and stock it a bit more now its almost fully cycled, but, if i am going to be loosing fish like this, I don't want to right now. Tank is a ar620t 130l by the way. If anyone has any idea's, or any tests i can do other than what I have done, id be grateful for any help to get to the bottom of this issue. I guess its possible its a coincidence, but it doesn't sit right with me to be honest. I was so sad to see my betta dead. He has been an awesome fish, and was my first tropical fish, so fancy and pretty. I don't think i will find another "Simon the Siamese" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skippy_49nz Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 How are your ph levels? You say you are doing water tests and everything is ok, but my sister has just informed me her Manukau water supply has really high ph over the past couple of days for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted December 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 How are your ph levels? You say you are doing water tests and everything is ok, but my sister has just informed me her Manukau water supply has really high ph over the past couple of days for some reason. 7.6 or thereabouts. So i woke up this morning and headed out to the tank to have a look, and yet another dead guppie, this time another male, with out any fin damage, or any visible signs of illness. So now I'm down to one male, 5 females and 2 bristlenoses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillnzcookie Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 This is just a stab in the dark, but if you are using tap water, is it possible there is something in the water that is killing your fish? Do you have fluoride in your tap water? I don't know if this is a problem, as we don't have it here, but maybe there's something in the water that is supposedly safe for humans but toxic to fish. Good luck - it's horrible losing fish and not knowing why or what you can do to stop it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxdarnixx Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 take a water sample to your lfs and get it tested for phosphorous,i had exactly the same thing happen and it turned out being that,the lfs will also be able to do a larger range of tests for you,do you do regular water changes and when you add new water to you put a conditionar in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxdarnixx Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 are you out in the waps or in town? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 How long has the tank been set up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted December 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 I'm in the suburbs of Auckland. I always use conditioner. I will take a sample down to Animates today and see if i can get it tested. Tank has been setup for 4 weeks with fish. 3 weeks before that with out fish, the filter media was taken from a previous set up tank, and the tests show nothing out of the ordinary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 Did you add the fish gradually or all at once? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted December 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Gradually, fist the bristle noses, then the siamese, then 3 of the guppies, then the rest of the guppies, over 4 weeks. the last lot of guppies i added last monday, and they are all fine, except 1 of them, which was one of the fighting males. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 A stab in the dark but it is possible that the new fish you added were carrying something that has passed onto your existing fish. Some guppy imports do carry disease which most of them have become immune to but when you add them to a tank with guppies not previously exposed these ones die off. I would have expected however that they would have shown some signs before dying. Bettas are pretty resistant as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted December 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 Im of half a mind to empty the tank and start over now the siamese is dead, he was the only thing holding me back from getting different fish. I really like angels and oscars. but i'd like to keep my bristle noses, so i don't know what to do now. Disease is my only answer to the dieing fish now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lani Posted January 3, 2010 Report Share Posted January 3, 2010 Brennos, I also lost a couple of male guppies and about 5 Sunset WCMM the week before Christmas, central Auckland area. All water tests were normal, it did appear there was bacterial type infection. LFS sold me an AquaOne BioPet product which worked, along with a capful of colloidal silver daily, for a week. Small well planted tank, 38L. Sunset minnows, now only 2 female guppies and 7 fry, 2 leopard danios. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2010 Brennos, I also lost a couple of male guppies and about 5 Sunset WCMM the week before Christmas, central Auckland area. All water tests were normal, it did appear there was bacterial type infection. LFS sold me an AquaOne BioPet product which worked, along with a capful of colloidal silver daily, for a week. Small well planted tank, 38L. Sunset minnows, now only 2 female guppies and 7 fry, 2 leopard danios. I spoke to one guy at Hollywood, and he said something similar, about loosing guppies that is, and he said others had the same problem. Weird huh?. I haven't lost any since the last post in this thread. I haven't done anything to my water, other than 15% water changes 2 daily, and testing the water daily, including a phosphate test. All fish are accounted for, including 4 guppie fry. I also took a risk, and added some new fish, 5 Harlequins, and 5 Glowlight tetra's, and I have my eye on some Gourami's. So hopefully my problems are over. I will look into the Biopet though, might be handy to have in the medicine cupboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lani Posted January 3, 2010 Report Share Posted January 3, 2010 Brennos, I am sure that my prob came with the guppies and/or plants from Animates, Mt Eden [hope no-one from that shop watches these posts], and it was HFF which sorted the prob for me. Or, is there some atmospheric condition which affects our water worlds?! Today I had to ditch a lovely crypt from Animates which was showing signs of black beard algae. All the holidays seems I had my head in the aquariums Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted January 4, 2010 Report Share Posted January 4, 2010 I don't think its the water as I am on the same supply as you and have had absolutely no problems with the water FYI black beard algae is the bane of the planted tank world Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 4, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2010 Yeah, I had that in my last tank, but have been lucky enough not to get it yet. I only lost fish after I bought new ones from a pet store in Glenn Innes, The females and male I got from them are still around, but the other guppies, bought from Goldfish Pagoda are all dead bar one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 And so it start again. Last night one of my Gourami's died. She had been hanging around the back of the tank since day 1, in the long grass behind the rocks, i figured she was just shy, she did come out a fair bit, but always went back to the grass after a while. Last nght she appeared fine when i looked at her, then 1/2 an our later dead. I fished her out, checked, made sure, but def dead , so I carried on, and noticed my latest arrival, a 2 month old albino bristle nose was also dead so i fished it out, and did an immediate ph/nitrate/nitrite and ammonia test, everything was 0ppm but the ph was in the mid 6 range, dropped a fair amount since the last test 2 days ago, when it was 7.2ish. I added some bicarb of soda, which lifted the ph, but I fear it may of been to late, as i lost 2 of my glow lights as well last night. The tap water i use is around 7.2 ph so i dnt know whats cause it to drop in 2 days. I woke up this morning and noticed 2 of my guppies, 1 male and 1 female were stuck in the filter head i removed them, but they just floated around and then died. I have done a partial water change, and removed all the dead fish, and done a gravel clean. i am at a loss as to what's happening, i'm about to go to my LFS to get a heater for my other tank, is there any medication i can get to help these guys out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted January 6, 2010 Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 Fish get stressed when you mess with the pH too much. Most fish aren't generally bothered what the pH of the water is, so long as its not too extreme either way. pH 7 is generally considered ideal but going either way a little isn't going to harm them. My tank water is always above 7. Its something I can't control, believe me I have tried and it resulted in more problems and dead fish. What kind of gourami was it? I've had Dwarf Neon Gouramis and Blue/Three Spot Gourami's and they never lasted very long. I've read that other people have had trouble keeping gouramis alive too. Re your tests, nitrate in particular, (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) but if your tank is cycled and the nitrogen cycle is doing what it should, wouldn't there be a little nitrate present? A little bit of nitrate is not harmful. I would guess that your tank has not cycled properly. I would suggest you stop adding more fish at this point and just carry on with the remaining fish. Keep doing regular water changes and keep an eye on your nitrates, nitrites & ammonia. How many fish were in the tank when you started? And how many do you have now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 In the tank at present there is 1 gourami, 2 bristlenoses, annd 3 platys. Thats it. I have taken the remaining glowlights and harlequins and guppies out, they are in my planted tank right now. 3 days ago I had 5 harequins, 5 tetras, 2 bristelenoses, 2 gouramis, and 5 guppies. The guppies i have had for about 5 months. everything else has been added over the last 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted January 6, 2010 Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 What else is in the tank - decor-wise? I want to know why your pH dropped suddenly. Apart from that, I wonder about some sort of internal infection that has come in with a fish as everything else appears OK. Reading back I see you set the tank up, with fish, the last week on November and used matured media so all should have been fine, assuming you added the same amount of stock as was in the tank from which you took the media. This last lot of fish dying are all more "delicate" so it would not take much of anything to kill them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 In the tank is some shist rock, some drift wood, and some plants, gravel from hff cant remember the name. that's all really, Tank is a AR620T, and filter is a CF1200, i have a air pump delivering oxygen, and a aquaone heater and heater cover. I have added a cf1200 filter yesterday, but all my filter media went into that. That's the only thing that i have changed, which would cause ammonia spikes, but i didn't think it would affect the PH. Just did a water test now everything is 0ppm ( i just did a water change though) so assumption says that's squewed and i need to do another tonight) ph is 7-7.5 When i added the old media to the new tank, i added the same fish, i then slowly over December added all the fish i had. except 2 bristle noses i got 2 days ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkfur Posted January 6, 2010 Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 I wonder if its a real nasty bacterial infection I have had an outbreak once where most of the fish showed no symptoms just mysteriously dropped dead, the ones that did show symptoms died within a matter of hours. Furan fixed it, but I wouldn't go there unless I really thought I had a bad bacterial infection ( I tried some more gentle treatments first to no avail) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brennos Posted January 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 gentle treatments? Like what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted January 7, 2010 Report Share Posted January 7, 2010 Some guppy imports do carry disease which most of them have become immune to but when you add them to a tank with guppies not previously exposed these ones die off. I'm just going to track back on what you have said. Is this correct 'all your fish were fine until you added some new guppies from a different store' ... ...because if that was the case these fish more than likely were carrying something that has infected the rest of the fish in the tank. A gentle treatment is to add rock salt to the water at the rate of 1 gram per litre of water. However I am not sure if this will work on bacteria. Furan is one of the last ditch treatments and if you are using it read the instructions as it is a known carcinogen in mice experiments. Don't worry about your pH as changing the pH will be putting way more stress on your fish. Fluctuating pH causes more problems than one that is not ideal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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