Dying fish

[mfuchs]

A friend of mine has a 40gal fw community tank. It includes platyes, sword tails and Mollies. She has had the tank setup for about a year now. She currently has one fish left from the original ones. The second to last one just died today. We are just wondering if this is common - what is the life span on these types of fw fish. The one that just died started to show signs of labored and fast breathing and had trouble swimming to the surface. All the other fish in the aquarium are fine.

Should she expect to be replacing all her fish every 6 - 12 months? Or is she doing something wrong?

 

[Guppyman]

Dying Fish

Hi,

Anytime that you get a year out of a pet shop live bearer, consider it a success. Although I have had guppies live for two years, a year is very common for his type of fish, platies and mollies included. Since these are usually the least expensive fish you can buy, I'd recommend a 6 to 8 month expectency - but YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!

Guppyman

 

[Allivymar]

They SHOULD live a little longer then that! I see you are also a fish keeper...have you asked her what her water parameters are? Does she do regular water changes with treated fresh water at the same tank temps? The fish mentioned are all live bearers; do they breed with regularity?

 

[mfuchs]

do they breed with regularity?

No, at the beginning she had one fish that had 3 little ones, but only one survived. After that, there has been no signs of new fish.

Does she do regular water changes

Not as much as she should, but we did just changed the water abt 2 weeks ago. I had thought that that might be what is causing it, but why did it not affect the other fish? I will be passing by this weekend and will test the water to see if everything is good. I am more experienced in sw, so what tests should I be testing for? obviously PH and ammonia. Do I need to test for nitrate or nitrite? any suggestions?

 

[Allivymar]

*nods*

Definitely test for the basic nitrogen products and Ph. As you know, always the place to start

What sort of surface agitation does she have? Are there any other behaviors besides the breathing issues? My guess is its an O2 issue, but I can't quite figure out why. Could be disease, lack of O2 in the water, ammonia burns, nitrite poisoning...its so hard to know with such little info.

 

[mfuchs]

OK, I tested the water - Ammonia did not even register -- Nitrite was also not present. O2 was normal. The only problem was a low PH. The PH was around 5!! I already started to increase it slowly. The only thing is that only one fish is being affected. All the others are acting fine. The fish appears to look fine - but hard to tell since it is always hiding. But for most part does not look like it has any symtoms of disease. The fish is still breathing rapidly and stays near the surface.
Any ideas?

 

[Allivymar]

Whoa that is low. Pretty acidic. Good to know there aren't measureable nitrogenous waste in there tho!

Its so hard to say; I mean, obviously there are breathing issues, but whats causing them? You've ruled out ammonia and nitrites, but there could be a slew of other things. Could be ich; sometimes it infests just the gills and the fish have major probs breathing for example.