First fish died .. now fish appear to have blood on fins

[telesto]

Hello all,

I was saddened yesterday when my first fish, a bala shark, died in my 30 gallon tank I have had up and running since November. I thought it may have just been a random death, but I've been looking at my fish and they appear to have two similar problems:

1) Fast breathing. I thought this might have been normal but the bala shark and red-tailed shark especially seemed to be breathing very fast, about two "breaths" per second, and their mouths are opening fairly wide.

2) Red, bloody coloration on fins. I just noticed this today. It is especially apparent on my other bala shark. It also seems to be on my two blue gouramis, but only on their small side fins and not their rear fins. I can't see any on my zebra danios, pleco, or red-tailed shark, but that's because of either their size or natural coloration.

Here is my tank information:

- 30 gallon freshwater tank
- Running for 3.5 months
- Aquaclear 100 filter
- 1 medium bala shark, 2 medium blue gouramis, 1 medium red tailed shark, 4 small zebra danios. A week ago added a medium rubber lipped pleco and just yesterday night (bala shark died two days ago) a pictus catfish.
- I vacuum 10% of the water per week, on average. Sometimes it goes two weeks and I do 20%.
- Kept at 78 degrees

I have to admit that I rarely do any testing. I was told NOT to mess with pH levels. I had my water tested early on by a pet store and they told me my water was fine, though it was fairly alkaline. I've tried using a nearly 10 year old pH tester that shows it to be at 7.6, but I have no idea how reliable this is.

I just realized something that may have caused a problem, but it may be completely unreleated: My Aquaclear filter's lid keeps popping up because the basked that holds my carbon and foam filter keeps rising up. I attempted to push it back down, but in the process it dumped out all this crap into the tank. I immediately did a water change, but unfortunately the same thing happened again the night after. I don't know whether or not this caused my current problem or not.

I plan to go to Petsmart tonight to have the water tested, and if you all recommend to do so purchase some testing kits. Thank you very much for any advice!

[Menagerie]

[center:f66c2ed700] Welcome to AA, telesto!! [/center:f66c2ed700]

My Aquaclear filter's lid keeps popping up because the basked that holds my carbon and foam filter keeps rising up. I attempted to push it back down, but in the process it dumped out all this crap into the tank. I

That's not the cause. I believe your fish are suffering from hemorrhagic septicemia, which can be caused by bacteria or a virus. Hope that it is a bacterial infection, because that is the only one that can be cured. Get some kanamycin based meds--Seachem makes Kanaplex. Put it in the water and the food.

Find out your water parameters [acronym:f66c2ed700="As soon as possible"]ASAP[/acronym:f66c2ed700] (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate).

[telesto]

Oh no, I looked that up and found a picture and I'm 95% sure you're correct. I will go out today and try to find what you've mentioned, though I have no idea if they have it at Petsmart and (unfortunately) that's the only pet store within 15 miles. Also I'm sure no one there will know what they are talking about so I'll just have to look on the boxes for kanamycin I assume?

I feel horrible becuase it sounds like this could be due to bad water conditions or overcrowding. I doubt it's overcrowding with that number of fish, and I do water changes fairly often. Could I need to clean my Aquaclear filter? I was of the belief that it wasn't good to clean those as they establish a natural bacteria.

I will pick up an ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate test kit and come back with the results.

Also, thanks for the friendly welcome

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

They have anti-bacterial food there, but I can't remember what the active ingredient is in it. (little bottle on a card)

They also have a master test kit there by Aquarium Pharm, it might be a good start, avoid the "Quick Dip" sticks since they have such a huge span between the numbers.

and Welcome to AA, (meetings are on thursday )

[Menagerie]

I feel horrible becuase it sounds like this could be due to bad water conditions or overcrowding.

And sometimes it just happens. Last year, my pleco had this. He was (still is) in a tank with 15 other fish. Luckily, AA saved the day and I began a heavy treatment with kanamycin and Melafix.

Filter media can be cleaned by rinsing them in used tank water. You don't want to over do it, but you can get the gunk off of it. This will not dislodge the bacteria.

Other meds that you can look for (keep in mind, I have only used kanaplex):
• Kanacyn
• Spectrogram
• Oxymanna (as feed)
• Tetracycline with Neomycin
• Furacyn
• Neosulfex
• Steri-Salt Plus (as a Conditioner)
• Res-Q (as a Preventative)

Check out this site: http://www.aquatronicsonline.com/hobbyist/hobbyist3.htm
This site lists active ingredients of common meds: http://groups.msn.com/AngieandAndrew...dications.msnw

[telesto]

An update, and another question.

Unfortunately last week my other bala shark died the same day I went out to purchase the medicine. The medicine I bought said it worked for this disease, though I didn't notice mention of any of the ingredients you all listed (I only saw ingredients related to sodium).

Anyway, I did a 50% water change before putting in the medicine. I put in the medicine and the next morning the symptoms looked much better. I decided not to buy more medicine, both because the fish looked better and because the medicine was fairly expensive for me ($10 for one dose and they recommended three).

However one of the gouramis is very sick. I can't really see any visible problems, although it looks like its gills may be inflamed. It's very sad though, because she lies vertically against one of the plants and darts up for air once every five minutes.

The other gourami is acting pretty good, but has a white ball of .. something .. on one of its "whiskers"

I'm worried that the medicine I used might have been the type that isn't good for gouramis.

Any suggestions on where to proceed from here?

[Menagerie]

What is the exact med you purchased? When treating fish, it is best to isolate them into a [acronym:9fcf29d244="quarantine or quart depending on context"]QT[/acronym:9fcf29d244] tank, and then you are not treating a whole tank.