Community Tank Help

[JimboMo]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if I could please have some guidance/help on an issue i'm currently experiencing in my community tank. Apologies if this is in the wrong sub-forum, i saw the disease sub-form and did think about posting my question in there but trying to get clear pictures of my nano fish has been challenging. 

I've had my community tank setup for two years now and I'm struggling to keep my fish alive which is really bringing me down. I've tried various different things ranging from a filter change (done safely by running the old filter until new canister filter was established) , changing foods and keeping on top of regular tank maintenance.

I tend to stick to nano fish and recently in the last 3 months brought some galaxy rasbora , a honey gourami and koi guppies to add to my chilli rasboras, endlers and two mollies that i had. Slowly over these 3 months i've lost a lot of fish. The symptoms of the fish tend to be the same, the fish start looking skinny, perhaps not as active but still feed, when I return in the morning i either see that a fish has passed or they have gone completely. I'm putting disappearance down to the shrimps and snails doing their thing.

The shrimp and snails in my tank seem to be doing great, lots of new baby shrimp from the cherry shrimp, Amano shrimp are doing great and the nerite snail has been doing well since i got it last year.

I've assumed that there is an internal parasite that has been introduced. As i have shrimp/snails and i'm based in the UK i've been limited with what treatment I can put in the tank. I went with Vetark Fluke Solve Aquarium and have just finished a 2nd round of treatment (2nd round completed after 3 weeks post a water change).

Parameters of the tank are fine. 0 Ammonia, Nitrite and between 10-20ppm for Nitrates - should be good for a planted tank. PH is 7.4.

My tap water is very high in Nitrate at over 40ppm so i tend to do water changes with a bit of treated tap water and RO that has a re-mineral powder mixed in with it.

I'm stuck on what to do next , i only did the second round of treatment last Friday so i'm keeping my fingers crossed that in the event it was a parasite then it's been treated. In the meantime, what else can I do? There will be no more fish introduced until i feel confident that i've sorted this problem out.

Thank you for any support/help 

 

 

[Flumpweesel]

Have all the fish come from the same shop?

Are the older fish looking good happy and eating or is nothing getting old?

 

[JimboMo]

Hi Flumpweesel , thank you for the reply. 

Yes all the fish are from the same shop, this is due to the fact that it's the only shop available where I live . I have a good relationship with the shop, they get their fish from a reputable whole seller in the UK. On arrival they are transfered to me without going in the LFS selling/holding tanks.

In terms of the older fish, the two mollies I had have recently died aged 1.5 years. The oldest fish in the tank is probably around 10 months old now. 

During feeding, all fish are interested in food. Even the Mollies before they passed were eating. 

[Tlindsey]

On 7/3/2024 at 3:44 AM, JimboMo said:

Nitrite

Nitrite should be 0ppm at all times. The fish deaths will cause the ammonia level to rise and convert it to Nitrite. I'm surprised you're cherry shrimp are surviving. I suggest doing water changes to bring the Nitrite to 0ppm.  Did you quarantine the new fish?

Edited July 3 by Tlindsey

[JimboMo]

Hi Tlindsey, apologies i'm not clear in my original post. Nitrites are 0ppm. 

I'm on top of water testing via API master test kit. 

in terms of quarantine the new fish - no, and i know that's a big mistake and a lesson learned for me. I'll currently setting up a quarantine tank. 

[Tlindsey]

On 7/3/2024 at 6:06 AM, JimboMo said:

Hi Tlindsey, apologies i'm not clear in my original post. Nitrites are 0ppm. 

I'm on top of water testing via API master test kit. 

in terms of quarantine the new fish - no, and i know that's a big mistake and a lesson learned for me. I'll currently setting up a quarantine tank. 

Ok great.

[AtomicSunfish]

Have you measured the hardness of the water? I wonder if trying to compensate for the nitrate-laden tap water with mineralized RO is giving you water that is too hard.

[JimboMo]

Hi AtomicSunfish, 

Many thanks for your suggestion, i've just checked if my LFS has a test kit for hardness and they do. Will be looking to pick this up later. 

[Tanked]

The Master Test kit includes the GH & KH tests.   Be sure you are following the test instructions exactly, and check the expiration date.

[JimboMo]

Hi Tanked, thanks for the message. The Api test kit I have doesn't include those tests. I've ordered the GH and KH tests and will follow the instructions 

[JimboMo]

Hi everyone. 

My API GH & KH test kit arrived today. I've completed the test following the instructions closely. The results are:

KH , 6 ºdKH (107.4ppm)

GH, 11 ºdKH (196.9ppm)

I'm trying to understand what this means, my current understanding is that the KH is ok but the GH is too high (?). If this is the case, is there a way I could go about reducing the GH?

Many thanks 

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 7/9/2024 at 9:46 AM, JimboMo said:

Hi everyone. 

My API GH & KH test kit arrived today. I've completed the test following the instructions closely. The results are:

KH , 6 ºdKH (107.4ppm)

GH, 11 ºdKH (196.9ppm)

I'm trying to understand what this means, my current understanding is that the KH is ok but the GH is too high (?). If this is the case, is there a way I could go about reducing the GH?

Many thanks 

11 dGH doesn't really seem that high. Maybe if it was just the soft water fishes (the rasboras and gourami) but guppies and endlers should be able to handle that (caveat: I've not kept any livebearers, but they generally like harder water).

@Colu? Do you see anything that I'm not seeing?

[JettsPapa]

On 7/9/2024 at 8:46 AM, JimboMo said:

Hi everyone. 

My API GH & KH test kit arrived today. I've completed the test following the instructions closely. The results are:

KH , 6 ºdKH (107.4ppm)

GH, 11 ºdKH (196.9ppm)

I'm trying to understand what this means, my current understanding is that the KH is ok but the GH is too high (?). If this is the case, is there a way I could go about reducing the GH?

Many thanks 

My GH is around 16 (300 ppm), and I have a wide variety of fish, plants, and invertebrates doing well in it, so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem.  The 40 ppm nitrates is also not an issue.  Most fish wouldn't have any trouble with it twice that high.

[sumplkrum]

The fish getting skinny thing sounds like worms or a parasite infection. 

[PineSong]

Your noticing the fish getting skinny is the part that stands out to me.

Not to be an alarmist, but even with good QT procedures in place (I QT'd all fish for 4+ weeks before adding to my tanks, treated with med trio while in QT) I still ended up with what appears to be fish TB-- and the symptom of that which is most visible is that the fish get skinny despite plentiful food. I stopped adding fish more than a year ago when I realized what was going on and I've been losing fish slowly but steadily so I only have around 25 left from what was two community tanks and five tanks of breeding livebearers.

You may want to investigate fish TB to see if the descriptions fit your situation. 

 

[Colu]

With some of your symptoms I would be concerned about a parasitic infection i think it would be worthwhile treating with expel p once a week for four weeks 

[JimboMo]

Thank you everyone for your comments. This has been really helpful. 

 

@Rube_Goldfish and @JettsPapa - thank you for your comments on the water hardness, i won't look to change anything and will keep testing GH/KH as part of my regular testing schedule. 

 

@sumplkrum @PineSong and @Colu. Infection and/or parasites is my diagnosis now. As i've mentioned , i've treated my tank with two rounds of Vetark Fluke Solve and i'm hoping this is going to stop anymore fish deaths. It's difficult to get expel p in the UK unfortunately.

So far there has been no more fish deaths  however i'm concerned with two of my galaxy rasbora who are looking skinny and look to be getting a curved spine which causing alarm as i believe this is a symptom of Fish TB? 

[Colu]

You can get Esha ndx in the UK active ingredient is levamisole @JimboMo

[PineSong]

On 7/11/2024 at 5:10 AM, JimboMo said:

... however i'm concerned with two of my galaxy rasbora who are looking skinny and look to be getting a curved spine which causing alarm as i believe this is a symptom of Fish TB? 

In my tanks, some fish have gotten curved spines while others have only gotten skinny. The ones who got curved spines were larger bodied fish, like swordtails and platies, while my very small guppies and Endlers have not shown curvature, just wasting away. Deworming using Expel-P and Paracleanse has made no difference in any individual visibly affected fish nor in the continued spread of the disease from one fish to another. 

[JimboMo]

Thanks @Colu - i've been using Fluke Solve for treatment of the internal parasites https://www.vetark.co.uk/products/fish/fluke-solve-aquarium it's going to be two weeks since my last treatment (have done 2 rounds so far). I've read up about Esha Ndx and from what i can see it's not shrimp safe? I have lots of shrimp in my tank. 

 

@PineSong That is really sad, sorry to hear about your tanks. With fish TB is it the case that it's not treatable and the best thing is to not add anymore fish? Sounds really bad 😞 

[PineSong]

On 7/11/2024 at 8:40 AM, JimboMo said:

@PineSong That is really sad, sorry to hear about your tanks. With fish TB is it the case that it's not treatable and the best thing is to not add anymore fish? Sounds really bad 😞 

That is the path that I have chosen. I had several tanks and bred fish and shrimp to sell locally. I could not in good faith sell any fish or shrimps from my tanks once I realized TB was the likely cause of fish deaths. I put all my males and females into separate tanks and I am treating my remaining tanks as "hospice" tanks and not adding any new fish. When all the fish are gone, I am going to break down the tanks and start over with new tanks and equipment. 

[JimboMo]

@PineSong this feels like the path i'm going to have to take if it is TB. Just noticed this afternoon that my last Koi guppy is missing, i'm assuming it's passed away and has been eaten by the snails/shrimp 😞 so strange, it was eating fine, looked active enough and the next day it's gone. 

[PineSong]

On 7/11/2024 at 10:17 AM, JimboMo said:

@PineSong this feels like the path i'm going to have to take if it is TB. Just noticed this afternoon that my last Koi guppy is missing, i'm assuming it's passed away and has been eaten by the snails/shrimp 😞 so strange, it was eating fine, looked active enough and the next day it's gone. 

I'm sorry you are going through this, and your fish are. I had years of enjoying the hobby across several decades of my life before this illness came in and pretty much killed the joy. I know I can get back to the headspace of looking forward to watching my tanks in the future, once this issue is resolved. I hope this stretch of bad luck will not ruin your experience of keeping fish.

[Gastroplod]

On 7/11/2024 at 10:05 PM, PineSong said:

That is the path that I have chosen. I had several tanks and bred fish and shrimp to sell locally. I could not in good faith sell any fish or shrimps from my tanks once I realized TB was the likely cause of fish deaths. I put all my males and females into separate tanks and I am treating my remaining tanks as "hospice" tanks and not adding any new fish. When all the fish are gone, I am going to break down the tanks and start over with new tanks and equipment. 

Is this the only way to really solve the issue for an affected tank long term? I've been reading about fish TB just today because I've been treating my planted tank for ich and now gill flukes, as I spotted a single white spot last week (which has gone now), plus some flicking - but more worrying, is slow wasting of several fish over the last six months. Some of them are absolutely busting at the gut and seem in fine shape, but I lost my last guppy juvenile this morning after what looked like a prolapse (first time ever seeing this), and several of my albino cherry barbs are looking a bit caved in and listless. The water parameters are fine, and stable, and I was wondering if it's an internal parasite that came in on some plants - but now I'm concerned it's TB. So no more fish, but also - if they all died - would the tank be ruined forever?

[shawnkissed]

Sounds like you could've had camallanus. If it's fish TB you will have to break down the tank, throw everything and bleach the tank to kill any TB. BTW, fish TB can transfer to humans it's know as fish handler's disease. Wash you're hands after handling your tank.