Mystery Disease affecting catfish

For the past few weeks I've been having random deaths for my plecos and corydoras. They have happened after I moved them to a friend's tank due to no power at home. They came home okay for a few days then I started to see deaths. The most common thing for the deaths are a slightly swollen belly, swimming disoriented swimming and in some of them red marks under their fins. Happened in 3 of my tanks and I don't know wether it's parasites, bloat or bacteria. Most of the deaths were mature plecos some even had full sized eggs and now most of the deaths are my juveniles after a few days. They fish seem fine a day or two before then they die. Anyone dealt with this before. Lost 7 super reds bn plecos, 2 breeding female bn plecos, 6 sterbai corys, and an agassizii cory.

 

Eish... that’s a lot of nice fish you’ve lost, sorry man. Are your friends fish all ok? Does he also have plecs and cories?

 

Mystery deaths are often columnaris but can't say for sure. Worth reading up on though.
I treated that with aquarium salt, then potassium permanganate and finally JBL Furanol + Kanaplex.
Not fun but perhaps others can chime in on what the issue could be, if not that.

 

Yes they are. So far the old other species was a golden ram.

Auarium salt seems to reduce the redness. Tried treating with an antiparasitic but deaths of more juveniles started. It's just most of the deaths have a slightly swollen belly. And most of the mature females had eggs as well when they died.

 

I will go get kanaplex tomorrow. I've already consider that tank a lost cause but if I can save my big corys and my big male bn pleco then that would be okay. Lost about 10 juvenile plecos this morning and now my first endler.

 

No white patches on my fish but the disorentaed swimming before death looks similar to columnaris. But the swollen bellies are giving me concern.

 

When you buy kanaplex is the tube supposed to be filled halfway and the measuring spoon disconnected from the cap?

 

Okay thanks. On the bad side I just lost another 8 baby plecos, 5 enders, a sterbai and my betta. The betta was swimming fine an hour ago.

 

To be honest I feel like euthanizing everything in the tank and sterilising it. I don't want them to suffer but hopefully they start recovering in a few days time.

 

Yew @Kiaan26

This is devastating.. Im so sorry
I hope some of them pull through

 

https://www.ratemyfishtank.com/blog/self-poisoning-a-damaging-defense-mechanism

Above might be worth a read ... self poisoning, maybe they are all stressed out after the tank move or the territory in the tank is now challenged all the time?

Later Ferdie

 

Are they gasping as well / flashing?. Makes me think of a protozoan (Trichodina).

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G960F met Tapatalk

 

Yes they sometimes start gasping and then die 12 hours later. The thing that confused me was some had swollen eyes, swollen bellies, red marks under the skin and others just died with full colouring and no visible issues. The kanaplex seems to be working went from 20 deaths a day to about 1 or 2 after 3 days. Did the second treatment today.

 

Might be aeromonas / pseudononas bacteria then

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G960F met Tapatalk

 

Thanks everyone for the advice. I have seemed to have sorted out my tanks except for my puffer fish tank as Chungus had developed a case of ick and paraguard was too strong for a few of the pea puffers. So I moved my last pea puffer and khuli loach to their own 30L tank and now Chungus has the whole 3ft tank to himself. He seems to love the extra room to explore.


Now for the count as of July and early August. 7 super red bn plecos, 100+ short fin and long fin bn pleco babies, an adult female bn pleco, an adult long fin bn pleco, 30+ neo shrimp, 3 pea puffers, a pearl gourami, a golden ram, a female angelfish, a dragonscale betta and about 20 japan blue endlers.

Now I need to rebuild my breeding stock and setup backup systems. Got myself a breeding pair of bn plecos and an endler colony. And most of my pet fishes survived. Going to take a break from fish for a while as this was a stressful experience.