Mysterious Deaths....

Hi folks,

Just want to quizz you good folk as to a few deaths I have had over the past week....

First I had a female Emporer Tetra who had a mysterious looking worm wrapped around her fin, and then her underside blistered up with a whole load of worms inside her. I had isolated her before the blister appeared!She did not die as a result of the worms or blister popping, but I did 'put her down' as it seemed unfair to leave her in that state after the blister did pop!!

Probably a self explanitory diagnosis there, but i still don't know what type of worm it was!

I treated the tank with Waterlife Sterazin as it claims to control intestinal worms just in case there were any other fish who may have had the worms. All seemed ok!

So then I decided that I would move my Cacatuoides pair into their own tank so that i could breed them again!

As stated in my caca breeding thread, at first I thought the female wasn't going to make it.... She lay on the bottom of the tank with her fins clamped whilst wriggling in a snake like fashion. She did this for maybe 10 mins, and then I added some food, and she shot up to the top to eat some and then she was swimming around fine!! She now still appears absolutley fine!!

My male on the other hand appeared fine at first, but then started to hide away all the time, but with no obvious symptons! I thought at first he was just getting too much attention from the female who kept on pestering him, but when I went through to the tanks on thursday morning, there I find my male dead in the corner!

I suspected that it was simply more of a case that he was too stressed in the move, but now I'm not so sure....

I was just cleaning the glass on my tank just now, and noticed one of my Pearl Gourami's was dead, upside down with its head down!

I fished him out with my net, and inspected the carcus, and no visible signs of disease on him!

I tested my parameters as follows....

pH = 7 (suprised by this, but the acuracy of pH drops tests in the capes soft water has been called into question! My normal range is between pH6.2 to pH6.8, usually more like the lower!)

Nitrates = 5ppm (suprised by this too, as there is a lot of poop and dead algae on the bottom of the tank, and it is slightly overstocked, so expected this to be higher!!)

GH = 100ppm

kH = 30ppm

Temp = 26 to 29 degrees C depending on how hot a day it is!

Any ideas what may be the problem?? I know its very little to go on!

Oh, and there is a oily film/residue on the water surface but I think this is from the Profs frozen foods building up??

Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers
Big G!

I do not have a Nitrites tester available!!

 

Could be camallanus worms on Emperor Tetra but I cant be sure. If they were reddish worms, then thats probably what it is.

http://www.petfish.net/kb/entry/154/

Long story short - Sterazin and such products may kill beneficial bacteria and should not be added to the main tank. This causes opportunistic bad bacteria levels to rise, and may be the cause of the deaths of the other fish (gourami etc) Unfortunately, camallanus worms are very difficult to treat (Levamisole or praziquantel).

I would isolate all the fish not showing symptoms of any illness into a quarantine tank, and honestly : start afresh .

 

Just to add some healthy debate - I disagree on the above point, waterlife actually state that sterazin does not harm beneficial bacteria and I have 1st hand experience of this.

Big G it sucks being in this position, I had a similar thing with my Krib who eventually died. Somethings just cant be explained?

I dont have any advice other than dosing my tank with sterazin has so far prevented the contraction of the mysterious Krib parasite infestation to my other fish.

Goodluck

 

Agree with KiazerG. Sterazin won't kill the filter.