White cloud deaths after feeding

[Dancing Matt]

So I have had two instances of feeding my white clouds and them dying and wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences.

When I first got my white clouds they were small (2-3 months old?) and i was feeding frozen brine shrimp (adults) along with flake. They started showing signs if distress and would die one by one. I stopped feeding frozen brine and they stopped dying. I have fed them and their 60+ offspring flake, bug bites, and baby brine (live and frozen) ever since and have had no issues. I heard others have had issues with WCMM's and adult brine.

This weekend I bought small blood worms and fed them to 3 different tanks: The 45 has ~30 white clouds (3adult & rest juvenile) and 6 corys - It got one cube in the morning (no issue) and 1 cube in the evening (a few hours later issues). The 20 long with ~30 white clouds (juvenile) got a half cube (no issues). The 10 gal with 7 adults got a half cube(no issues).

I noticed an adult female in the 45 resting on a leaf and distressed "breathing" (buccal pumping?) last night. This morning her and two juveniles were dead. Their abdomen was opened around their anus and the snails were doing their thing.

I'm wondering what may have happened. Are blood worms too much for WCMM's? Are they gorging themselves and need less? Is it an internal parasite issue and the blood worms stopped them up? 

I haven't had issues before so I'll likely just stop feeding blood worms, but was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience with White Clouds that may shed light on this mystery.

[Colu]

What your describing could be could be caused by camallanus worms have you seen any red worms protruding from the anus

[Dancing Matt]

No thing protruding but the occasional poop.

[PineSong]

I am sorry for your losses, so frustrating to not know what is causing them. I am new to white clouds, I got 5 of them in July, so take what I say as one newbie's observation.

The first time I fed my white clouds frozen blood worms, one white cloud later appeared to be in distress, top sitting and breathing heavily and had partially pooped out what looked like a whole bloodworm--no longer red, but otherwise totally intact. I felt like the issue was that the white cloud had slurped up the whole worm and somehow it hadn't gotten sufficiently digested or broken down in his/her digestive tract. I watched the fish from time to time and was half expecting to find a dead fish in the AM based on the heavy breathing. Luckily, in the AM the fish appeared fine. 

Not sure what would be going on with just one of the white clouds that s/he couldn't digest the worm. They've all been through the same QT meds and have otherwise appeared totally healthy. But I can easily see that if that fish had been fed again that day, or perhaps had more worms at once, it could have ended badly.

[Dancing Matt]

Those observations are very helpful @PineSong. I did have some in distress the next day that survived (just remembered). Everyone has been fine since. Perhaps full size brine and small bloodworms are too much/big for white clouds.

Good luck with yours. I bought 10 and managed (mostly luck) to have them breed and now have ~60?

[PineSong]

On 10/26/2021 at 10:09 PM, Dancing Matt said:

Good luck with yours. I bought 10 and managed (mostly luck) to have them breed and now have ~60?

I have had zero new white clouds appear. I actually don't have room for more so it has worked out well, but it has also kind of hurt my feelings--I know Cory said in a video all you have to do to get them to breed is put them in water. Well...... apparently not. And I've had platy fry born and survive in the tank, so I am not sure that predation is the reason I don't have babies.

re: the blood worms,  I thaw them out in tank water before feeding and I only put in about 1-2 worms per fish. So while it's technically possible that a particular white cloud gobbled up more than his share of worms, none of the fish could eat too too many, and that's why I think even one that didn't digest well could be the source of the problem.

[Dancing Matt]

Mine spawned in a 55gal barrel pond but none in my rectangular tote pond (or none survived).

Edited October 27, 2021 by Dancing Matt

[PineSong]

On 10/27/2021 at 4:55 PM, Dancing Matt said:

Mine spawned in a 55gal barrel pond but none in my rectangular tote pond (or none survived).

Interesting. Other than the shape, any differences between the two--like sun v. shade, or number/type of plants?

[Schwack]

On 10/25/2021 at 4:09 PM, Colu said:

What your describing could be could be caused by camallanus worms have you seen any red worms protruding from the anus

I don't have experience with WCMMs, but I had a very similar experience with two varieties of pseudomugil. They'd be happy, healthy and eating and then suddenly distressed, bottom sitting and dead shortly after. I ended up doing an autopsy out of desperation and was able to ID camallanus worms. I only saw an external worm briefly and it was so tiny I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't watching the fish extremely carefully.

Treatment is easy, but can result in fish death if the infestation is advanced. Select Aquatics sells levamisol powder, and I think the Coop carries Expel-P now.

[Dancing Matt]

@PineSong The one that succeeded had less plants and less sun. It is possible the ph or buffer were different. I had river rocks in them both and some change the water I think. I remember noticing a difference when testing the water but didn't record. The tote I expected to produce more young because it had lots of algae and floating plant roots but I didn't get any.

I did just have 4 fry I caught out of my 20long, the other week, so the "juveniles" are spawning...

@Schwack I do have ParaCleanse, should that do the trick if I am worried about camallanus.?

Did your pseudomugil perodically die off or only when you fed specific foods?

[Schwack]

It was just a very slow process, maybe one every 4-5 weeks. That's part of what made it hard to diagnose.

Unfortunately, ParaCleanse won't be effective on camallanus. I've read that fenbendazole will temporarily paralyze the worms, but not kill them. Whether that's true or not is tough to verify. Levamisole will wipe them out and it's gentle on the tank. I've never had issues with invert death while using it.

If I were in your shoes, the next mystery death that occurs (if there is one) would prompt me to do an autopsy. It's kind of grim, since these are pets, but I viewed it as a necessary procedure to get a positive diagnosis. Camallanus in my rainbows was very obvious, their entire digestive tract was red and wriggling. Of course, this is dependent on you finding the fish before any snails or shrimp.

 

[Dancing Matt]

Thanks @Schwack. There haven't been any issues for the year I had them until I tried feeding frozen food but if I notice more issues or have any deaths I'll definitely do a necropsy.