Help, many fish dying.

[DragonFish71]

In the last 24 hours we have lost 6 out of 8 rams. No visible signs of distress, water change done on Saturday just like I always do. Lost 3 last night. Tested the water today just like I always do, did a 25% water change because of the loss yesterday and we had lost 2 more before I got home from work. Came downstairs just a few minutes ago and we had lost our female gold. She was doing fine before and after the water change and in a manner of hours, gone. temp at 82, tests are all good. No ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, Ph 6.8 holding steady still. This is before the change. After the change, everything's the same. Using Api master for fresh water.

We're frustrated and about ready to give up on our favorite fish.

Any ideas?

 

[Etunes]

I would keep doing what you are doing. It seems like the smartest thing to do. Is there any other fish in the tank besides rams and have any of them died?

 

[DragonFish71]

I would keep doing what you are doing. It seems like the smartest thing to do. Is there any other fish in the tank besides rams and have any of them died?

We have 6 otos and 2 bamboo shrimp. We've lost one oto but the rest are fine.

 

[FishEggs]

so sorry to hear. sorry i cant help. maybe something they ate?

 

[kaiofcanada]

Sorry for your losses. That is really sad. Any chance your water levels are high and maybe they are not getting enough oxygen? I would drop the water level as a precaation a bit to aerate the water more. It can't hurt.

If there are no signs of stress or disease, one consideration might be an internal parasite. Ofetn times fish do not show any eye catching symptoms for this....they just die at some point. This happened to me once and I lost a couple fish who seemed unsymptomatic for the most part. I noticed the gills on one of the fish remaining looked swollen but not more red and started treated with an antiparasite med . The rest of the fish survived and nothing else seemed to happen after that. It was also very frustrating. My sympathies. I wish you luck.

 

[Etunes]

Well i was gonna suggest that maybe it was a species specific disease but it wouldn't be if a otto has died. Maybe a parasite internally. So Ya, my advice to you would just to keep doing water changes. I had what seem to be just a die off of fish for no reason. I went from 10 fish to 4 fish in a week in a half. They died for no apparent reason, no outside reasons or anything. And then they just stopped dieing and my tank was fine after that. Mysteries stuff happens in aquaria.

 

[FishEggs]

any chemicals on the hands that go in the tank maybe?

 

[DragonFish71]

Sorry for your losses. That is really sad. Any chance your water levels are high and maybe they are not getting enough oxygen? I would drop the water level as a precaation a bit to aerate the water more. It can't hurt.

If there are no signs of stress or disease, one consideration might be an internal parasite. Ofetn times fish do not show any eye catching symptoms for this....they just die at some point. This happened to me once and I lost a couple fish who seemed unsymptomatic for the most part. I noticed the gills on one of the fish remaining looked swollen but not more red and started treated with an antiparasite med . The rest of the fish survived and nothing else seemed to happen after that. It was also very frustrating. My sympathies. I wish you luck.

Thanks.

We have had 3 air stones going in the tank and the water line just to the trim since we first introduced fish. Due to the warmer temps rams like to be kept at, we figured the extra movement and lower level would be best. We're hesitant to treat for anything since we're not seeing any signs, no bloating, no redness, no rubbing against decorations etc. My boyfriend took a water sample before and after I did the water change yesterday and the 3 bodies to our LFS today and they are stumped. The guys there are going to ask around to their breeders and others that keep rams to see if they have any ideas. For now we're going to let the last pair enjoy the tank without adding more.

 

[DragonFish71]

Well i was gonna suggest that maybe it was a species specific disease but it wouldn't be if a otto has died. Maybe a parasite internally. So Ya, my advice to you would just to keep doing water changes. I had what seem to be just a die off of fish for no reason. I went from 10 fish to 4 fish in a week in a half. They died for no apparent reason, no outside reasons or anything. And then they just stopped dieing and my tank was fine after that. Mysteries stuff happens in aquaria.

I would be worried if this was just one tank, but we can't keep them alive in any tank. And it's just them. Our other tanks everyone is swimming around happy as can be. Add a ram and that ram dies. Very mysterious indeed.

 

[DragonFish71]

any chemicals on the hands that go in the tank maybe?

I wash and rinse my hands and arms up to the elbow for a good 5 minutes before putting them in the tank, and then it's sparingly. I have 18 inch planting tongs that I use for most everything I need to do.

As for something they ate. Ugh. I feed them a good mix of things. They get live brine (rinsed in tank water), freeze dried blood worms, freeze dried daphnia, frozen blood worms, flake once in awhile, small cichlid pellets once in awhile, and other different things. (Not all at once mind you) I make sure they have a good selection daily. They get 3 meals a day, just enough for them to chow down in 5 minutes.

It's really frustrating to not know what's happening to them. Those beautiful lil' guys in the 40g tank pics are the ones that died.

 

[gzeiger]

Just trying to rule out the obvious... and recalling a story of someone forgetting the Prime during the water change.

 

[HN1]

No ammonia, nitrites, nitrates

How heavily planted are the tanks? Zero Nitrate always makes me wonder...

 

[DragonFish71]

How heavily planted are the tanks? Zero Nitrate always makes me wonder...

The 40g is the heaviest planted of the tanks.

 

[BillD]

Sorry to hear of your losses. What I do if anything strange happens in a tank, such as unexplained losses, I do a 50% water change. I usually follow that with another a day later. If there are toxins or pathogens in the tank, you will remove half of them each time. It has been my experience over the years, that the higher the temp, the more likely you will have a problem. I prefer to keep my fish at the lower end of their preferred temperature range. Lower temps mean more oxygen and less bacteria. Good luck with the rest of them. lots of people give up on rams as they are not the easist fish to keep. Bolivian rams might be an alternative as they seem to be hardier.

 

[DragonFish71]

Sorry to hear of your losses. What I do if anything strange happens in a tank, such as unexplained losses, I do a 50% water change. I usually follow that with another a day later. If there are toxins or pathogens in the tank, you will remove half of them each time. It has been my experience over the years, that the higher the temp, the more likely you will have a problem. I prefer to keep my fish at the lower end of their preferred temperature range. Lower temps mean more oxygen and less bacteria. Good luck with the rest of them. lots of people give up on rams as they are not the easist fish to keep. Bolivian rams might be an alternative as they seem to be hardier.

Thanks,

Yeah I'm going to keep up on small water changes of 25% every other day so as not to stress the remaining pair of rams too much. Bolivians might be an alternative, but they are even harder to find out here. Maybe we will start doing the Kribs instead. We had thought about putting a few pairs of both Kribs and rams in the tank when we were figuring out what all we wanted. Then we decided to do just the rams. Ah who knows. Nothing is going in until we figure out the problem. I was sure we compensated for the higher temp by using 3 air stones and the lower water level to help with oxygen. I did remove the pennywort I had floating in there so maybe that will help with the surface oxygen.