# Rusty's Dying



## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

I've had 2 Rusty's die within the past 2 weeks for no apparent reason and suddenly (like 24-hrs). Since this last one was my male I'm probably going to sell the females that are left and pick a different species but any thoughts as to what could be happening? My Cobalts and Labs are doing fine and my Rusty fry that are hiding out seem to be fine as well.


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## seattle_530 (Mar 6, 2007)

Were there any symptoms you noticed before they died? Change of behavior lack of effort at feeding time or drop in color?


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

I didn't notice anything with the first one. I just came home from work and a few rocks were tipped over and she was dead. I assumed it had something to do with the rocks falling although I didn't notice anything wrong with her physically. My male was fine last night, but this morning seemed to be "breathing" hard and didn't show an interest in eating. I removed him earlier and put him by himself, but he probably won't make it. I have no idea what happened. Its not water quality or my other fish would be dying. He has no marks on him, his color is good still. By the time I got home to the first one she had been chewed on so much I couldn't tell what was wrong with her. I'm at a loss.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

Sometimes certain species are more sensitive to water quality issues than others, so I wouldn't necessarily rule that out. Best to double check it and make sure.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Now my beloved yellow lab male is acting like my other two did before they died. Here's the video I took:

View My Video

I just did a water change yesterday and like I said my fry that are hiding in the rock are doing fine. You'd think if it was water quality that they'd die before my adults. That and I do 50% weekly water changes. I also moved my male to a different tank where the water quality is a tad bit different (hardly any fish and pebbles not sand and no other décor) and he's not really improving.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

What are your nitrite and ammonia levels?


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Nitrate is right at the max, at about 40 ppm.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Nitrites and Ammonia are 0 ppm.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Here's another video after I moved him to my quarantine tank:

View My Video


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

Based on the rapidity with which this illness seems to be spreading and killing your fish, columnaris and velvet would be two illnesses that I'd look for signs for. With columnaris you might see ragged fins or some sores on the scales. Velvet is easiest diagnosed by shining a flashlight on the fish in a dim room - it'll look like the fish's scales are dusted with gold particles. Check the other fish in that tank too for early signs.

The above things you should check for, but I'm not completely convinced it's a pathogen, either. Was there any strange events that happened in the 2-3 days before the first fish got sick? Water change where you might have forgotten chlorine remover? Someone cleaned your house and used cleaning agents near or on your fish tank?


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

No, I live alone and do my own cleaning. The only thing that changed was the food. I switched from Omega One floating cichlid pellets to Omega One sinking color enhancing pellets. I also feed Aqueon mini cichlid pellets. When I was running out of the Omega One floating, I went to the store and all they had was the sinking color enhancing ones. So I got those, but I feed twice a day and its a combo of the Aqueon and the Omega One. I mixed the last of the floating pellets with the new sinking and started feeding them that. My electric yellow male had a squishy belly. It didn't look like any of the classic bloating symptoms that I read about or saw pictures of, but that's all I can think it could be. I didn't notice if he was pooping. He was eating. They all were except my Rusty male wasn't the morning he died. I didn't feed them this morning in the hopes that it would help if any of the others are suffering from it. They're all acting fine so far. If it was a pathogen or parasite or water quality issue then my fry and smaller fish would have died first, not my most dominant male. So bloat is all I can think it could be.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Definitely a head scratcher. Bloat is possible however I've never heard of a fish dying so quickly after having stopped eating. This is one of the early symptoms of bloat and usually progresses from there over at least 4-5 days to weeks before the fish dies. Also, fish suffering from bloat like symptoms don't lie on the substrate, they swim normally, act reclusive and don't eat, much like a holding female. 
I'm sorry I can't offer any substantial advice. :?


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## wortel87 (Apr 15, 2014)

GTZ thats not entirely true from my experience.

i had a demasoni eat normally then 4 hours later it was lying on the substrate not moving his fins. no swelling or stringy feces. i took it out and treated it with a 5 times the normal dose. after a day the bucket he was in was full of white long strings he pooped out.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

Huh, well that certainly flies in the face of everything I've read about bloat. What were you feeding and what did you treat with? I'm not saying that it wasn't bloat but since demasoni have particularly long digestive tracts as compared to most other mbuna, making them more susceptible to bloat and other digestive problems, it's possible that there was something else at work here causing a digestive obstruction. In any case, it's food for thought. Thanks for relaying your experience!


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## wortel87 (Apr 15, 2014)

I was feeding sera granugreen. Suddenly it just layed there on the bottom not moving. Not even his side fins.i saw it coughing up some white specks. I treated it with flaggelex it contains metronidazol. And a day later it was swimming like nothing had happened.

I got really lucky woth that one.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

I didn't notice issues eating, but then again I wasn't exactly paying attention to every single fish. Its possible he wasn't eating and I just didn't notice. There are 4 reasons I think its possibly bloat: 1) Nothing else fits, 2) His stomach was squishy, 3) I noticed a skinny piece of, I think feces, sticking out of his anus when he died, but it was only like a cm long and skinny like a piece of thread, and 4) He was otherwise alert, he was obviously struggling to stay alive and just acted like he didn't feel well, like he didn't have control over anything. His eyes would moving and he was trying to swim. By the time I figured out it was probably bloat all the pet stores had closed to get meds and I suspect it was too late anyway. Its not a parasite, like fluke or whatever. All my other fish including fry are acting fine. I did notice some white, odd looking feces at the bottom of the aquarium. So for good measure I didn't feed the others this morning and probably won't tonight either. I'm definitely not feeding anymore of this Omega One food that's for sure. Likely too high in protein.


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## Austinite (Jul 27, 2013)

Just checking in with you, did you lose any more fish? How are the ones in the hospital tank, did they make it?


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

My beloved male yellow Lab in the quarantine tank didn't make it :-(. I had stopped feeding the Omega One food and went 7 days without losing any fish. Then I resumed feeding the food only this time I crushed it up thinking perhaps it was too big for the fish to digest when it expanded in the water. Two days later I lost another female Rusty. Oddly enough I haven't lost any of my bigger fish, the Cobalts. So once again I stopped feeding the Omega One food and its been 10 days and I haven't lost anymore fish. So with that little experiment I'm convinced it was the food. That was the only change I had made before all of this began. Makes me angry though that food could kill 4 of my fish in just 3 short weeks. And one of them being my favorite. And let me clarify on the food, I have been feeding the brand Omega One for over a year. The change I made was from medium to large sized pellets, floating to sinking, and regular to the color enhancing formula. So its either something with this particular bottle of food and/or this particular formula. Since I crushed up the food and still lost a fish then I know its not the size. At any rate, this bottle is going in the trash and they are getting an e-mail from me on the matter.

Thanks for the follow-up Austinite


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Changes in diet needs to be done gradually, especially with mbuna. There is a member here who has an extensive collection of fish, including a lot of mbuna. They use Omega One color pellets. I've switched food too quickly in the past, and had a similar experience to yours.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Perhaps it was just this particular batch then...it wasn't a drastic change. I was already feeding Omega One and I also feed Aqueon mini floating pellets. I had a little bit left over from my previous bottle of Omega One so I mixed that with a little of the new stuff and continued to give the Aqueon. Not quite 2 weeks later I found my first dead fish. It's hard to believe it would be the food too, but there's been at least twice when my fish's' food just up and changed completely and no one died. When I ordered them I didn't start feeding them the same food they were being fed before. So that was a complete change where none of them died. And in the beginning of my hobby I changed food a few times trying to find the right one, no one died. Maybe it was sheer coincidence, maybe its once they reach adulthood you can't change their food, I don't know. All I know is that fish didn't start dying until I introduced this food and none have died since I completely stopped using it. And when I resumed using it as an experiment, I had another fish dead within 2-days. It isn't the water quality, not a bacteria or worm infestation. All my fry and other fish are totally fine. And there's virtually no symptoms or signs of a sick fish beforehand. Doesn't make sense at all to me.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

UPDATE: I've lost several more fish in the same manner as the Rusty's. Three weeks ago I completely cleaned the tank, bleached the decorations and filters, cleaned the glass, the filters, all of it. I stirred the sand and cleaned it as best as I could with the water changer. They're eating, pooping (so no bloat) and I see absolutely no parasites or anything odd about their scales or behavior or body. I've tested the water and the water quality is perfect. So I thought I was in the clear, finally. Nope, just lost another fish yesterday. I noticed her struggling so I pulled her out and put her in purified, clean water, put a bubbler in there for oxygen and within a few hours she was dead. I examined her body and gills and everything and she outwardly looks healthy. I'm completely stumped. I will say that this is the ONLY aquarium where I'm losing fish. And the only difference is that I have sand in this tank. I don't clean it weekly like I do the gravel, but I do clean the top part to get the poop and then one a month or so I stir it. At this point I'm looking to give the fish away and just call it a day. I've lost 6-7 fish now in the past 3 months and no one can explain why.


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## Hapguy63 (Feb 8, 2014)

jphanton00 said:


> Three weeks ago I completely cleaned the tank, bleached the decorations and filters, cleaned the glass, the filters, all of it. I stirred the sand and cleaned it as best as I could with the water changer


Doing this probably killed off the beneficial bacteria as well and more than likely started your tank to cycle all over again. This is more than likely what caused stress to your fish and potentially lead to their death.

Only want to do something like this if you want to completely start over cycling your tank anew making sure your tank is fully cycled before you put new fish back in.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

Thank you Hapguy63, but that's not the reason. I bleached the tank because I had 5 or so fish die over a 3-month period at random...that was the only thing left to try. My tank did not cycle again as I still had 10 base rocks and the sand that I did not clean plus I tested it frequently to make sure that didn't happen. When I started this hobby almost 2 years ago I did so without cycling my tank and didn't lose a single fish because I was so diligent about testing the water and doing daily water changes and treating it with Prime. Plus I bleached my other 3 tanks as well, one even had fry in it, and haven't lost a single fish from there. That's why I was so stumped when 3-weeks after thoroughly cleaning and bleaching the tanks that I had yet another fish die. And always only from the one tank. Like I explained in my previous post, the water tested perfect...so it wasn't from me cleaning it to the point of it re-cycling. I was thinking bloat, but they're eating and pooping and its killing them too fast. They literally show no signs of stress and then within 24-hrs, and in a few cases within hours of me noticing they don't look well, they're dead. I've seen no parasites, no damage to fins, they otherwise look perfectly healthy. Its not age as they're only 18 months old. So I was thinking bacterial even though I do 50-75% water changes once a week. That's why I bleached the tank. And while I was at it I did my other 3. And then 3 weeks later I lose yet another fish. Just completely baffling.


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## Hapguy63 (Feb 8, 2014)

I guess I am confused as to what you were trying to accomplish by bleaching the filter ect. If this was done to try and kill off any disease in the tank your efforts would have been nullified by putting back in the same sand and rocks that would still be full of any disease you were trying to kill in the first place. I have been in the hobby for over 20 years and the only used bleach when cleaning a new tank that I am setting up to cycle new. Never heard of bleaching a tank then putting the fish immediately back in the tank seems risky and if not careful could poison your fish.


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## jphanton00 (Jan 5, 2013)

I didn't literally bleach the tank. The cichlid stones were covered in brown slime or that brown, slimy stuff that covers everything. I bleached those and the pieces of slate they sat on. I put them in a tub of bleach water and I also soaked both filters. Then I rinsed everything off and put in all back in. I didn't break the tank down and bleach it and pull the sand out and all the fish and whatnot. And what I was attempting to accomplish was to get rid of the slimy, brown stuff to see if that helped anything because nothing else is working and literally no one has any suggestions or solutions or answers.


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