Identify Cause of Death [Pictures] Tiger Barb

[Morgoth]

Hello,

I have recently had a loss in my tank, and I believe I know what caused the fatality. I am, however, still quite new to the freshwater aquarium hobby and haven't seen everything yet, but I have seen a bit.

Since I want to test my own knowledge as well as the knowledge of the members of this forum, which I am a new too, I will hold off from giving out my tank information until I get a few replies and can post my opinion.

Here are two pictures of my Female ~1.5yr-old Tiger Barb postmortem. If you'd like to give it a guess please let me know what you think.

 

[gzeiger]

It looks like you fed it a grape.

 

[Blueiz]

We need your tank conditions to be able to give informed opinions less we shoot in the dark.

 

[CaptainAhab]

Dropsy

 

[Morgoth]

We need your tank conditions to be able to give informed opinions less we shoot in the dark.

That is true, and as I said I will give you the conditions after a few guesses from some aquarium savvy members. The pictures are included to give you an idea based on what you see. If it helps you can assume the tank conditions to fit your findings.


CaptainAhab, Dropsy is a good guess. The Tiger Barb did have trouble swimming and has a bloated belly which made me think dropsy at first.

Gzeiger, her mouth is a little small for a grape to fit, but thanks for thinking outside the box.

 

[Blueiz]

Bloat, it appears the fish has a blind anus (no anus) of course that could just be from the angle of the picture. It could have also gorged itself on food til it died.

EDT: to add, it could be a tumor.

 

[mfdrookie516]

swim bladder, bloat, or it could have just swelled up after it died (fish do that)

 

[newfound77951]

Doesn't look like dropsy as the fish's scales are smooth.

 

[Morgoth]

Thanks for all the replies. There are a lot of people here that seem to know what they are talking about. I am very glad I decided to choose this forum for my questions and community.

My tank conditions the night of the incident are:

1-Female Tiger Barb, bloating, redness on side, dark line on belly, trouble swimming
2-Ammonia ~0.0mg/L
Nitrite ~0.0mg/L
Temperature ~26C ~79F
pH ~7.0
3-30 Gallons
Since August 27th, 2008
4-AquaClear 50
5-6 Tiger Barbs, 3 Chinese Algae Eaters
6-20% water change, once ~every week and a half.
7-Added Tiger Barbs March 18th 2009, Added Chinese Algae Eaters September 25th 2009.
8-Chinese Algae Eaters in late September
9-Frozen Blood worms, Nutrafin Max pellet and flakes, Omega One, Wardley Spirulina Plus

I have determined that my fish died from an infected swim bladder. But thanks to Blueiz, I think it's possible it might have had a tumor, as it was fairly fat for the entire time I have owned it.

I was doing some research and found a post, in this forum, answering my question, which what I think is very accurate.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/tiger-barb-sinking-on-the-bottom-of-tank-115059.html

... I am convinced that the species in general have a tendency to over-eat, and if your other fish require more than one feeding a day, or a large quantity of food due to the number in your tank, it is likely the barbs are developing a digestive tract infection.

I might have caused my poor fish's death by over feeding.
I am going to find a scoop or make one myself that will be the portion size I will stick to, and have my girlfriend use, for feeding time.

Thanks again for your posts, let me know if you agree with my diagnosis.

 

[Blueiz]

I think that it's plausible. The only other thing that I can think of to may go against the infection theory is, the fish may have started to fill bad before the infection killed it and would have been picked on by the other fish.. But that goes with any other possible cause of death too.

 

[Morgoth]

What really stands out to me, but I can't seem to find too much information about it is the black or dark line that runs from the front of the belly to the middle of the belly. You can clearly see it in 'img1crop.jpg', and none of the other tiger barbs have a mark there at all.
As far as I can remember she never had that mark on her before her illness.
There is a redness on the side of her belly, just above the dark line in 'img1crop.jpg', which I understand could be related to the bloating and infection. Perhaps the dark line is related too, I just don't have a resource to reference.