# Dying fish, no symptoms?



## FishesRDelicious (May 18, 2011)

Hello all! It's been forever since Iv'e been here, so much has changed! Anyway, now for my long and detailed post!

I have a 29 gallon tank that has been running for a couple years with one bristle nose pleco in it and I housed a koi briefly before her new owners could take her so it's well established. 

After that was taken care of I bought some fish from my lfs where I work and care for the fish everyday so I know they're healthy. I got 6 cherry barbs and 4 glowlight tetras. My bn pleco had died somewhere around that time but I had had for a long time so that's not a surprise. I got another one and the tank had been running great for roughly 3 months. I did not have a heater since mine broke, but the fish were fine so I didn't think much of it. 

A couple weeks ago, my brother found a 10 for 10, get the 11th free deal from meijer a couple weeks ago. (for those of you not in MI, it's kind of like walmart, and the people know nothing about fish.) He didn't have quite enough room so I took 3 platys. Well now that winter's coming and my room gets cold, I put a heater in there that's a preset for 80 degrees. It heated the tank slowly and when I stick my hand in it doesn't feel warm, more like room temp but I'll be checking with an actual thermometer once I get mine back. 

Well, one day after putting the heater in, I came home and found a dead cherry barb. The next day, a dead barb and platy. The day after that, (yesterday) 2 dead barbs. I don't think it's temp shock, nitrAte, nitirIte and ammonia are 0. My water is much softer and much more alkaline than the water at work which is 40 minutes from home but the water the platys were originally in at the store near my house should be the same as mine roughly. I plan on having that tested as well. 

I just don't see how they'd be fine for weeks with no symptoms and then die. I noticed yesterday that a platy has a new white spot on his lip which I need to get a closer look at, but the other dead fish didn't have spots, nor do my live fish. I may quarantine the platy. My brother doesn't have any dead fish as far as I know but I'm keeping an eye on it. I do plan on drip acclimating from now on but I've keep fish for ten years and never had this kind of thing happen so I'm at a loss. If it is caused by differences in the water, wouldn't they have been all stressed out and died sooner? I'm starting to think the platys have something. Any help is greatly appreciated!


----------



## Summer (Oct 3, 2011)

ive been mia a while, but if the tank is cycled you should be getting a nitrate reading.


----------



## BabyNemo (Jul 22, 2014)

I would think unless you have a ton of plants in the tank, you should be getting at least a small nitrate reading.


----------



## FishesRDelicious (May 18, 2011)

Ok, I just check my results and I remembered it wrong. My nitrate is 5 mg/L


----------

