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As if the recent woes in the Panda Fun Palace™ haven't been enough, I've woken up today to discover three of the Pandas in the breeding aquarium are dead too. Lady Emma Hamilton and two of her suitors are no more.

Just WHAT THE HELL is going on here? Is this God's revenge for me being Hitler in a past life or something? And just what did my fish do to deserve this?

I've gone from happy frolicking fish spawning like mad to mass deaths in a week. Someone PLEASE tell me what the hell is going on ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Get the dead fish, call your vet, and get a biopsy and sensitivity test done.

The vet bill is worth it if it'll tell you how to save the remainder and reassure you it isn't anything that you have done.

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For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Sensitivity test?

What's that?


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Call us your water company and ask if they've added anything weird in the last week or two, too.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

they'll get a culture (usually from the liver or liver area, such a small fish) of the pathogen, and grow it in a lab, then throw a bunch of antibiotics at it, and see which ones work to kill it.

It sould tell you A) if it is bacterial (which i'd say it probably is, and vicious at that) and B) how you can stop it.

If nothing shows up, then it'll at least rule it out.

I did it when i first started, lost a tank of bettas, followed by a tank of trops, followed by a few random sacrificials. I was losing my mind cause i was doing everything right, textbook. I tested the water daily and the fish just showed up dead. not even sick, just dead!
The testing came back A. hydrophilia, and it wasn't responding to any antibiotics the lab tried.
I couldn't believe how much better i felt knowing that it wasn't me that caused it. It didn't make it all better, but it helped ease the guilt a bit.



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I am so sorry to hear about your loss. Be sure that nothing recently has happened to your water supply. When Heidi lost so many of their guppies, it was because of the water plant messed up and put too much of a chemical (sorry, forgot which one) in the water supply.

It might well be the water, but its also worth checking out protozoan infections , they tend to cause epidemics, have some nice non- specific causes, and dont respond to normal aquarium treatments. When I get problems its nearly always due to mycobacterium and other protozoan infections. Metronidazole is a good safe cure for most fish as long as you get the dosages right. Sometimes aeromonas bacteria can be treated with it too.

Last edited by longhairedgit at 06-Oct-2005 21:11

I went through that a few months back. Fish just died with few to no symptoms and tests on the well water showed nothing. The tank parameters looked perfect and it didn't seem to make a difference if it was sensitive fish or hardier fish. They just dropped dead a few at a time. After a whole tetra school and a half were gone I started throwing everything I could into my tanks and I hate using meds or chemicals. Eventually the remainders were half the panda cory, 2 tetras out of 3 schools, 1 angelfish, 2 otos, 1 blue gourami and the plecos. It spread amazingly easy to the other tanks even when I thought I was careful and wiped out 3 different tanks. I also had a few outbreaks of random illnesses for another month. If you have the money I suggest to do whatever you can now to identify the exact infection and what will treat it.

I had something simular happen when i had my 120 exept for me it was an alarmingly high ammonia level so i just quarintened all my fish changed the water, nuetrilised the ph, checked the nitrate level and it was all fine, but i did lose 1 cory though

I'm now awaiting feedback from an E-Mail I sent to the School of Veterinary Medicine at Liverpool University. Two sad dead Pandas are in 10% formalin awaiting their investigations. Sigh.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

well, lets hope it aint a bug, cause nothing much grows out of formalin

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Sorry to hear about you're fish. Hope everything goes well