Fish dying

[anna55]

I’ve had my 29 gallon going for a little while now and it was doing great. It’s stocked with 3 blue rams, 9 pencilfish, 3 ottos and 2 dwarf gourami and a black mystery snail. Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5. Ph 8. Everything was doing good until I added 6 rummynose tetras 4 days ago. One of them died that night and the rest one after another the next day. This morning I’ve lost six of my pencilfish and one of the rams. There is nothing visibly wrong with any of them, they just keep dying. Can anyone tell me what this could be and what I can do about it, I’m so upset about the loss of so many fish at once.

 

[Delapool]

I’d suspect bacterial infection to be jumping from different fish and perhaps on speed as well. Any bloating, popeye or gills changing colour?

 

[anna55]

Dying fish

I couldn’t see anything physically wrong with the first few fish but the ram that died last night had Popeye and one pencilfish was bloated. The only things in the tank that don’t seem to be affected are the ottos and dwarf gourami. Someone commented that blue rams need a temp of about 82. My tank stays around 81.4 sometimes 82. I know it wasn’t the temp that killed them. It just seems odd to me that everything started dying right after I got the rummynose. Two of my ottos came from that same Lfs so I don’t think it would be a difference in water parameters like someone else suggested. The rams and pencilfish came from Aquatic Arts but all the other fish came from pet smart and Petco. Thank you so much for your concern. I’m just going to keep up my water changes and hope for the best with the rest of the fish I have left.

 

[King Fisher]

I second delapool, bacterial infection. This is why I usually medicate fish in quarantine for a multitude of things over the course of a month regardless if they look good or not.

 

[Delapool]

That’s a good point above on quarantine as well. Shop I go to is very good (and expensive lol), and half the shop people are in local Cichlid society but even they get the occasional issue.