Help, lost 10 fish in 2-3 days

[jibboo]

My tank is in utter turmoil ... I just lost 3 clown loaches, 1 platy, 2 hillstreams loaches, 1 killie, 3 rams and a few otos.

I tested with my normal 5-in-1 test strips and everything looks the same as always (low nitrates, 0 nitrites and 0 ammonia, ph 7.6) ... fish store confirmed the same readings.

The only thing I can think of is that I did add some new fish: 4 gold killifish, a 4 otos and a couple hillstreams loaches.

Now the strange thing is ... it wasn't the new fish that died ... it was my old fish (ie been there for months). They didn't show any signs of sickness that I saw. My last ram just died as well, and it appeared stressed as its mouth was opening and closing rather quickly (like it was breathing hard ... which it wasn't doing prior). This all happened about 2 days after I added the new fish.

I've done a partial water change since ... but I'm at a total loss as to why this is happening ... and I want it to stop.

Is there something wrong with my water that I haven't tested for?

Does anyone have any idea as to why this might be happening and/or what I can do to help it?

 

[Menagerie]

Try looking through these sites:
http://www.aquatronicsonline.com/hobbyist/hobbyist3.htm
http://www.aqualink.com/disease/sdisease.html
http://fish.mongabay.com/diseases.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/AqBizSubWebIndex/fishdisho.htm
http://www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

 

[Zagz]

I recently had something similar happen, I lost a few mollies in a row. Right after them I lost my green cories. Strangely enough no symptoms. I did water changes, tested parameters and no reason why. I moved the mollies to another tank and have had no problems since then. I can't explain it. I wish I could offer you a solution but wanted you to know you weren't the only one this had ever happened to.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Breathing hard is a sign of something adverse. I'm wondering if it could be an ich infestation of the gills...but you said it happened within two days, and that seems kinda fast. If you see the same signs again, perhaps you can treat with Methylene Blue or Malachite Green. For now, you can slowly start raising your temperature up to about 86 degrees just incase.

P.S: I don't know much about killifish at all, make sure they can handle the high temps before you up it.

Good luck. Keep us updated.

 

[Zaffy]

A possible explaination is that the new fish introduced a pathogen that the old fish were unable to cope with. Did the new fish come from a different store? When you introduced the new fish, did you put the store water into the tank?

This is just a theory, and unfortunatly I don't know of any way to tell for sure if this is the case or not.

 

[jibboo]

no, I usually float the bags, add some water from my tank to adjust them, then use a net to add the fish to my tank (sry guys ... no QT). I've had very good success doing that.

My lfs suggested that maybe I got some kind of poison in the tank and that I should do my water changes frequently until everything stabilizes.

 

[Devilishturtles]

If you got a poison in your tank, all of your fish would be dead though, so I think your lfs is wrong. Frequent water changes wouldn't hurt. How are the new fish looking?

 

[jibboo]

did another 50% water change yesterday ... and today was the first day that I haven't lost a fish (yeah !!!)

Fortunately, I didn't lose my redtail shark or any of my 3 yo-yos, which i've had the 4 of them for about 5 years and they are all full-size (shark = 5 inches, yo-yos= 4 in).

Of the new fish I bought, 4 - Gold Wonder Killies, 4 otos, 2 hillstreams loaches, I have 3 killies left (1 jumped out over nite), 2 otos, and 1 hillstreams loach left. I guess they're doing alright.

So, what I have left (compare to my signature):

1 - redtail shark
3 - yo-yo loaches
1 - botia historonica
1 - botia rostrata
1 - rosy barb
2 - red-eye tetra
1 - queen arabasque pleco
1 - rubber lip pleco
new fish left
3 gold wonder killies
2 otos
1 hillstream loach

In the process, I decided to uproot the whole tank, rearrange all the plants, etc ... I'll post some before and after pics when I drag my camera up to the computer. It was frustrating before, I had so many plants, I couldn't tell which fish were missing or dead.

As a side note, of the 5 ghost shrimp I put in a few months back, I saw one of them after I cleaned up the excess plants ... LOL ... for all I know all 5 of them are still alive somewhere.

 

[BrianNY]

Unfortunately I'm going to agree with Zaffy. Anytime there is a die off of existing fish I expect an introduction of something nasty with recently added fish.

I do see other problems here too jibboo. You're mixing cooler water species with warmer water ones. Very active species with very timid ones. Sometimes stress alone is enough to kill something like a ram.

 

[jibboo]

Yeah, the 2 rams that I added (before the killies and otos) died in about 3 days. I didn't know I had any cooler water species ... which ones would that be?

I figured the killies were ok, cuz I had the blue steel killies for a month or so without any problems.

 

[Menagerie]

The only one I recognize as cooler water is the hillstream loach.

 

[jibboo]

thanks ... I've read that they like lots of waterflow also ... but the 2 I had for 6 months or so were growing and seemed pretty happy at 78deg f and just the water movement from 2 AC70's (which were clogged and unclogged of plant debris weekly).