taeniatus colour variation?

[ste12000]

Ok ok ok, i most probibly deserved at least some of that, but i did appologise as i thought it might offend and that was not my intention..
I must say that in normal circumstances fish do not just keel over and die and especially not in that number. I have not had a death in five years and certainly not a few within a few days. Obviously something was wrong...Ill leave it at that. I did appologise and if you dont accept it thats fine, i am sure i will be around on here and other forums for many years so im sure we will meet again..No hard feelings, and goodluck with the new tank.

 

[chilligirl]

thanks - sorry for going off, on you - I was just frustrated at being lectured on it being a new tank/stocking issue when I'd already explained why it wasn't.

I've never seen fish drop off so rapidly with no previous sign of disease either, unless there was a MAJOR water quality issue. Having worked in lfs, I've certainly seen plenty of people lose their fish due to new tank syndrome, sharp changes in pH, etc, but as I said, my water params are where they should be. I don't know what on earth is going on. It *looks like* flukes, but it's so FAST.

My one a. steel blue died. Now my male platy and one of my females is doing poorly. My female GBR is still poorly, but showing less stress than the male platy.

What's happening with the fish is, they look fine, eat fine, act fine. Nice bright colour, no visible disease. Then, over the course of say 12 hours, their colours get really bright, except they go very dark and dusky on the top of the head and the gill plate. They get stiff and start flashing. They're gaspy. My male platy's fins are clamped also.

All of that is typical of flukes, except the speed. I just tested the tank water AGAIN, using two different test kits (my trusty API kit which I love, and an older Hagen one which is useless, except in making sure my API kit is right) - same results. Water params are fine.

River rock is out (just a precaution - I'm 99% sure this is a disease that came in with the taeniatus, and not a contamination issue, since the taeniatus in the store are all dying just as fast), and I've aimed the spray bar from the filter directly at the surface to increase agitation and oxygenation.

I suspect I may lose every fish in my tank :frown: I hate this - I feel so helpless to help my fish I know they're "just fish", but they still feel pain, and, since I decided to keep them, I'm just as responsible for their health and wellbeing as I am for, say, my dogs'.

 

[ste12000]

No problem, chilligirl, i have had a stressful day and maybe was a bit harsh in my comments, it was Azur that wound me up by saying i didnt know what i was on about, i have a fishroom with 24 tanks of mainly breeding dwarf cichlids so i think i am more than qualified. I found these in my tank today....
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=M2nr4cw3Igg
I am not a expert on fish diseases and out of the whole hobby it is the subject i am least knowlageable on (this is a good thing as i dont get diseases).
The only thing i would feel confident about suggesting is a huge water change,
i have never found a better cure than draining a tank to the fishes dorsal fins and then giving them clean declorinated warmed water, infact i use this as a breeding trigger, and we all know that fish need to be in top condition before they will breed. I also never never use medicines on my fish, i dont believe chemicals in the water are the answer, without sounding patronising i would suggest a few very large water changes spread over a few days.

 

[chilligirl]

nice fry!

Well, I'm doing a big water change right now, even though it means I've wasted the meds I put in last night. The deciding factor was that my Angels are looking a bit dusky on the top of their heads, and one of my loaches is stressed. My female GBR is looking worse, my male platy is looking better.

I'm still going to redose with the metronidozole once I refill the tank with fresh water. While I can't rule out a toxin, disease does seem more likely, simply because the fish at the lfs are dropping like flies too.

I have a strong feeling though, that I'm going to lose all, or most of, my stock. And since I don't know what the heck is wrong, I'll have to start my tank all over again if they all die, or at least not add any new fish until after a LONG quarantine period if any live.

I'm going on vacation in a month too, so the timing couldn't be worse

 

[chilligirl]

well, just did a 75% water change. My male platy seems revived (seemed revived before the change). My female GBR doesn't. I lost a glowlight tetra during the change (just keeled over and died without warning).

So, in 48 hours, I've lost:

2 taeniatus
1 GBR
1 a. steelblue
1 glowlight tetra

Within the next few hours, I may very well lose one or two platys, my remaining GBR, my other apisto, my nannacara (who are darkening up), and a loach or two.

This entire time, my water params have been perfect. Tank temp is steady. Despite the good water quality, I've done two large water changes in the last 48 hours - one on Monday, one just now. Yet still, my fish are dropping like flies

 

[tjudy]

I must say that I am at a loss for what is causing this to happen in your tanks. Flukesa re still a possibility. Metronidazole is more commonly used for protozoan parasites. Praziquantel is effective for light fluke infestations, and FlukeTabs are effective for heavy infestation (but that med will kill most invertebrates... I also use it at 1/4 dose for hydra). Your description of the glowlight tetra perking up after a water change is not consistent with a parasite infestation, so I am now leaning towards some kind of response to a toxin. One way to test that theory is to fill a quarantine tank with water from a tank that is not experiencing the problem and move the fish to it. If there is a toxin in the 'sick' tank (that has not already damaged the fish beyond repair), the fish should look and act better almost immediately.

 

[chilligirl]

sorry, the med is from API and is for flukes, lice, velvet, and anchorworm. It's metronidozole with praziquantel.

The glowlight didn't perk up, he died during the water change, sorry if that wasn't clear. The platy perked up BEFORE the water change, on his own, and no change since then.

My female GBR is looking like she's on her way out.

I am wondering if it's a toxin. The fish are acting like it's a toxin in how quick it's happening, and in some of the symptoms (twitching/spasming). Also, my nannacara are acting strange - the male is being SUPER aggressive, attacking his reflection.

I unfortunately don't have a suitable quarantine tank to move any fish to. My tanks are the 90g, a 30g with goldies in it, and a 5g with a betta. I intend to eventually use the 5g as a quarantine for new fish, but I need to replace my heater, as it stopped working.

 

[Azur]

I'm sorry, but flukes take weeks to kill fish, and infected fish don't come down with symptoms over night. When events happen over night, smart money says it's a poisoning.

Your fish are dropping like flies, and it is a freshly set-up aquarium: you are extremely likely to have water quality issues, regardless of what your test says. The fact that you lost fish during the water change supports this: raising the pH of the tank, as happens during water change, converts more weakly toxic ammonium to lethally toxic ammonia.

Would you please do something for me? Dissolve two heaping tablespoons of table salt (iodized or not, with or without anti-clumping agents - it is completely irrelevant) in some water, and add that to the tank. That amount of salt is not dangerous to your fish or plants, but the chloride ions of the salt will outcompete nitrite for the receptor sites on the fish's gills, thereby drastically reducing the toxicity of the nitrite. This doesn't fix the underlying problem, which I'm still convinced is that your filter bacteria have not kicked into gear, but if I am right you will find that deaths immediatly cease and ill fish start to recover. And if I am wrong it at least does no harm.

 

[Azur]

A tank of 90 gallon is no-where near as big as the territory adult dwarf cichlids hold in the wild.

I think that's a truth with considerable modification - e.g. Apistogramma in nature often seem to hold very small territories among leaf litter - but regardless of that, a 380 liter tank is actually a big tank. A 380 liter tank is big enough for two breeding pairs of convict cichlids, or four breeding pairs of smaller Tanganyika cichlids, and a friend of mine manage to keep a group of six Crenicichla wallacii - which without doubt is the most aggressive, guppy-eating, 5", "dwarf" cichlid I've ever seen - in a tank roughly that size.
It would not seem as if fish need, or will defend, as large territories in aquaria as they do in nature. Presumably this is a function of the easy availability of food in captivity, whereas in nature a large territory is necessary to find sufficient food.

 

[chilligirl]

Your fish are dropping like flies, and it is a freshly set-up aquarium: you are extremely likely to have water quality issues, regardless of what your test says. The fact that you lost fish during the water change supports this: raising the pH of the tank, as happens during water change, converts more weakly toxic ammonium to lethally toxic ammonia.

Would you please do something for me? Dissolve two heaping tablespoons of table salt (iodized or not, with or without anti-clumping agents - it is completely irrelevant) in some water, and add that to the tank. That amount of salt is not dangerous to your fish or plants, but the chloride ions of the salt will outcompete nitrite for the receptor sites on the fish's gills, thereby drastically reducing the toxicity of the nitrite. This doesn't fix the underlying problem, which I'm still convinced is that your filter bacteria have not kicked into gear, but if I am right you will find that deaths immediatly cease and ill fish start to recover. And if I am wrong it at least does no harm.

Azur, the only thing that's fresh is the tank itself - the filter media is not.

I feel like banging my head against a wall here - the vast majority of a tank's bacteria is in it's filter. If your tank broke, and you needed to move your fish to another tank, you would move your filter media over to the new tank also, and there would be very little issue, because you've already got the established bacteria. Same situation here. I took filter media from an established tank, with a fairly heavy bioload, and put it onto a new tank, with fish to feed the bacteria so there was no die-off. I know all of you KNOW this - this is very basic fishkeeping. I am familiar with the nitrate cycle - I used to teach it to customers back when I worked in the lfs.

My tank is lightly salted already. I choose to salt my tanks, at about 1tbsp/5 gallons. It's how I was taught, and has always worked for me. It helps reduce osmotic stress on the fish.

My water quality is good. There is NO MEASUREABLE AMMONIA in the tank. Further, my water conditioner is Prime, which would bind to ammonia or nitrites if there were any, which there's not.

My tank pH (which I test regularly) is the same as the pH of the water coming out of my tap. 7.2 in the winter, 7.0 in the summer (our city water is slightly harder, with slightly higher pH in the winter months, not sure why, just has always been that way). My tap water has no ammonia, and is not chlorinated, but I use Prime anyway, because I figure "it can't hurt".

My fish are starting to recover anyways - either removing the rock, or treating with the meds, is helping. I suspect the meds - I think this is a really bizarre strain of parasite. The reason I suspect it's the meds helping is that, when I add them, all the affected fish start flashing, darting, scratching, and go darker initially, but after a bit, there's a gradual improvement.

I haven't lost any more fish since the glowlight. My female GBR is somehow hanging in there, although she looks awful.

Here's a question - the sore on her side is behaving stangely. It started out as a little irritation with raised scales - the spot was smaller than her eye, and on her side. I treated with Melafix and salt, and it lost that raised look and turned into an obvious (small) ulcer, no redness. She's had this for about a week and a half, and it had been getting better. Then, when things all went to hell on Monday, her sore started getting worse. She got a little red raised dot at the edge of the sore. When I started treating for flukes, the red spot went away, but now the sore is bigger, and is rimmed with red.

It's not fungus or anything, this is an obvious wound. I'm just not sure why it's appearing to get worse? I'm dosing the tank with Melafix, which usually does a great job of healing up sores or torn fins, and treating the tank for parasites, as previously mentioned.

 

[firetank]

hi chilli been following the thread and am sorry you lost so many little guys..

maybe slightly an odd suggestion could it be an environmental polluter that isnt in the tank and or airborne somehow???

reason I say is I used a cat flea treatment last year and in doing so covered the tank very well (taped it up) but it resulted in a bacterial die off of the filter (in my case, I dont think this has happened for you..)and I lost a number of fish (testing regime lapsed, I hadnt lost any fish for months so didnt bother..) done any work in the house? used any treatments or new perfumed air treatments??

the water changes would result in an instant improvement then a worsening afterwards...

probably totally off here but worth ruling out...

 

[Azur]

OK, let's walk through this.

The tank has been running for a month, but with lightly salted water and a mature filter. Provided you've not added anything which kills filter bacteria *and* poisons test kit reagents that should mean it's not, after all ammonia or nitrite, the by far commonest causes of mortalities in new aquaria.

Your first fish fell ill three days ago, and died within a day. Three more fish died the following days. The initial symptoms are merely lethargy and then loss of equilibrium (right?). There are no external signs of disease except that one fish has an apparent infected wound, a condition possibly unrelated to the deaths.

A 75% water change and addition of antiparasitic medication improved the condition of the fish, although the fish upon medication first responded by darkened colors and darting.

If I've got things roughly right, this all to me still sounds like poisoning, but since we've ruled out ammonia and nitrite I have no way of guessing what the poison might be.

Disease... Granted, there are bacteria which kill fish within 24 hours of infection and without symptoms, the most virulent strains of columnaris will do this, but I know of no parasites which infect and kill that quick - their reproductive rates are too low.

If I were you I'd remove the fish with the ulcer I'd remove to a hospital tank and treat with antibiotics, as it's presumably an Aeromonas/Pseudomonas infection. Yes, I know about melafix, but I'm old-fashioned and skeptical about "natural" remedies.
Aeromonas/Pseudomonas are fish-killers but usually the mortality is low and spread slow - I don't think they're responsible for your other deaths.

 

[ste12000]

If nothing else has died, it looks as though you have turned a corner after the large water change, carry on with large water changes for the next few weeks and dont stock anymore fish just yet.
I am a bit puzzled why you add salt to your water, salt contains minerals that raise the hardness, i am sure you realize most if not all of your fish come from very soft water. Rams,Apistogramma and Nannacara all come from the Amazon and Pelvicachromis live in small forest streams in Western africa(I know you know) All waters have one thing in common, they are all rich in decaying matter(leaves,wood) they all tend to have a very low hardness level.
I dont think this is part of the problem but worth watching. Salt can have its uses but not in a South American/W.African dwarf cichlid tank, the breeding convicts from years ago and your goldfish are extremly hardy and would not have been affected by the harder water with salt added. The cichlids you were attempting to keep are not what you could call hardy and can be classed as tricky if certain guidelines are not kept.
It is a mystery to us all what has happened in your tank, can we not close this thread and start looking at options for restocking..It would be more fun!!!!

 

[chilligirl]

thanks for the feedback guys.

My ram passed this afternoon, but the rest of my fish seem better, or at least not worse.

Whatever it is, at this point I'm saying definitely some very virulent strain of disease. Reason being, when I went to the lfs I got the taeniatus from to pick up a new heater for my 5g (so I can use it for quarantine in the future), I peeked into the tank the taeniatus came out of. From an original batch of around 20 taeniatus in there last Friday, of which I bought two and they sold no others, there are 4 surviving fish. Two of them look totally fine - great actually - super vibrant (like mine were when I bought them). The other two are sitting on the bottom, darkened head and gills, dull scales (excess mucous?), gasping, and clearly very ill.

I'm going to keep treating for parasites, and also using Melafix, for the full treatment (it's a dose, wait 48hrs, dose again, wait 48hours, water change). If I continue losing fish, then I'll do a big water change and try a bacterial treatment instead. I HATE to treat for bacteria, as it will wipe out my filter bacteria too :frown: And then it will be water changes twice a day until the tank cycles again - ugh!

If nobody else dies, then I'm going to wait until February, when I get back from my trip (going to Cuba - woot!), before restocking. Restocking will be very gradual, as I'll be quarantining, and my QT tank is only 5 gallons, so I can only add one tiny pair of fish at a time!

As for salt, I'm using plain NaCl, not a marine salt or anything - does that still affect hardness of water? (trying to remember first year chem without hurting my brain too much).

As I said, the tank is still a work in progress, which I plan to enjoy for many years. I'm thinking down the road I may get one of those thingies that makes RO water, and do half RO, half tap...

Thanks so much for all the help!

 

[Azur]

I am a bit puzzled why you add salt to your water, salt contains minerals that raise the hardness, i am sure you realize most if not all of your fish come from very soft water.

Just a small correction - salt does not raise hardness. That's a common misunderstanding, but what salt raises is the conductivity, it does not affect pH or hardness at all.
Your point still stands, as most waters of the amazon have both low hardness and low conductivity.

That said, adding salt to the water is sometimes useful. Apart from the fact that salt lowers the toxicity of nitrite (thereby avoiding 'new tank syndrome'), it also allows you to create larger shifts in conductivity, which can be used to trigger spawning (most fish in the area spawn when the conductivity of the water drop sharply, as that is a signal that the rainy season has started).

 

[aquaticclarity]

You missed the biggest effect salt has on fish; it eases the process of homeostasis. (The process by which animals regulate chemicals/compounds in their body by exchanging said compounds (in or out) with the environment).

So in a freshwater fish where its body is pumping out freshwater and trying hard to retain salts, increased salts dissolved in the water make this process a LOT easier. This frees up a tremendous amount of energy that can be used for growth and development at an increased rate in young healthy fish or that can be used for healing and disease fighting in weaker fish.

You need to be careful when adding salts to a tank with soft water fish. Most soft water fish in the wild are found in water with very little and often no conductivity. This is something very hard to reproduce in an aquarium unless you use D.I. water and change some of the water out almost daily. Adding salts to a tank with fish that come from these environments with little or no conductivity can wreak havoc on their bodies. Thankfully most tank raised fish are a lot more forgiving.

One other salt note, watch what type of water softening salt you use if this water is used in an aquarium. Potassium Chloride, an inexpensive water softening salt, can be a big problem for fish. The potassium that is exchanged into the water for some of the other minerals (the "softening process" of exchanging one mineral for another-does NOT result in truly softened water) is a major component of a fish’s nervous system. Having elevated levels of potassium in the water can lead to all sorts of nervous systems failures- twitching, lateral line erosion, lack of balance, and all sorts of other problems including death.

And salt dissolved in water will raise it's general hardness, as almost any mineral dissolved in water will do.

All this said, chilligirl, the above isn't your problem. So to get back on topic from this major tangent, I'm sorry to hear about your losses. My first guess would of course be water quality, but as you stated this checks out. Next on the check list is equipment failure. Is the heater or filters leaking stray voltage into the tank? (A more common problem then you think) A simple voltage meter will tell you this. Is a disease the problem? It sounds like as the store where you got the fish is having problem and mass die off. Ask them what you think the problem is and what they are doing about it. Rapid die off, starting with the fish that came from a sick tank...sounds like the damage was already done and those fish had very little chance of making it. The bigger problem is that you now have to deal with the problem in your tank. Run down the symptoms again if you would please;

Here's my check list:
scratching
rapid breathing-sometimes shown as fish facing into water flow
discoloration-in spots like an infected cut or scrape
sore spots
over all color loss
not eating
change in behavior-hiding more, not interacting with other fish normally, etc.


Jeff

 

[chilligirl]

You missed the biggest effect salt has on fish; it eases the process of homeostasis. (The process by which animals regulate chemicals/compounds in their body by exchanging said compounds (in or out) with the environment).

So in a freshwater fish where its body is pumping out freshwater and trying hard to retain salts, increased salts dissolved in the water make this process a LOT easier. This frees up a tremendous amount of energy that can be used for growth and development at an increased rate in young healthy fish or that can be used for healing and disease fighting in weaker fish.

that's why I use salt The salt I use is plain, pure, coarse pickling salt. It is Sodium Chloride, with no additives. I dissolve it ahead of time in a bucket. I didn't know that about the conductivity, although that makes sense, from a chemistry point of view.

Here's my check list:
scratching
rapid breathing-sometimes shown as fish facing into water flow
discoloration-in spots like an infected cut or scrape
sore spots
over all color loss
not eating
change in behavior-hiding more, not interacting with other fish normally, etc.


Jeff

That's almost right, I know I've been all over the place with this thread. Here's the list:

Initially:
- darkening of the head and gill area, meaning that their head/gill area goes a dusky purplish/grey.
- brightening of colours
- thickened slime coat
- flashing and scratching
- darting
- swimming erratically, increased aggression
- reduced appetite - eats food, then spits it out

Later (by a few hours)
- bottom sitting, or hovering just above the water
- twitches, shivers, spasms
- VERY dark on top of head (almost black)
- breathing VERY heavily (sides sucking in, gills pumping furiously, mouth opening and closing rapidly)
- fins may be clamped

*just one fish, my female ram, had a sore, which she had prior to becoming ill. She had recently spawned and was my most territorial fish, so I assume the sore was caused by another fish, but the worsening/infection was caused by whatever is wrong in my tank...

As an update, I lost my other apisto this morning. He was showing no symptoms until late last night, and he went from appearing "fine" to appearing deathly ill in an hour's time - that's how fast this is, whatever it is.

My male platy, who I thought was a certain goner, is now appearing fully recovered. One of my three loaches remains showing signs of stress, but the other two look good. This leads me to think that it IS some sort of parasite, and my medication is working...

Thanks for all the support.

 

[Lisachromis]

Ok, this is bringing out my favourite salt quote from Mary Bailey.

> FRESHwater cichlids do not normally live in SALT water, apart from a few species that are coastal in their distribution and sometimes enter brackish water.
>
> The osmoregulatory system of a freshwater fish is not designed to deal with salt. Marinists do not dilute the salinity of their tanks from sea-normal, no more should we make our water semi-saline!
>
> Salt has certain medicinal uses for freshwater fishes. Back in the bad old days when people knew little about water quality, and no test kits for nitrite, ammonia, nitrate were available, and partial water changes were a treat for the fish rather than regular maintenance, salt was the treatment of choice for the inevitable fungal and bacterial infections that cropped up regularly. Some aquarists started using salt as a prophylactic, again in ignorance of its possible harmful side-effects. And it got labelled "tonic salt". Knowledge has progressed, but aquarium salt is business for manufacturers and dealers, so we are still sold its possible benefits but not told that it is unnecessary and undesirable for routine use.
>
> It does no increase hardness, it does not increase pH, it merely makes water salty.
>
> MB

 

[tjudy]

but I know of no parasites which infect and kill that quick - their reproductive rates are too low.

Parasites, like any othe microganism, have potentially explosive exponential population growth rates. The parasites may be present for a long time before we notice then, however. Most fish can handle parasite infestations up to s certain point, and then the negative effects of a growing population degrade the fish's health.. fast. Flukes, calamanus worms, nematodes, velvet and other protozoan parasites follow this pattern. That is one reason I quarantine, especially wild fish, and treat with metronidazol (protists) and praziquantel (flukes, some worms). Nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem.

 

[Azur]

You missed the biggest effect salt has on fish; it eases the process of homeostasis.

Yeah... No, I didn't miss it, it's just that in a freshly started tank it's certainly of less importance than drastically reducing the toxicity of nitrite. I routinely keep my hospital tanks at 3 ppt salinity, higher if the fish has open sores, to help the fish with its osmotic balance.

You need to be careful when adding salts to a tank with soft water fish.

You will find it is hard, maybe impossible, to kill fish by raising salinity, as long as the final salinity is lower than, say, 2 ppt (which is well into brackish range). You can flip a fish from a tank with peat-filtered RO water straight into low-range brackish and all you achieve is give the fish a splitting headache due to dehydration.

It is on the other hand very easy to kill fish by moving them from higher salinity to lower - the typical case is when a conscientous aquarist buys a blackwater fish (which at the petshop is held in tapwater) and puts it in the peat-filtered RO-water of his blackwater tank. Water rushes in in the cells of the fish, causing tissue swelling and individual cells to expand and burst.

Unlike with raising salinity one has to take it very slow and allow the fish to acclimatize when lowering salinity.

Plants are another issue entirely. Very few common freshwater aquarium plants tolerate more than 1-3 ppt salinity, regardless of acclimatization. This is allegedly because of their hard cell walls, which lead to cell junction rupture when the cells, but not the cell walls, shrink in higher salinities.

And salt dissolved in water will raise it's general hardness, as almost any mineral dissolved in water will do.

Not really. Depending on definition, general (or permanent) hardness is either defined as the amount of calcium and magnesium ions (and ONLY calcium and magnesium ions!) in the water, re-calculated as calcium carbonate, OR as the sum amount of 2+ ions (including e.g. copper2+ and iron2+) in the water, re-calculated as calcium carbonate.

It is a common misconception that salt, sodium chloride, affect hardness, but salt contain neither bicarbonate (carbonate hardness) nor calcium or magnesium or any other bivalent ion (permanent hardness), and can not change total hardness (carbonate hardness + permanent hardness) at all; if you get a change in total hardness after adding table salt it's a false reading caused by chloride poisoning the reagent chemicals.

(That said I have half a memory of one occasionally used definition of hardness, called soap hardness, which indeed is affected by sodium chloride.)

Initially:
- darkening of the head and gill area, meaning that their head/gill area goes a dusky purplish/grey.
- brightening of colours
- thickened slime coat
- flashing and scratching
- darting
- swimming erratically, increased aggression
- reduced appetite - eats food, then spits it out

I know you have dismissed the possibility, but for the record, those symptoms all fit ammonia poisoning. There are admittedly other poisons which irritate the skin, gives brownish blood (purple gills) and produce colorful corpses, e.g. formalin, but offhand I can't think of a single parasite which does. The quick-killing columnaris strains, for instance, do not.