id help please

[bushie]

ok guys,

A few more bits of the puzzle.

parkap

You say your tank is heavily planted. Did you move any of your existing plants or put any new plants in recently? Do you use iron supplements in your water for your fish? (Do you test for iron concentration in your water?) Do you know how high your CO2 concentration was in the water (probably not if you don't know your hardness)? What fertilisation do you use for your plants?

What kind of filteration do you use? When did you last clean out the filter media?

How old is your water heater? How reliable is it?

When you did your last water change, what had you been doing prior to it? Would you have had any kind of chemical on your hands, even soap?

heavily planted
more like a vallis jungle with the odd crypt, anubias, ambulia, java moss and japonica lilly thrown in.
no plants moved rearranged or added.
no iron supplements, no fertilizers.
iron tests... being perth northern suburbs ground water I think they are low.
heavy limestone basin, hence high ph and I guess high hardness.
co2 is only diy ( but works very well ).
filtration is a wet trickle( actually a bit more than trickle).
turns over about 7 times tank volume p/h outleted through 10 dispersal points to minimize current.
filter media was cleaned but only 1 pre filter.
filter runs through 2 linked prefilter compartments before bioballs then ceramic rings.
water heater is only 8 months old and holds temp well night and day...29 to 29.5.
prior to water changing i go through a ritual of scrubing hands with soap but ensure a thorough rinsing to ensure nothing is left to contaminate.

I believe this had nothing to do with water quality and everything to do with introduced disease/ infection/ bacteria.

fishgeek wrote

the only mass killing infection i am aware of is actually a herpes virus in koi
it does affect gill tissue so maybe something similar?

generally infetious disease would prehaps cause some mortalities and some sick fish that recover

neverteless it does seem ogical that you have introduced something with the new fish and been very unlucky t loose such a community

in future even without a tank a small floating jug can give you time to introduce fish ina controlled enviroment with daily water changes from tank to jug then out of system

sorry i havent got many symptoms to even guess at there

pleistophora (neon tet diseae) is a microsporean and yes it can infect other fish though you are right in assuming not normally catfish

infection of the gills can occur though is not common with these organisms and i would have expected some visible signs on the introduced fish such as discoloured areas in musculature or small bdy swellings

some of the rummy nose showed signs of what I assume is neon tetra disease.
ie: pale areas of the body (generally behind dorsal fin )and some muscular impairment.
not all fish showed signs of this and or any other distress.
gill infections are also another theory hence rapid respitory, although this is also a sign of water quality issues, but with daily water changes from the first sign of problems I doubt the water quality was an issue.
I did however lose one of the cacs ( unfortunately the only other male ).

so tetras, dwarfs and cats all succumbing to what I assume was one disease has me stumped.

regardless, everything now seems to have settled.

what I now need is your honest opinions.

do I ......
strip the tank, disinfect everything?
treat the tank and all occupants? if so with what?
leave the tank as is and not introduce anything for a while and let whatever it is run its full course? if so for how long before new tank mates?
or take everything out and just have a tank full of cacs ?

thanks for your help everyone and please feel free to come up with any suggestion/ solutions/ and or prognosis.

thanks
BUSHIE

p.s. sorry about the long posts.

[Robdog]

$600 dollars of fish later.....

I know the feeling mate. It might not add up to $600 but I've just lost a trio of A. elizabethae due to something unexplained so put me down for about $300.

I love apisto's!

Have seriously considered chucking the whole lot in the bin.

[parkap]

Bushie,

Can't add much to solving the problem you had, but am looking at the details you wrote and might try and save a problem you might get.

29+ degrees water temp is high for cacs. They like it around 25-26.

Also, are you using bore water for your tank? The high limestone content you speak of leading to high pH and hardness are exactly the opposite of what apisto's like. They like low pH, say 6-7 for cac's, and lower for most other apistos and pretty soft water.

Also, if you are using bore water, have you ever had problems with it before? I know there's a lot of mineral content and in the Perth bore water, which visiually leads to discolouration of areas when used for watering, but could indicate there's something unpleasant in there for the fish. Just a guess.

In terms of what to do now for your fish, I'm really lazy so I wouldn't strip the whole thing down, unless you feel like redesigning the tank - which is always a lot of fun. (Make sure you take some photos and post them here so we can see what the set up looks like before and after you do anything.) I'd say try introducing some hardier fish again slowly and see how they go. That being said, I had a whole heap of problems of frequent fish deaths a couple of years ago. It got very depressing and lead to me to all but neglect my tank b/c it wasn't the buzz it used to be. It wasn't until I stripped it all down, gave everything a big scrub and rebuilt it all that things stabilised and I could add fish in without fear of them dying - except for the usual apisto dying not long after you bring it home syndrome. (Rob, can't believe you lost 3 elizabethae!!! I guess most of us aren't as lucky as Thomas, who got a successful spawn out of his elizabethae after about 1 week of getting them home...)

p.

[Th0mas]

Apisto death is quite common as they don't handle to much of abuse.

However whatever knocked out the rest of the tank and didn't wipe out the apisto - I would rather not go into the conclusion to blame the cacs because they're last introduced. Apistogramma species are small fish and don't take as much abuse as a discus will handle.

As parkap has already highlighted, 29+ is quite high and the level of dissolved oxygen at this temperature is less than a tank that normally run at 24-26. So this is another factor to consider.

One item you've not mention - food. What's been fed to the tank and how regular. I know it's a long shot as the setup has been stable before the recent outbreak but if you're feeding live food - it can be a cause as well.

As for being lucky - I do have my run of bad luck as well. All 5 F0 eremnopyge died within 2 weeks of arrival (> $350), lost 4 of 5 F0 gephyra in 2 weeks, 5 out of 6 of the original F0 baenschi are in fish heaven, all uaupsei (6) and trifasciata (6) ..... the list goes on.

Thomas.

[bushie]

hey all,

noddy can you edit your original post ie: LFS, so as I can bitch without people knowing who I`m bithching about .
don`t want to tread on toes as you never know who`s reading.

thomas, there are reasons why I will blame the cacs which I will point out when noddy edits his post.
until then I would rather keep my mouth (typing finger) shut.

oxygen levels I highly doubt as the fish most knocked around were fish that are comfortable with these temps ect.
and further more, all have been at these temps for 8 months or more.
I am aware that it is not ideal conditions for apistos but it is basically a discus tank with community fish.
these fish are hopefully to grow and be transferred to individual species tanks as time and money allow.
which reminds me , I better check that lotto ticket

as for food, they are all basically on frozen foods, ie: discus mix, community mix, brine shrimp, blood worm, daphnia, mysis shrimp and cichlid mix. all rotated randomly.
three different flake foods, krill pellets, vegie pellets and algae tabs, all rotated randomly.
par boiled pumpkin, zuchini, and carrot, one of once a week.
now that I write this I`ve noticed that the little buggers are fed better than me.

as far as your losses thomas , robdog and all others, sorry to hear about them.
and as they say **** happens.
I`m not about my losses or the money ( upset.....yeah of course...A lifes a life) but I do like to know why!

oh well, I think it`s time for a full over haul/ rescape/ more tanks/ proper co2 planted.

now to try and convince the minister of finance and all things fun.

I`m sure I can hide away a couple of fun tickets that she won`t know about

thanks guys

Bushie

P.S. how would cacs go in a nano........seriously?

[Robdog]

Well mine is quite possibly getting worse. My double red aggie pair that was in the elizabethae tank(and now in 4ft discus tank) is lighter one beautiful male with same gaping mouth carcass.
So the current death toll from this one tank is 2x A. baenschi, 3x A. elizabethae and 1 aggie male. Not cool.
And now that the male has died in my main tank I've risked all the occupants of that tank too

[Th0mas]

May I suggest let the tank settle and whatever it was run through it's course. Hold back on any new addition (this will be difficult) until you're satisfied the tank has settled.

Thomas.

[Robdog]

I think that's pretty good advice for both of us. My tank is empty so what ever it is will gradually fade away with some regular WC's and no host. Bit difficult for bushie tho.

[fishgeek]

if you want to be certain then you really need to empty and breakdown the tank

all components either need boil and pressure upto 1.5 atmospheres for sterilisation of spores etc
or for the tank i rub down with salt paste leave a day and then rinse and 5% chlorine wash to be sure

plants shouldnt in theory be reused
neither should wood

all nets and filter tubing,media etc should also be treated in a suitable fashion
generally i dont have the patient for all this

andrew

[Robdog]

generally i dont have the patient for all this

BINGO!