[bkopsick]

Today I lost my first fish. It was one of my Red Zebras. About a week ago I noticed one of my Red Zebras was acting funny(not eating, hiding all of the time and making wierd mouth motions like opening and closing all of the time). A few days ago I took it out and put it into a 5 gallon established quarantine tank hoping that it would be better or atleast not affect the other fish in my tank. Well it wasn't seeming to be doing much better in this tank either and today when I got home from work, it was dead. When I took the fish out, Looked it over more carefully and noticed a small, unusual hole just behind the pectoral fin. :-?

A little background information about my tank:
75 Gallon(4 ft long) with 2 Emperor 400 Power Filters. Tank has been setup and running for over 2 months and all fish in it are roughly 2-2.5" in length.
Current Stock:
4 Pseudotropheus Acei "Yellow Tail"
5(now 4) Metriaclima estherae "Red Zebra"
5 Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos "Maingano"
6 Labidochromis caeruleus "Yellow Lab"
4 Cynotilapia Afra "white top hara"
Water Parameters:
pH: 8.3
gH: 18
kH: 14
Ammonia: 0
NitrIte: 0
NitrAte: 10-20
Temp.: 78-80 degrees

I guess what I'm wondering is if anyone has had this happen or know what may have happened and if there is anything I should do to make sure my other fish don't get infected(which by the way seem to be fine)? If there is anymore information that I can provide to help diagnose anything, let me know......

Thanks,
Bert

 

[cichlidaholic]

Hi, Bert...

For future reference, when you hit submit on a post and your pc freezes up on you, just hit the refresh button rather than hitting submit over and over again. :wink:

Did these fish go through the cycling of the tank?

Have you noticed any white stringy feces from any of the fish?

Any unusual behaviour at all, other than from the one that died?

It sounds like you may have some sort of internal parasite.

I think what I would do is feed the main tank medicated antiparasitic food, just to be safe. Jungle makes one, or you can pick up some metronidazole and soak your own food in meds and tank water. It's best if you can get them to ingest the meds, so I would do it while they are all still eating.

 

[bkopsick]

Sorry about the post showing up four times. You hit the nail right on the head, too. My PC froze and next thing I knew it posted 4 times.... lol sorry

Anyway, thanks ofr the reply. Now to answer your questions....

No these fish didn't go through the cycling of the tank. I did a fishless cycle.

Funny you should ask about white stringy feces because today right before I signed on I noticed one of my other Red Zebras had white stringy feces about 2 inches long. Kind of caught my attention because I have never noticed anything like that before.

Still no unusual behaviour. Other than the white stringy poo, but even that fish is still behaving normally.

I will try the antiparasitic food today. How long should I be using this? Just follow the directions on the package?

Again, thanks for your help. Hope I can make it through this without anymore deaths.....

Bert

 

[bkopsick]

OK I went to the fish store today and got some Medicated Anti-Parasite food by Jungle. It says to feed exclusively for 3 consecutive days a week for 4 weeks. Do not use other foods during those days.

This may be a dumb question but do you think it will be ok to feed my other food(NLS) during the "off" days? or should I just feed them the medicated food as per directions only?

 

[cichlidaholic]

Actually, with my wild fish while in QT, I feed them that food daily (once) for 2 weeks, nothing else.

That's all I would use for at least a week. Only feed once a day, that way they will come closer to eating it...Soak it in tank water for 20 minutes prior to feeding them.

It's great news that they are all still eating.

Don't know if you noticed or not, but they also make an antibacterial food that I like to keep on hand for "iffy" situations.

 

[bkopsick]

Cichlidaholic, thank you so much for the help! I'm actually leaving for vacation for a week(talk about timing...lol) but my brother is taking care of my fish. I'll make sure he knows to feed them that exclusively until I get back.

Good to know about the antibacterial food. I'll have to get some of that. I did see it when I was at the LFS but wasn't sure about it.

Again, Thank you so much. I will keep you posted on how this whole situation turns out!

Bert

 

[bkopsick]

Well, I'm back and all my fish are still here My brother has been feeding them the antiparasitic food once daily since I've been gone and they seem to be doing great. When I got home today, I, too, fed them the antiparasitic food. How long do you think I should continue to feed them this? When I do stop, I'll be going back to feeding them NLS. I also mix in some Omega One Cichlid pellets and Omega One Veggia Flakes occasionally.

I also have this Ocean Nutrition Dried Seaweeds that they go crazy for. I read that it can be good to "treat" them to things like this, but haven't read/heard any feedback on this specific type? Anyone have any feedback on it? I can tell you that my fish sure do go nuts for it...

I'm now a little nervous on what to feed them. I don't want anymore "issues" like the last one again....

Bert

 

[cichlidaholic]

I prefer feeding one good quality food. I have a tendency to overfeed if I feed multiple foods. I use different foods on different tanks with different needs, but each tank gets one quality food.

With that being said, I also have had problems "changing" foods, even when the food I am offering is a quality food, so I suppose that is what makes me so cautious. For instance, the only times I've ever dealt with bloat in my tanks was when offering pellet to fish who had only been fed flake in the past, or were wild.

NLS is a great food. With the species you have, if I had to choose one out of what you're using, that would be it. If I wanted to add a second more focused on veggies, I'd go with the Omega veggie flake (or HBH veggie flake).

With those two foods, there is no need for anything else.