Sudden Deaths

[Barracuda]

Three fish have died suddenly without displaying any symptoms for more than 24 hours.

The first to go were 2 clown loaches who had been in the tank for about 2 months. They were hiding a lot for the last couple of days, then the night before they died i spotted that they had some sort of "dust" look (velvet? fungus?) on top of their body, and were moving around very eratically. The next morning they developed a reddish rash and died soon after.

The next to go was one of my smaller angels, who just died a couple of hours ago, however this one did not display any symptoms at all.

I did a 50% water change yesterday after the loaches died. The tank had been running for around 3 months with no deaths, so these were a shock.

I have no idea what caused the deaths, no new fish had been added recently, the water parameters were fine (ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate >0). Fluval 405 filter working, seeded bacteria, planted tank, 30% water change once every two weeks, carbon replaced recently, tank no where near overstocked.

I will try and upload some pics of the loaches later, hopefully you could help me examine the disease. Hopefully it will not spread any more.

Would you recommend any medications for the whole tank in case the disease might have spread? Since i do not know the exact disease yet, would a multi-purpose med be ok? I have heard it can kill the filter though. What would you recommend?

[akroyd]

It sounds like velvet.

Maybe you introduced it with plants, or maybe cross-contaminated from another tank. It's also possible that low levels of the parasite (Oodinium) existed in the tank and affected the fish after a chill.

Most effective treatments would contain copper, which will probably kill your plants if you leave them in the tank.

[Citypainter]

Try Aquamaster fungus cure.

Does your tank at half rate id you still have clown loaches or any other scaleless fish.