Tank crash!

[Cathy G]

So, I have heard this expression but have never seen it before. I don't know what to do but my almost-ready-to-sell blue ram juvie tank just crashed. Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrates 5, gh 4, kh 3, no chlorine... what else can I test for!? There is a sponge filter and an external power filter - temp is steady at 82.

My fish are dropping like flies and I have been changing 50% water 2 times/day. This started last night. Yesterday I fed them some Hikari frozen multipac stuff - but I fed the same to all my tanks and there hasn't been any negative reaction in the others.

I haven't changed my RO/Tap recipe, the unit is somewhat new but once again, all my tanks are getting this same water so how could it be the RO?

Fins are clamped, stress stripes are showing, breathing is heavy, swimming is erratic. Some are hanging at the bottom, some are toward the top, there is lots of water movement so I don't think lack of oxygen is an issue. They don't seem to have the strength to fight any current.

They were just beginning to color up, this is hard to take! Any ideas!?
Cathy

 

[tjudy]

The first thing I would do is drop the temperature into the 70's. You did not mention pH, but I do not think that would have crashed with a KH 3. hae you changed the chemical media in the power filter recently? If not, you might do that in case teh cardon is fully loaded and is releasing toxins you cannot test for.

If the water chemistry is all good, then the next thing to suspect (with rams especially) are gill flukes. A rapid infestation is rare in cases where the fish are growing out in a hobbyist tank. I have seen gill fluke problems most frequently with fish that are packed in bags to densely and stressed on their way from the fish farms in FL or SEA.

 

[Cathy G]

Okay, I just changed 75% water, added PraziPro. Will slowly lower temp. I took out the chemical filter/purigen this morning as I tried to figure out possibilities. I did not replace it, I figured that all the tank needs right now is biological filtration...

Some look like they have the shimmies, they are faced into the current and not moving much - never seen them do this before. Their gills do look a bit swollen, but I really can't tell much.

I bought the spectapure RO unit you recommended. Could anything be going on with that? Thank you for responding to my SOS so quickly! If is is gill flukes - where the heck did they come from?!

Cathy

Oh, ph is 7.2-7.4 right where it always has been.

 

[tjudy]

The RO unit would not be releasing anything into the water. The pre-filters are mechanical and carbon, and the membrane is just mechanical... so there is not really anything an RO can release. If you got the deionization unit you might need to change the resins. They do not last very long, and can (though rarely) release ions back into the RO water.

Gill flukes can arrive in tap water, frozen foods, or on plants or newly introduced fish. They are opportunistic, and a healthy fish can usually fight them off. When the fish get stressed, however, the fluke population can explode. Warmer water holds less oxygen than cooler water, and the water in Bolivia is cooler than in the Amazon basin to the north. My understanding is that rams are not hot water fish.

 

[Cathy G]

6 more dead this morning. I only turned the temp down to 80 - Ted, these are Blue rams, not Bolivians - I have both. But, in case it is a bacterial thing, and to help get more oxygen in the water I did turn it down some.

Anyone know how long it will take the Prazi to work? I also have a tank with 4 week old blue ram fry - should I treat that tank as a preventative measure? (I already went ahead and treated the rest of my tanks...)

Thanks for helping,
Cathy

 

[aquaticclarity]

Cathy,

I understand the desire to do some preventative meds in the rest of your tanks in the face of issues in the one, but be careful. Treating fish with meds when there isn’t a problem can lead to creating drug resistant stains of a disease. Back in my retail days dealing with bringing in thousands of farm fish every week or two I learned that water changes were almost always more effective then drugs. Fish have a great natural immune system that seldom needs the help of drugs. Just reducing stress, usually via improved water quality, does wonders.

I know your water checked out in the juvinal ram tank so the PraziPro may be the answer in this case. I’ve found the fish usually show improvement with the treatment of PraziPro with-in 2-3 days. Although I have trouble believing that your fish picked up a gill fluke unless you added new fish to the tank it would even be conceivable to have transferred a parasite from another tank via a net, hose, scrub pad, or even your own hand. Giving your fish keeping equipment a hot water (almost boiling) and/or salt bath would be a good idea if disease transfer might be an issue.

Good Luck,
Jeff

 

[aquaticclarity]

Cathy,

I forgot to mention that since you started to treat your other tanks it would be best if you finished out the recommended treatment. That way you are, at least in theory, wiping out the majority of any “bug†in the tanks and avoiding leaving behind a strain that has then started to become immune to the drugs.

Jeff

 

[Cathy G]

24 hours later - 10 more dead fish today - but I think this tank is over the hump. In fact the improvement I see is almost miraculous. The larger of the fish are colored up again and wanting food. I don't see any with shimmies, there are still some dark ones, but not many. I added 2 other airstones - one is almost a bubble wand and they are all 'playing' in the bubbles. They're body surfing - bet it feels good on their gills or something.

As I was removing the dead ones this am, I noticed tiny little bloody marks by their gills. Also some of the gills were quite mucoussy. Ted, you were right on the mark, thank you so much!

I've been doing the tracing how this could have happened thing and I bet they got into my tank from some guppy grass I stuck in there a few weeks ago. The grass was QT'd for a month before, but there were fish in the QT tank at that time, as well as fish in with the grass at the lfs. So, I fed them that new food - it didn't agree with them, they ate too much anyway and bam, stress. There is lots of that grass in there, as the rams grow and get agressive, I wanted an easy way to provide lots of hiding and gettaway spaces - so it's like a jungle in there. The flukes wouldn't have had to swim much to find a host...

What a lesson. Sigh, at least I can sleep tonight. Oh, Jeff, yes, I'll be sure to finish the treatment. In 4 days I add one more dose to kill off any new ones which might have hatched. (After I do a water change!)

Thanks so much for your help. Jeff - I look forward to meeting you, perhaps in November. Ted - I hear you are going to be a speaker here, how fun?!

Cathy

 

[tjudy]

Glad to hear you have a handle on it Cathy. Are you referring to the MAS November meeting? I will be at the October meeting... go to that one. Jeff Cardwell is presenting and he is always fun to see.

 

[Cathy G]

Yeh, I mentioned that something is always coming up - this month I'll be in Houston on the weekend of the MAS meeting... Maybe I'll get to the November one. I heard you were the speaker on the 24th - aren't you speaking about
Turkeyzi leftoversus? (Sorry I'm too tired to be any cleverer than that...)
Cathy

 

[tjudy]

I am going to talk about using turkey tryptophan (sp?) as a shipping calmer for fish....

 

[fishgeek]

is it just the action of the amino acid or does it have to be specifically turkey?

is it proven to work in fish? or just carried over from mammalian studies?

andrew

 

[tjudy]

:tongue: Its a joke.... The day before the meeting is Thanksgiving here in the USA, and we traditionally eat a lot of turkey, sit in front of a Detroit Lions or Dallas Cowboy football game and fall asleep.

 

[fishgeek]

sorry , i guess humour is hard to convey in wrtiting

andrew