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Well, I seem to be having a major tank disaster of unknown origin because I lost an angelfish yesterday of unknown cause, and when I went home for lunch today I had lost my male ram, and I have another angelfish that isn't looking too hot. I have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, but I performed a small emergency water change in case there's something in there that I can't test for. This totally sucks. I've spent a small fortune on fish lately and I'm losing them one by one. Now, my female ram is alone and I fear that one of my favorite angelfish (my little koi) will be dead when I get home at 5:00. I'm beyond sad, and I don't know how I'm going to get through the next 4 hours of work.

I just don't understand what it could be. Two days ago my fish were fine, active, swimming, eating and now, they're all dying one by one......except the platies. There are sometimes I just hate fishkeeping. I guess it's going to be a while before I try to put any fish back into this tank, and I may have to abadon my dream of a lovely SA set-up. I can't take this.

Can anyone offer any insight here? The only things I can think of are these: I performed my weekly water change yesterday and within hours one of the anglefish was dead....could it be something wrong with my water that I can't test? Also, I did spray a little air freshner in the room with tank (I have before) could some of that leeched in and poisoned the fish? I do have to say that my two only remaining rummy nose tetras and my last cardinal tetra are okay; I figure if it was that....they would be the first to go. The last thing, I did notice condensation on the inside of my new glass Hagen Tronic heater. I couldn't find any cracks, but could it have sent current into the tank and killed my fish. I changed it out for my older that has poor temp control, but at least it will do until I can get a Visitherm Stealth.

Any thoughts, clues, ideas, sympathy?????

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

I'm sorry Melissa! That's terrible.

If it was the water, I would think the rummies and other ram would be more likely to go, being the more sensitive fish.
How are your remaining rummies looking? Are their noses bright red or faded? If they are faded, then it is the water. Rummies are great ways to know if the water is good or not.

Do any of the remaining fish look stressed? Any of them have faded colors or breathing heavily or anything?

I'm not sure if it could be the heater. I'm not an expert on that type of thing.

And the water checks out fine...that's strange.
Again, if it was the airfreshener in the water, I'd think the other ram, cardinals, and rummies would go also (because they are more sensitive).

What was the latest fish you added? Did it look fine when you added it (no signs of disease)?

Did you see any signs of aggression between the angels...and between the angels and rams?

I hope everything goes well this evening. Don't give up though...everything will work out.

*Kristin*

How are your remaining rummies looking? Are their noses bright red or faded?

They look great....red noses swimming vigorously....seemingly no problem there

Do any of the remaining fish look stressed? Any of them have faded colors or breathing heavily or anything?

My koi angelfish looks not good (hiding, not eating, although not breathing strange like my angel did yesterday)....I figure he/she will probably be dead by the time I get home.

What was the latest fish you added? Did it look fine when you added it (no signs of disease)?

All the rummies and cardinals that dropped like flies. No disease symptoms, just mass die-off. I chalked it up to acclimation stress and poor breeding.

Did you see any signs of aggression between the angels...and between the angels and rams?

None whatsoever, they didn't even seem to notice each other. Nobody in my tank has been bothering anybody.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

Well, I've lost another angel, and one of the two remaining angels looks bad as done the female ram. This is the worst day of fishkeeping ever.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

to me, it sounds like an illness came in with the rummys, just next time use a QT for an established tank.

um. would it be possible to move the other fishes to another tank with no fishes in it? even something like a 10 gallon.

i would try and move the remaining rummys to a tank,(and what ever is left) and change the water fully.
we all have bad days so cheer up

Thats so sad!!

I think that bettachris' advice was close to what I would say , only it may be wise to add some multi-purpose cure all medication if you have some, that way if it is a spreading disease, it could stop it from spreading and mabey help some of your still sick fish.

Cheer up

Inky

Well, my MTS has taken over and I have no tank available for QT of anything. If it holds water around here...a fish goes in it. I'm just going with what I've got....haven't lost a platy yet by gumby!!!

If I ever decide to try to re-populate this tank I'm ordering online. There aren't any healthy, decent fish around here that I'm wanting to put in this 55. All I wanted was a SA set-up with angels, rams and tetras....well I had it....for about 5 minutes.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

i would strongly suggest getting a small 10g for a QT, as u now have first hand experience of how deadly adding some new fish can be, and even more so being an established tank.

again only a suggestion, but hopefully things will work out.

performed a small emergency water change in case there's something in there that I can't test for. This totally sucks. I've spent a small fortune on fish lately and I'm losing them one by one.

Having gone through this exact ?????? recently it took me a long time to locate the problem.

Mine was the introduction of a water change. There was a bacteria I introduced into the tank I quickly killed all the good bacteria in the tank hence many deaths. This bacteria is a natural nastie which grows in our water supply. To kill this bacteria the cure is worse than the problem. All I could do was add double doses of a live good bacteria every day. As well as plenty of stress coat, also increase the air stones as much as possible this is extremly important in removing any nasties as well.
After a several tries I finally contacted a person from the water board who explained it all to me. To the best of my knowledge I was not the only person in my area to have the same problem. It also could have been caused many miles from you by workman doing work either at the supply or the delivery pipes.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Well, I would think that if this had been the issue, and it had killed all the good bacteria, wouldn't there be a coinciding ammonia/nitrite spike?

I tested my tank many times throughout the day or two after the fish deaths and there was 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and < 5 ppm nitrates. I have not seen any evidence that my good bacteria is gone.

I don't know...alll I know is, I'm down to 2 angels, 2 rummies, 1 cardinal and all the platies I started with. (Never lost a single one of them) It's going to be 2-3 months before I'm ready to try anything again and I'll probably order online....can't seem to trust any of my LFS around here....even if they order it for me, what's the source??? I can't know.

What a sucky deal.

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~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

I think that I agree with Keith on this one that it appears that the water change possibly triggered the deaths of your fish. Does your water come from a public source/supplier or does it come from a private well.

In either case it could be a number of things that could have caused the disaster. If the water is from a public water source then they may have began using something different in treating the water such as chloramine that may have caused the problem. Also I know around here that in the summer months the fire department will flush the lines and this can cause all kinds of gunk to be introduced if you don't flush your lines really well after they have done so.

You may want to call your water company and see if any changes were made around the time you did your water change. At least it wouldn't hurt.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

Ah, been here before.

Do your fishes look otherwise healthy, but dead?

Do your fishes show no obvious signs of distress, then keel over for no apparent reason?

I had this last October. Lost ALL my Lemons, all but one of my original Cardinals, and half my breeding stock of Pandas. What made it suspicious was that deaths occurred in two separate aquaria (the main one and the nursery full of growing youngsters) without any cross contamination between the two. All I did was institute water changes and gravel vacs. I went from happy, bouncing fishes to the Black Death in three days.

Get a sample of your water, and have it tested to see if there are excess amounts of Aluminium Sulphate in there.

Aluminium Sulphate is a compound used by water companies to treat drinking water. It's purpose is to facilitate the precipitation of suspended matter, but it also acts partially as a bactericide, because when it dissociates, it becomes Aluminium Hydroxide (which is an insoluble solid that precipitates out) and leaves behind Sulphuric Acid in its wake. Usually, the water company adds extra chemicals to neutralise the acid before piping it to our taps, but sometimes, excess Aluminium Sulphate gets through to the taps. And it wreaks HAVOC among fishes and other aquatic life. Indeed, if you check the HazChem pages on this compound, it states specifically that it is an environmental hazard to aquatic life and should NEVER be disposed of by dumping in a natural watercourse. This page]http://www.kittiwake.com/Default.aspx/ProductSection/90/ProductSubSection/106/ProductSubSubSection/247/Product/503[/link] tells you a LOT about Aluminium Sulphate, as does [link=this page.

Unfortunately, you are at the mercy of the water companies with respect to this stuff. You can, at some expense, obtain test kits to see if it is present. If it IS, you may have grounds for financial redress. Wikipedia]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_sulfate[/link] has more on this compound, and also tells the story of the English town that suffered a major chemical incident [link=see here for more details.

Even small quantities of this compound slipping through to your tap water are dangerous to fishes, molluscs and other aquatic creatures. Imagine what happened when 20 tons of the stuff was accidentally dumped in a river ...




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Very good info indeed. I did put in call to the water dept. There was no one in the water lab when I called this afternoon, I left a message....hopefully, they'll call back. I will call again tomorrow if I haven't heard from them.

The deaths weren't totally symptomless. The fish all displayed signs of distress: gasping, swimming strange, reclusive, refusal to eat, but I can't find anything wrong with the water that would cause that. Usually, it's ammonia or nitrites....I had none. No real nitrates either...between 0-5 ppm. I did an emergency partial water change with the same water on Monday (one day after first death) and I did a large water change when I got home Monday night with the same water. No trouble there either. The last two rummynoses and the last cardinal and the remaining two angels are still okay, so if it was toxic water, wouldn't they be toast by now?

I'm still stumped.

---

~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

Hi Red,
While you are waiting for a reply, go on line to your
water company and look through their links. Among them is
a page or two that give the values of all the chemicals
in the water and the characteristics of the water that they
supply. It will help you with unraveling your mystery.
Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

What happens with Aluminium Sulphate poisoning in an aquarium is this.

Basically, the more sensitive fish keel over quickly, and with relatively few symptoms. Slightly tougher fish start exhibiting stress, and then start dying of opportunistic infections that wouldn't take hold if the fishes were'nt being poisoned. The toughest of them all are stressed, but somehow pull through, and some of those will exhibit no obvious symptoms while others will look decidedly the worse for wear.

Of course, the above assumes that you have a dosage in your aquarium similar to mine. A higher dosage will wipe out everything, and a smaller dosage will result in a lower level of attrition, but still harrowing to watch.

To gain a handle on whether excess Aluminium Sulphate is likely to be the culprit, check to see if anyone else has had large scale die-offs following a water change in the past 72 hours or so, either in an aquarium or a pond. This was what alerted me, because my LFS suffered die-offs in aquaria that had been given water changes at the same time, and several of his customers also reported die-offs , but ONLY those who had instigated water changes in ponds and aquaria within the requisite time frame. If you have several people around you experiencing large scale wipeouts of fishes in aquaria and ponds, but the ONLY ones experiencing this are people who have instigated water changes in the past 72 hours, chances are you're looking at Aluminium Sulphate or other treatment chemicals (and from the pattern you describe, it's looking like excess Aluminium Sulphate has entered your tap water).

A quick check would be a pH test of your water as it comes out of the tap. If it's undergone a sudden pH drop of 1.0 or more units (e.g., from a previous pH of 7.2 to 6.2) then Aluminium Sulphate is implicated as your prime culprit, because that's the 'fingerprint' for this kind of incident in the absence of more specific tests for the excess Aluminium. Another test (though less confirmatory and more vague) would be to take a sample of dirty aquarium water, mix it with the tap water, and see if the suspended particles clump together and precipitate out more rapidly than they would do if left to their own devices. If you see that, then again, Aluminium Sulphate is implicated because that's what it's used for - removing suspended matter from drinking water.

Of course, the ultimate test involves persuading a lab near you to run your water sample through a mass spectrometer. A big Aluminium spike in the resulting graph will seal it once and for all.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002