Extremely Frustrated! Woke up to dead fish!?!

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

Anthony, is there any chance that you could have put your hand into the tank with soap or cleaning agent or anything else like that?

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

I think you might have some stray voltage in your tank. Not enough to shock you when you put your hand in the tank but enough to kill the fish.

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

you must have had a power surge. It really sounds like the fish got electrocuted.

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

How have the fishes poop looked.

Ever considered an internal parasite? That just occurred to me. White stringy poop for example is a sign of external Heximita. I am sure there are other things too. And some of them have no visible signs on the exterior of the fish, only visible stress that seems for no reason.

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

I still have a gut feeling it is some kind of internal parasite as that would make them not want to eat too... Think if you has a stomach ache and were sick to your stomach, you would not want to eat either.....

It is the ONLY think I can think of that makes sense. No Electricity, Foreign Chemicals, All Parameters Perfect, Only Fish Died, Not All Died But Most....... Corals Still Alive..... Corals would not be affected by the parasite, and it being internal your livestock may not even show signs... again not all internal parasites have white stringy poop as a symptom....

Look into that route.... which one it is, I dont know and nor may you ever.... but that is the only thing I can think of that would do this to your fish. If it is the case you need to of course wait a while before re-stocking.

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

Treated where, when and with what....

If you are talking hitting them with a few meds in the water directly.... yes it is entirely possible. If your FED them medicated food.... there is less of chance...

I am not sure if this could happen but I dont see a reason why it couldnt, they could have ingested a parasite from the live rock.... again speculation.... they just may have got stressed and opened up to the parasite

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

My gut reaction is no parasites - just because you haven't introduced anything in a while, lost a majority of your fish in one fell swoop (whoever brought the infestation in your tank should have died before you started losing more fish) and because you haven't seen any obvious signs.

If I was going to make a gut call - I would suspect that it was possibly a toxin released by a coral or something that your carbon removed over time, OR a fish died and put an extra load/strain on your bio filtration and either ammonia or nitrite went out of whack enough to kill more fish, and by the time you got the fish out and tested the bio-filtration had ramped up/multiplied and resolved the water issue.

Those are complete guesses on my behalf though good luck figuring it out!

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

But parasites, live in the tank at all times... introducing a new item/fish does usually start the infection but with Discus, I have seen them just out of nowhere get sick for no reason.... And usually it is internal Heximita. The problem is I dont realize it until it is too late or almost too late....

Again they have gotten sick for apparently no reason just like Anthony's

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

Still a chance something got in.... even the best quarantine treatments dont guarantee a stray parasite...

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

If an outbreak occurs and slams all the fish from a parasite/disease that's already in the tank for a while, there's typically a catalyst that stresses them to the point that they are susceptible to the parasite/disease (a temporary temperature swing, PH dropping at night, etc) Something has to change to make a parasite that otherwise hasn't been able to knock down the fish, suddenly able to.

We had an ich outbreak in our tank years back that didn't settle until we increased buffering capacity of water so it couldn't drop at night. Once that was taken care of, the fish recovered and we only see visible signs if something falls well out of bounds (temperature swings, pumps going out, or other traumatic things for fish) The last time we had any signs of ich, ironically was not when we added anything to our tank. it's when a pump started slowly leaking electricity in tank. ich subsided when fish "de stressed" when I removed that pump. As a heads up (not sure how experienced you are with electricity - mentioning JUST IN CASE you haven't used multimeters much)...make sure you turn the multimeter up fairly sensitive (to the point you see a little feedback) when your gear's all turned off, and then turn your gear on and see if it spikes at all. The objective isn't to search for enough electricity to kill things - it's just to find enough electricity to irritate/stress things (which takes very little electricity)

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

Parasites would attack all fish if one stresses all of the others may stress too.... some have stronger immune systems than others depending on their stress level. Labored breathing could still come from internal..... In which case some will die, some will live and others wont get it.... especially if that one stays in its hole all of the time, it is separated somewhat from the others.... the living clown could have just been the stronger one or as the others died off, it lossed the stress from the others as they are not in there.... and it itself may still not feel well.

Just a suggestion... Try the electricity test to that lostanime mentioned. It is worth a shot too.

 

Re: Extremely Frustrated !

Breeding behavior in any fish, changes in behavior from one fish or anything like that beyond water parameters can cause stress too.... not always is it the water quality. Yes usually it is 98 percent of the time.... but other than a sudden temporary change that was not noticed, all else was ruled out.

What else is left to blame it on. An act of God? God wanted to let the fish swim free in the vast ocean in the sky? We are running out of ideas but something real did happen. As to what, I still feel that it was an internal parasite. That is off of my gut feeling. What caused the stress though to lead to that is unknown.