Help with fish AND disease ID?

[mtayl15]

G'day,

I'm the scientific officer at a high school and have been given the task of looking after cichlids. I've set up one tank with convicts and another tank has two unknown fish. I was only told they are cichlids. We've had them for nearly 6 months with no real dramas until now. One of the fish is now lying on the bottom of the tank.

1. Description of the symptoms, obvious signs of disease and behaviour of your fish. (wounds, nodules, erratic movement/breathing, feeding pattern etc.)

Lying on side - breathing 'heavily?' - feeding (but only when i move it to a smaller tank so it can get at the food. No wounds or fungus that I can see.

2. List the fish that are exhibiting the above symptoms/behaviour: genus and species name. (some diseases and health concerns are more prevalent in certain types of fish)

??????? I have photos that I was hoping to post, but couldn't figure it out. Happy to email them though.

3. When and how did the symptons/behaviour start? (when and how did you first notice the problem)

Started last Friday. Tried methylene blue Tuesday. Fish shop sold me triple sulfur which i added today.

4. How old are the affected/sick fish? (age can also be a determining factor)

??????

5. Have any new fish been added to the tank? (if "yes", when were they added, how many, from where did they originate and what type of fish were they?)

No

6. Has anything 'special' happened recently? (eg. water change, power failure, change of water conditioners/addition of chemicals, new plants/decor/substrate, treatment for other diseases, been away for a few days, house painted/fumagated, new pets, grand children banging on the glass etc.)

No

7. What are the water parameters? (where relevant)

- pH = ?

- kH = ?

- gH = ?

- Temp = 26 C

- O2 content = ?

- CO2 additions = ?

- NH3 = ?

- NO2 = ?

- NO3 = ?

- Metals (copper, iron, lead) = ?

8. Describe the aquarium and its contents (age, size, filter size/capacity, rocks/substrate/coral type, fish and plant species still in the tank)

Tank is about 50L, with two carbon/wool filters connected to an air pump, pebble substrate and no plants.

9. When was the water last changed and how much was changed? (include description of procedure)

Changed the water a month ago. ~50%. siphoned out and replaced with aged water and ~ 4g/L rock salt

10. When was the filter last cleaned? (describe procedure followed)

Same time. Washed the carbon and the wool out with water and replaced

11. What brand and type of food has been used over the past month? (include treats/live foods/vegetables)

Flakes given to us with fish in food container

Any help is greatly appreciated. I am obviously a complete novice and was lucky to get this far.

Cheers

Matt

[Ash]

If you email me the pics at ajhinds@tpg.com.au I'll host them for you & have a stab at identification.

What is the other unknown fish in this tank doing, has it shown any behavioural/colour changes recently?

[anchar]

With all the missing water parameters, all I can come up with is:

50L tank = small for "cichlids" (so you could be looking at aggression)

1 x 50% water change in a month = not often enough

Need more info as regards to nitrates etc.

Andrea

[Brett4Perth]

What "rock salt" are we talking about here, sodium chloride??

Cheers

Brett

[CThompson]

Please do some water tests, particularly pH and KH. Also find out the Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. If your school hasn’t got the test kits, most aquarium shops will do it for free, just take some water in a clean untainted container. Please don’t buy anything more till you’ve posted back here your results.

What other sort of fish do you have together in the same tank? Is it also an African for example? Send photos if you don’t know. If they are both Africans, two Africans in a 50 litre tank (dependant on species) is WAY too small.

I would hesitate a guess here and say that you affected fish is stress/harassment related.

For you information, so you know where I am coming from – I would regard a 3 foot tank as a minimum (particularly for unexperienced aquatists), and then a lot of problems can be avoided by having enough numbers in the tank to spread the aggression.

Get that photo off to photo to Ash, make sure they are recent in particular showing the fish lying on its side. A photo should help to see if the fish is skinnier than it should be too.

Water changes should be done more frequently than monthly, weekly is more appropriate, and do only 1/3 at a time, unless the replacement water is pH and temperature and aged adjusted.

What sort of filter (box filter, hang on the back, canister) do you use? How is it packed with media – that is, what order does the water pass through it? From what you have written I don’t think you have any bio-media, but please clarify what sort of bio media have you in this filter (if any) and how did you clean it when you cleaned your filter?

To keep fish alive, the first thing you have to look after is the bacteria that maintain the cycling of the tank (they break down fish waste from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate). If the bacteria are okay, after that what you have to do is maintain the correct pH for the fish kept.

If either of these two things are wrong, it will result in effects that impact all the fish, and not just one. So I expect these two things are not the first problem, but they may be still impacting on the situation.

If the tank is only 50 litres as Merjo said, that’s pretty small, too small if the fish are Africans or most South Americans. A tank of this size can house cichlids, but you need to be selective in the species you choose.

Carbon is not something that can be cleaned in water and replaced. It is a “chemical” media, and once fully saturated, will not hold more, and in fact can release some of the absorbed pollutant back into the tank. If it is not fully saturated, (though and I expect it is) it will most likely have soaked up the medications you put into the tank, that is, you dosed the carbon not the tank, and it will have had no affect on the fish.

I expect what you dosed the tank with anyway was incorrect, so please don’t use again. You should also replace the carbon if you intend to continue to use it. With regular weekly water changes, and tanks not too heavily stocked, you possibly could get away with not using the carbon as you will export the pollutants that would be absorbed by the carbon instead.

Craig

[BlakeyBoyR]

I hope you're not washing your filter media in tap water! That's a no-no, but a little beside the point at this juncture.

As everyone else has said, that tank is pretty small for anything other than shell dwellers, and you will find a lot of people here know off the top of their head roughly what their water conditions are. I would strongly suggest purchasing a master test kit and testing your water chemistry!

[Ash]

I wasn't going to get all indepth with perameters & tank suitability until the species was identified.

I still haven't received an email & I'm worried that I may never get one as Matt might have had information overload & put it in the too hard basket & flushed them.

Hope I'm wrong.