D. Filamentosa deaths

[Borked]

I had a trio of checkerboards for quite some time (8 months or so) in my 75gal "community" dwarf tank. They have all recently perished. They spawned multiple times without ever reaching a hatch. They even spawned 2-3 months back while treating for ich and after with carbon running (PH 7.6-7.8). Two different remedies were used for the ich with no visable ill effect or fish loss.

I added some new fish a couple of weeks ago and have lost quite a few. Here is a list of what I added.

2 very small fw puffers
4 black neon tetras (to increase school size)
3 pristella tetras (same reason as above)
5 cardinal tetras (same)
1 clinging goby (cannot find any information on this fish other than basic)
2 botia sidthumunki (dwarf loaches for snail control)

All of the fish were added seperately over a 2 week span.
Before the end of adding them (the day after adding the black neons) my male checkerboard had died and every day thereafter another fish or two had died as well. I have lost more cardinal tetras than I added, and all 3 checkerboards. I have followed my standard W/C regimen (30-50% per week) and I performed a couple extra during the deaths.

PH 6.8-7.2
AM 0
Trite 0
Trate 0
GH 4-5
KH 4

I have now noticed the return of my fishy foe ICH. Tank temp is 78 and W/C water temp is 78-80. I run peat in the filters unless I have a reason not to (clearing meds etc.) and the ich goes dorment in the presence of tannis. From all the W/Cing the peat concentration has dropped.

I am now treating for ich again (metronidazole) and hoping for a good outcome. I have still yet to see ich on any fish other than the black and cardinal tetras.

What is it about December that kills my fish?

If anyone has any recomendations for treating ich in a large, heavily planted tank, any information on the Clinging goby I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks for reading my sorrows,
-Kyle

 

[Neil]

To get a the best guess, I would post in the "Health" forum. There are probably better people than I to answer this. But, off-hand, I would say that it would be a good idea to quarentine new fish when added to an established tank, especially when that tank has a species as delicate as filamentosa.
Everything else looks good in the tank. One of the new additions probably brought something in.

Neil

 

[fishgeek]

think neil may have got it in one
because fish 'in tanks' live in a closed enviroment they are not exposed to the same things as fish in a another tank
hence when transfering fish from different water bodies we are possibly exposing fish with no immune response to minimal levels of background disease that can be easily resisted by immunocompetent fish

stress can also lower immune response's

interestingly enough fish have been shown t have a strong immune response to ich and it has been suggested that they can maintain a resistance once exposed, makes me wonder whether something dropped they immune system and allowed the ich to return

by the way does the metronidazol work against ich, it has antiprotozoal action and should i just had never read nor thought of this before

andrew