Is my tank infected?

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lornajane89

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Aug 18, 2011
Messages
312
Location
midlands uk
Hi al, been a while since ive posted on here but i get the feeling somethings going on in my tank that im not aware of. Last time i was posting about my sick guppy with the raised scales which was diagnosed as dropsy and she died a week or so later. but now ive got a sick guppy and a jullii cory doing back flips... i really dont know whats going on. my params are always good 0.0.30 except nitrates which are a little high but are kept under control with weekly 50% changes. since i started ive been losing fish for seemingly different reasons

Black neon - pop eye.. died the next day
Jullii cory - swim bladder... died a few days later
2x male Guppy - unknown.. just hid for 3 days then were found dead
1x male guppy - mystery red spot - treated with myaxin and he just dissappeared over night a few weeks later
1x male sword tail - clamped fins (unknown cause) - found dead a few days later
1xFemale guppy - dropsy - treated with salt baths.. died a week or so later

since then ive had about a month or so with no fatalities after tightning up my regime of 50% PWC but now as said early ive got a sick female guppy (the sister of the one with dropsy) she has a bent spine and wont come up off the gravel unless food is put in. also one of the female fry (born in september last year) now has the same crooked spine but is showing no other signs of illness.

i also have a jullii catfish that will sit at the bottom then swim vertically upwards and fall on his back then right himself and do it again like hes doing back flips. something is definatley not right in this tank.

as said earlier my params are perfect (almost) 0.0.30 my tank is a 45g (165 litre) tropical set up with plants ive an in built filter that turns over 2000lph (650gph) i have one heater with temps 79 degrees F. stocking is as follows

10 neons
10 black neons
4 polka dot loaches
6 jullii corys
3 dwarf gouramis
1 leopard frog pleco
3 male guppys
3 female guppys

( i am aware the m:f ratio of the guppies is wrong but thats just how they survived as fry id have homes for them already if i knew there wasnt something wrong with the tank)

im a little concerned as ive been feeding fry to my african bush fish in another tank with some swordtails and some kuhilis and im dont want to euthanise the lot and start again. are there any other tests i need to be doing or anything i can do to check for infections or parasites or anything like that?

im VERY sorry for the long thread, and thank you for taking the time to read it all.

Dean
 
It sounds like you have multiple problems going on, something might be wrong with your water, maybe high nitrates causing stress on your fish and that could weaken their immune system causing multpile problems. Try and figure out what is causing the high nitrates , also it is great to do frequent water changes but maybe the water temp is a little off with the new water , that could be a cause also. The only times my fish ever showed sighns of ich came after a large water change, I probably was a little off on the temp.
 
There really is not much else you can test for. If you have the resources, I would bring the sick fish to an aquatic vet & have them necropsied to determine what you are dealing with. Bent spines are indicative of serious disease issues (such as mycobacterium also called fish tb). If you dont have the resources for an aquatic vet (most of us dont), I would promptly remove & euthanasize any fish displaying symptoms of a bent spine or dropsy to try & limit the spread of whatever you may be dealing with. I am sorry this is happening!
 
I did have a big spike in nitrates initially i bought the tank 2nd hand it was about 2 years old.it took a long time and alot of pwc and plants to get it down.
 
Could the nitrates be from the stocking or maybe the substrate isn't getting cleaned enough...
 
jlk said:
There really is not much else you can test for. If you have the resources, I would bring the sick fish to an aquatic vet & have them necropsied to determine what you are dealing with. Bent spines are indicative of serious disease issues (such as mycobacterium also called fish tb). If you dont have the resources for an aquatic vet (most of us dont), I would promptly remove & euthanasize any fish displaying symptoms of a bent spine or dropsy to try & limit the spread of whatever you may be dealing with. I am sorry this is happening!

Im not a expert on fish disease but this sounds like it makes sense, a unknown disease keeps popping up , I would hold off on any new fish, if it looks bad enough then yeah it might be time to euthenize them, sterilize everything and start over. Fish can make amazing recoveries but it depends on what it is.
 
I did have a big spike in nitrates initially i bought the tank 2nd hand it was about 2 years old.it took a long time and alot of pwc and plants to get it down.

I dont believe high nitrates would have caused a bent spine. Could high nitrates have made your fish suseptible to disease that a healthy fish would not have been infected by, yes. High nitrates suppress a fish's immune system & negatively affect overall health. I am glad you have gotten your nitrate issue under control! I just wish i could offer you a definitive answer on what you are dealing with but a lab & microscope would be necessary to make a positive ID.
 
I'm having the same problem! I just posted a pic under "to flush or not to flush" of my molly's bent spine. i just to him out and i'm getting ready to put him down. i don't know what happened to my tank either. i got some new fish a couple weeks ago and nothing has been the same since, in a bad way. i just hope the rest of my tank survives this.
 
RaygunK said:
I'm having the same problem! I just posted a pic under "to flush or not to flush" of my molly's bent spine. i just to him out and i'm getting ready to put him down. i don't know what happened to my tank either. i got some new fish a couple weeks ago and nothing has been the same since, in a bad way. i just hope the rest of my tank survives this.

You don't actually kill the fish with a flush... Please don't do this. It is very cruel to the fish. They die from all the chemicals in the sewage bot from the water current pushing them down the drain. Just use clove oil
 
Hobgob said:
You don't actually kill the fish with a flush... Please don't do this. It is very cruel to the fish. They die from all the chemicals in the sewage bot from the water current pushing them down the drain. Just use clove oil

I dont think she intended to flush a live fish by the title , it sounds like a figure a speech , well anyway clove oil does work very well and is probably the most humane way to do it, most people do not have clove oil on hand unless they had a toothache or had to euthenize a fish before. If you do not have clove oil on hand and need to do it quickly put the fish in a ziplock with very little water and put in very cold slushy ice water. Or directly in if you dont have a ziplock. This works very quickly with tropical fish, not sure about coldwater fish. Salted icy water is even better.
 
No worries. I didn't flush the fish. If you read the thread everyone suggested that i use icy, cold water. Which is what i did. Thanks though! :)
 
Good to hear the icy water put the fish into shock. It's doesn't work so well with cold water fish. Actually you do the opposite.
 
Bit concerned about the tb idea it only seems to be guppys that get hit tho. My cory has stopped behaving oddly now and i cant figure out which one it was. My guppy is always resting on the bottom. Im gonna start thawing some ice now for her and the other one thats just got a bent spine (but otherwise is healthy). I think micro biology is out of the question for me.
 
lornajane89 said:
Bit concerned about the tb idea it only seems to be guppys that get hit tho. My cory has stopped behaving oddly now and i cant figure out which one it was. My guppy is always resting on the bottom. Im gonna start thawing some ice now for her and the other one thats just got a bent spine (but otherwise is healthy). I think micro biology is out of the question for me.

Be sure to wear gloves or wash your hands really good because from what I have read it is transferred to humans, It looks like it can cause sores and rashes.
 
I just scrub my hands well. I cant find any elbow length rubber gloves and my marigolds just fill up with water lol. Ohwell. Jobs done now. Feel sorry for the youngest girl she didnt go into shock like the older one which died after about 1min i think ill have to use more ice next time. Thanks for all the support guys :) ill let u know what happens with the rest of my community tank. I just hope whatever it is doesnt/hasnt spread to my other tank i dont want my bushfish to die im just concerned now cause he has been fed some fry out of the main tank.....
 
Just had a thought this all only started after my partner added 3 mollys to the tank. They all died within 2 weeks but we put that down to there not being any salt in the water.. I forgot about those just reading raygunks post reminded me. Could i take a water sample to a professional or would it have to be a dead or dying fish?
 
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