Randomly dead fish :(

[shalihe74]

Hey folks,

I had three betta fish. They seemed like happy little guys, then one developed (I think) swim bladder disorder from over-feeding (again, I think). I stopped feeding him, and drastically reduced the amount of food the other guys were getting (from 4-5 pellets 2x a day down to 2 pellets 2x a day). The one (Wade) is hanging in there (literally... he just stays at the surface of the tank, but he is getting more energetic. I'm hoping he'll pull through.)

But today, I went to feed one of the others (Waldo) and couldn't find him. Fairly normal (hence his name), but then I found him... at the bottom of the tank, his little body twisted up and unmoving. Dead. He was fine this morning, and now... I feel so bad!

So, I'm curious: if he got the 'sinker' version of SBD, would it be possible for him to suffocate at the bottom of the tank if he couldn't make it all the way up? How quickly would that happen? (A couple hours?)

What else would kill a fish and make the poor guy sink? I thought dead fish floated...?

Also, so... when I go to clean out the tank, can I keep the filters and use them again? Or better to just get new ones and go through the whole tank-cycling procedure again?

Thanks for your help, folks. I appreciate it.

RIP lil Waldo - sorry I wasn't a better Fish Mommy to you.

Edited to add: he was in a 5gal filtered tank, with a heater set to about 78. Tank was fully cycled, and I did a 20% PWC yesterday. Silk plants in the tank. Not sure what other info to give. Poor lil guy...

 

[Zagz]

What size tank? Was the tank cycled? We need more information to help you better. What are your parameters? How often and how much are your water changes?

 

[shalihe74]

What size tank? Was the tank cycled? We need more information to help you better. What are your parameters? How often and how much are your water changes?

You must have been replying while I was editing the original post to include that info.

Chemical analysis of the water is in process. Ammonia is 0, NitrIte is 0. Nitrate is 4 minutes from being done... results: 10 ppm.

 

[Zagz]

Parameters seem fine. Have you been getting the fish from the same lfs? How often do you do water changes regularily? Do you add dechlorinator?

 

[shalihe74]

LFS? I'm afraid I don't know what that means. Only translation I can think of is 'local fish store' (??), in which case the answer is 'yes: Petsmart'.

Water changes happen about once a week; sometimes a little less frequently, but if that's the case, I a bigger change.

I do add dechlor and am 99% certain that I did not forget it on this last change. (Would that take a day to kill him if I didn't? A day during which he appeared healthy and then boom, dead?)

The only thing that was different on this last water change is that I didn't add aquarium salt to any of the new water I added to any of the aqariua.

 

[jsoong]

I don't have a good answer, but I can eliminate a couple of possibilities:

1. Betta can't drown... they have gills in addition to lungs (the labyrinth organ to be precise), so they can breath underwater.

2. Forgetting dechlor ... unlikely to cause this. You cna usu. get away with not adding dechlor in big tanks/ponds if the pwc is less than 10% ... 20% in a small tank will prob not kill.

How old is the betta? By swim bladder disorder, do you mean fish unable to position in water, or maybe there is body swelling? Any other symptoms or signs?

BTW - LFS is local fish store.

 

[shalihe74]

Thanks for the input. Good to know about the dechlor - that was my thought, too. I don't think the tank was unusually tall - 15" maybe, but he was just a lil guy... maybe that was like trying to swim 15 miles for a breath.

I don't know how old he was - I got him from PetSmart in January. He was.... 3" long from snout to tail. This guy had no symptoms (to my uneducated eye) of anything wrong - he was his normal, snarky self during the AM feeding, and dead as can be for the PM. I didn't notice anything post-mortem, either: no evidence of any parasites or stuff on him, nor anything like red gills, etc. He was just a dead lil man.

 

[jsoong]

Sometimes it is impossible to tell what cause a fish's demise. It is quite possible that the fish was in the store for a long time & died of old age. <Pet-smart fish don't tend to live a long life .... esp. if they have spent a lot of time in those little cups... a couple of years is fairly typical.>

 

[Zakk]

can you check the hardness of the water? i've had betta die on me in the past when the city drew water from a diff source.