what to do after a fish dies

[Samantha_p]

I found one of my oldest goldfish(a 5" comet) floating dead after
I got home from work last night.my 2 plecos and my small
blood parrot were taking pieces of him. my question is what should
I do next? should I do a water change,clean my filters or what?
I'm also concern for my other fish being that I don't know what
he died of. this is the firs time a fish dies on me since I've
had this 125 gal tank for a lil over a year.(I currently have 4 goldies,5angels,
1bp,1gurami,4platys,2plecos) any advice is always appreciated
thanks

 

[mfdrookie516]

i would do a 50% pwc and monitor your fish. If the goldfish looked healthy, i would blame its death on the blood parrot... Those are some pretty incompatable fish you have in there.

 

[jsoong]

I would do a water change just in case, and measure all water parameters to make sure nothing is out of whack.

It would be nice to find out why the comet died. I would examine the fish for any lumps & bumps, etc. Alos look in the gills as well. You might consider doing a dissection to see if there is anything obvious internally. <I know it can be gross .... > the gab has some pics & instructions if you are interested. A vet would also do wet mount of skin & gill scraping to look for parasites. If you have a good microscope, you might try that, although, for a non-biologist, finding anything is rather remote.

If you find nothing on the dead fish, all you can do is to monitor all other fish closely for any signs of disease & treat accordingly. If you find parasites or other things, then you might have to treat the other fish, depending on what you find.