Leopard Danios Dying with torn fins....

[woofwoofgrrl]

What am I dealing with here?

Almost 7 weeks ago I bought a shoal of zebra and leopard danios and put them in my cycled 30 Gal with 6 white skirt tetras. One of the Tetras mysteriously died about 2 weeks in. Water quality tested fine at that point. At about 5 weeks, the smallest of my leopard danios died. He was fine one day, the next he was hiding, the day after his back fin was completely missing and he died later that day. I thought it had to do with a temperature fluctuation because my thermometer failed off, so I felt bad but didn't think much of it. Water parameters tested fine then too. Yesterday, which is about 2 weeks later I noticed another leopard danio's tail was looking a bit ragged and he was hiding a bit. I took some photos to post and ask about it and then a few hour later he was dead. Now, the 3rd leopard danio has a tear in his tail....What gives?!? Do I have fin rot problem? Fungus? Bacteria? Bad batch of fish? I'm at a total loss.....

My current parameters are:
Nitrate = 5ppm (did a water change yesterday)
Nitrite = 0
Ammonia = 0
PH = 8.1
Temp = 76


I've posted the photos to see what people think....

 

[Vircomore]

Two things stick out to me:

1. Your PH is extremely high, even for fish as hardy as danios. Does your tap water come out with a PH that high?

2. That pink plastic thing in the first picture - did you buy that at a fish store? Or was that something that you just stuck in the tank? Chances are good that the Danios may be getting their fins caught in the seams and cracks in that plastic and tearing them - which could lead to infection.

 

[woofwoofgrrl]

It comes out of the tap at 7.8 and then settles to 8.1 over the next 24 hours. I've thought about using 1/2 distilled and 1/2 tap water at each water change to bring the PH down. Until now I've been under the impression that the fish will adjust to the PH and I shouldn't worry. Perhaps I'm at the hairy edge of PH that I really should do something about it? My water is also insanely hard... it practically comes out of the tap as rocks.

The pink thing is a kids pirate ship toy. I prepped it by soaking it in bleach water for several hours, rinsing profusely and then having it in the tank while it cycled. I've attached a photo of the whole thing. It looks really cool in the tank and provides lots of hidy-holes. They really enjoy zipping around and through the big center portion. There aren't any rough edges, I have a plastic plant in there that has rougher edges, which I will now take out. There are seams on the toy where some of the pieces join together,though. The zebra danios don't seem to have any tears in their fins though, it's only the leopards. It may be coincidence, it may not.