fish mystery deaths (x10)

[vagga]

have been losing quite a few saulosi over some long time now. it started out with killing my female breeders and i got rid of that colony and started up with some small fry/juvies. this was fine untill a couple of weeks being in the tank, some females started to diw. i thought that this might have been due to the dominance of the males, so i removed all of the mars bar one. this stopped the problem for a little while, but then once again another mystery death. now i have another female sick, and i believe that i have tried almost everything to stop this disease/ bacteria, or whatever it is.

the female always hides at the back of the tank and usually between the fake plants i have in my tank. the sick fish appear to be breathing heavily and have slightly larger and much dfarker eyes than the other females. they do not swim as actively as the all my other fish, and then a couple days later they die.

other fish in the tank are, 1M now 6F saulosi (approx 5cm)

10 aceii msuli points (approx 5cm)

4 black cavus

1 sailfin pleco

all the fish get along and have never seen any of them chase each other around

there is heaps of limestone rocks for my fish to hide in if some bullying does break out (which i believe is not the case), and plentl;y of airation, 2ouitlet pump, on 24/7. filtration is a 900L/h pumpo that filters through the hood. i have a sand bottom, and do fortnighlty water changes of about 80%, adding prime everytime. water temp is usually about 26 degrees but latly turned it up to about 28degress (advice from someone to increase metablism, possibly fight off bacteria).

i had my water tested last week, when my last saulosi was sick, and everything was fine ph of about 7.8, nitrate levels were fine etc.

whatever it is it is killing my fisah one by one, so i dont know if this means anything.

this is really starting to annoy me and i do not know what to do, any help is really appreciated

[justcichlids]

are they eating and or showing any other signs of illness ie: damaged fins, raised scales stringy poo?

[vagga]

o yeh, at first they eat very minimal, and then after a day or two, don't eat at all.

some had damaged fins, but the last two did not, fins looked a little different, like no energy, but were not bitten, not too sure about the poo.

[CThompson]

Two things I can say for sure is, “if it’s alive it can die”, and “the fish doesn’t want to die”. That is if the fish are dieing there will be a reason. As you are in control of their entire universe, the problem starts and finishes with you. What you have to do is sort out what you are doing wrong.

Some things that come to mind ;

1) 80% water changes are huge, and if you are not fully preparing all water parameters you are making a mistake here. Prime will only remove chlorine and chloramines. It will not adjust for pH, KH, hardness, temp and the list goes on.

2) In addition weekly water changes would be better, though not as critical as the amount you are taking out, fortnightly are not ideal.

3) Drop your temperature back to 24-25 degrees. I keep a lot of my tanks at 22 degrees. They are already breathing faster, heating the tank higher will make it even harder for them to get oxygen.

4) “the sick fish appear to be breathing heavily and have slightly larger and much dfarker eyes than the other females. they do not swim as actively as the all my other fish, and then a couple days later they die.” This is the most relevant detail you communicated. This is the heart of the matter. Unfortunately you haven’t given enough detail to get a full handle on it, and even if you did it may not be enough.

5) “Slightly larger eyes”, are they bulging? Perhaps dropsy (are scales sticking out?).

6) Not swimming as actively and slightly faster breathing sounds a lot like what Tropheus can look like when they get bloat. You may need to treat for bloat.

7) I would also suggest changing to NLS if you are not using it already as I have a feeling that the issue may have been prompted by incorrect diet though you give no details on this.

Hope that helps.

Craig

[electricyellowz]

Is it only the saulosi that are dying/look sick or is there also other fish?

How many litres are the tank as you may have too many fish in the tank for its size.

I would suggest you try everything listed above to try and get rid of the problem.

Maybe some photos of the sick fish would help figure out what is wrong with them.

[heros!]

Had the same prob with geos,if there breathing fast sitting on the bottom not eating,gills wide open loss of colour ect sounds like gill paracites.

[CThompson]

Had the same prob with geos,if there breathing fast sitting on the bottom not eating,gills wide open loss of colour ect sounds like gill paracites.

Gill flukes also occurred to me, but the other species are not being affected. Good suggestion though as if treating for bloat doesn’t work treating for flukes would be my next suggestion.

[CThompson]

sorry - double post

[heros!]

Had the same prob with geos,if there breathing fast sitting on the bottom not eating,gills wide open loss of colour ect sounds like gill paracites.

Gill flukes also occurred to me, but the other species are not being affected. Good suggestion though as if treating for bloat doesn’t work treating for flukes would be my next suggestion.

I had a tank full of fish at the time and only affected the geo's (strange),i treated it with fluke treatment cause had all symtems. 2smaller ones died but others all come good 2days later then done water change.now tanks good as new.try sterazin