# Losing fish, not sure on diagnosis



## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

Well, I wasn't hoping to start off my membership here with a thread like this, but I think I have some kind of disease or parasite in my tank. If you read my intro thread not long ago, I had 6 cardinal tetras and 10 black neon tetras, along with an albino sailfin pleco and 4 pepper corys. Everything was going well until I got another 10 cardinals from Petco. Yes, I know, I probably brought this upon myself from shopping there. I bought some the day they came in which, in hindsight, was probably another bad idea. They all seemed to acclimate fine but a few days to a week later I started seeing dead fish. The first day I came home to find I think 4 dead cardinals. Another day claimed another. I don't remember the exact timeline but I assumed bad fish and only started getting really worried when one of the black neons that had been fine for a couple of weeks ended up dead. At this point I think I've lost 7 or 8 of the cardinals, and the one black neon. The corys and pleco have thankfully been unaffected so far.

I don't have the most experience with disease, so I'm hoping someone can give me some ideas. For the most part I haven't seen anything visually wrong with the fish. No white spots or flared gills or anything. There were a few that were bloated, but some of the dead were not, I'd say half and half roughly. The other day I witnessed a cardinal die. While I was watching he started swimming sideways and losing control until he sunk to the bottom and stopped moving. I pulled him out while he was clearly done but still trying to breathe and placed him in the freezer to euthanize him.

Just now I sat down in front of the tank to watch them and saw a few of the black neons swimming up and down the side of the tank against the wall almost like they were flashing but only up and down the side of the tank, not against anything else or the sand. Unfortunately as I watched, again I had the misfortune to witness another cardinal go. This time this one was spiraling very rapidly and shooting all around the tank, up and out of the water, back down into the sand and back and forth. It only lasted 30 seconds or so until he came to a stop at the bottom and was done. It wasn't pleasant to witness and I'm worried about major disease/parasite issues.

Unfortunately, I don't have my quarantine tank up yet. I have nearly everything for it but a stand, and even if I filled it on the floor for now, I couldn't really cycle it in time for it to be much good. The water parameters in the main tank are fine so I know it's not a water issue. I'm feeding them Omega One flakes which isn't my first choice as well as dropping shrimp pellets and veggie tabs for the corys and pleco. I thought that perhaps the bloated fish had managed to swallow a shrimp pellet whole which expanded in their stomach, but I haven't fed those for a few days now and have had non-bloated fish die too, so I don't think that's the issue. I've wondered if it was something in the food and need to go find some better quality food for one.

Sorry, this is a bit long, I wanted to make sure I covered everything. I did put some salt in, but not a large dose. It doesn't seem to have had any effect negative or positive. I'm hesitant to put a lot in especially if I don't know exactly what I'm dealing with. I'm thinking about going to find some antibiotics tomorrow but I do hate to dose the big tank, though I suppose I can always remove it with carbon if it's what needs to be done. Thanks in advance for any help or ideas.


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## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

Oh, and in the spirit of thoroughness, one of the black neons DID come a little odd. He has a tail bent downward a little and his tail fin isn't fully developed (it's as thin as his body) and his gills were flared. I kept him separate for several hours while I watched him until I had to make a decision to keep him or send him on his way and I came to the conclusion after reading as much as I could and observing him that I felt his issues were birth defects and kept him. I still believe this is true as his condition hasn't deteriorated at all and he's seemed perfectly active and has been eating and swimming with the others, though it is worth noting. I'd think if he was sick he'd be the first to die or at least stop eating or act lethargic in any way.


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## Arthur7 (Feb 22, 2013)

It looks like poisoning. Substances in water, metal oxides, copper. Perhaps the fodder? Infections have other symptoms.


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## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

Is there some kind of test kit or something you'd suggest to get for various toxins? I think I'm going to buy different food for one, because they've seemed to die after eating and that's the easiest thing to change. Just seems odd that they were fine for weeks until now. Nothing I can think of has changed. I'll look into metal or copper tests. Thanks.


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## Dolphielov (Dec 18, 2013)

When you acclimated your cardinals did you add any water from the bag to the tank? If you did, that could be it- say, if you had toxins in the bag water.


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## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

Dolphielov said:


> When you acclimated your cardinals did you add any water from the bag to the tank? If you did, that could be it- say, if you had toxins in the bag water.


Nope. I dumped them into my acclimation bucket and dripped tank water in for a couple of hours then netted them out. I can't really think where toxins would have come from except (hopefully not) my water supply. I always use Safe when changing water too, not that that helps with everything.


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## chenowethpm (Jan 8, 2014)

Cardinals are very sensitive and you can expect some loss with them no matter how good the water quality is. It does sound like there's something else going on here though. Have any air fresheners or cleaners gotten in the tank? Just a thought.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

I doubt the food.
You say water quality OK,real numbers will help.Liquid(glass vials) or strips for test?
You can sadly expect some loss with cardinals.As a breeder this makes no sense as they lasted long enough to be where they are ,but ?
Your drip sounds great(how I do all of mine).
You haven't tested your source water ?Even for just ***** and giggles?
I would,along with the other suggestions.


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## big b (Jun 28, 2014)

i know what you mean that sucks i have a friend that happened to him.


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## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

Thanks for all the replies. Yeah, I don't know of any source that could have contaminated the water. No aerosol sprays or anything, and even if I did the tank is completely covered. Nothing has been added to the tank other than water straight from the faucet and promptly conditioned. And with the loss spread out over a week or two it's hard to imagine contaminating the water and them dying slowly at different rates and some being perfectly fine too.

As far as the water numbers, I use the liquid API kit, ~7.5 pH (right between the top of the low and high pH scales), 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and I haven't measured over 40 ppm nitrate in the past month (depending on if it was before or after a water change). I'd still like to get the nitrate a little lower, but even 40ppm shoudn't be killing fish. Source water is zeros across the board as I recall from trying to get the cycle started and I retested this past weekend trying to see what was going on.

I do know that cardinals are somewhat fragile, but the first 6 went in without any loss at all, as well as the serpaes that I kept for a week or so and the black neons, then suddenly I had 7 or 8 deaths in a week's span. Just has seemed weird and a bit worrying.

No losses today. I just fed them shrimp pellets and veggie wafers soaked for about 2 hours to eliminate most swelling. The corys are having a field day while the tetras, well, they aren't necessarily bottom feeders but they got the hang of it. I've only fed every other day or so for the last few days so they are hungry enough to figure it out. I meant to get some peas for them as well, but no one seems bloated right now and I saw multiple poops.

The only real anomaly was losing the one black neon, but aside from that if the deaths stop I'm willing to chalk it up to a stressed new set of cardinals. Unfortunately I'm down to 7 now, just one more than before I added the 10, but I obviously can't really tell if it was only the new ones dying. I suppose at this point I'll just keep watching and doing water changes and hope for the best.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

How big are the serpaes? They have been known to be tough on other tetras?


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## AJerman (Aug 12, 2014)

coralbandit said:


> How big are the serpaes? They have been known to be tough on other tetras?


Oh I only had them for a week or so because they were picking on the corys pretty bad. That was well prior to these issues. I traded them back for the black neons.


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

9 out of 10 times I will say carbon is useless.
But if there is a possibility of something in our source water this is what carbon is for IMO.Hard call since some of your fish(even cards) are still hanging out,but sometimes fish have a hard time acclimating to what others are already used too.
Arthur is correct that most infections will have some symptom.One of the hardest to spot sometimes and common issues is columnaris.I have battled columnaris that only showed any symptom 2-3 days before the infected fish died.It can linger in the tank and only infect weakened/stressed fish.
It's been a while on this site since we talked about columnaris ,but not that long ago (this year) we had many memebers with new fish and this issue.It seemed like the fish version of the flu!
If you add carbon to your filter I would try it about 4 days before adding new fish again.It is an added expense,but nobody wants to add up what dead fish have cost us all.
If you go the carbon route Boyds "chemi pure" or "chemi pure elite" are the best out there and come in their own bag so you can install and remove easily.
Hope we get this straightened out as I really enjoy my cardinals,and know you will also.


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## Arthur7 (Feb 22, 2013)

There have been cases where the water works against algae coppers had. But since we have been warned as aquarium trade group.
Sometimes pieces of pipe to be replaced. Check it


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