# Fish Dying - Might be Bloat - Anyone help?



## robertlewisca (Mar 11, 2012)

Hello,

I'm hoping I might be able to get some help. I have lost four fish in the last two weeks. Each time the day before they die they are lethargic - just sit in one place, seem to be breathing rapidly, and have a distended belly. No other physical signs - no spots, nothing on the skin, coloration fine, etc. with one exception - the Salousi seemed to have some redness on their gills the night before it died.

I think it may be bloat. If it is, I have a couple of questions. If it's not, I wonder if someone might add some guidance. Here are the particulars:

Standard 90 gallon tank (48w x24x18)
Filtering with FX-5
Relatively new tank - setup about seven weeks ago.
Did fishless cycle with Ace ammonia and Dr. Tim's - was cycling 2ppm per day before fish (to 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites)
Art rock sand-like substrate about 2" deep
Lots of Rocks, some fake plants

Water Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: ~10-15 ppm
PH: 8.0
GH and KH - I don't regularly measure. My tap water is very hard, my PH has never deviated from 8.0 in every test.
I only use Stress Coat + from API to condition the water.
30% water change weekly.
I added fish two weeks ago.

I feed them Spirulina 20 from ZooMed. I started out by feeding a small amount, crushed up, three times per day. After the third fish died, I fasted them for 36 hours, then started feeding a very small amount once per day. This was two days ago. I had one more go this morning. It was lethargic and had a distended belly last night.

The fish completely consume the food within less than a minute, and all eat very eagerly.
I have fed freeze dried brine shrimp twice as a treat in two weeks. I always soaked the shrimp in water before introducing to the tank so it was nice and soft.

All fish are juveniles and range from 2/3" to about 1.75"

11 Yellow Labs
9 P. Salousi
8 Yellow Tail Acei

I have lost 2 Yellow Labs, 1 Salousi and 1 Acei.

If this is Bloat, I have a couple questions:

1. I don't have a quaranteen tank. Should I just treat the whole tank at this point?
2. Should I provide treatment as guided in the sticky post, although these are all juveniles, or does treatment change because of their size?

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

If they are eating it's not bloat. Even the day before on the ones that die...they are eating?


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## robertlewisca (Mar 11, 2012)

The ones that die do not eat the day before. They just sit at the bottom of the tank. They're really small, so it's difficult to tell if their bellies are really distended - but it kind of looks like it to me. They do seem to be gasping.

I came home today, and pulled a bunch of the rock work out to see if I could get a good look around. I found three more dead - all Yellow Tail Aceis. There are two more Yellow Tail Aceis that are now sitting at the bottom of the tank, gasping.

All of the rest of the fish are eagerly eating and swimming around.

After getting the rock work out, I was also able to get a better count. So, now I have lost a total of 9 fish in the last two weeks. Four Yellow Tail Aceis, Three Salousis and Two Yellow Labs. There are two more Aceis that look like they may go in the next 24 hours - that would make 11.

I just retested all water parameters tonight - everything's the same:
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
10 nitrates
8.0 PH
temp is 80 degrees.


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## Gags (Mar 23, 2012)

Sorry for your fish
How often you change your water ?
Add more air pump 
From my Knowledge Bloat does spread from one fish another [Let expert comment on this ]
Can you take pic of those two Yellow Tail Aceis and post


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Fish with this condition often do not swell up. Not eating is the first symptom. White or clear, thready feces is the confirmation. Any of that?

If you can confirm bloat, yes treat the whole tank. I would not vary the dosage based on the size of the fish (2/3"? really?).


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## robertlewisca (Mar 11, 2012)

I have not observed white or clear feces. Not to say it's not happening, but I haven't seen it. All of the rest of the fish are still swimming around normally and eating. I fed them a little flake last night, and they ate it all within 30 seconds.

If it's not bloat, can anyone think of any other possibilities?

And yes, I've got some very small ones in there. I had ordered from an online shop, and they sent me a bunch of under-sized fish in my order.


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## Gags (Mar 23, 2012)

Can please post pic 
So we can figure it out, 
Is any kind of aggression going when light is off


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## robertlewisca (Mar 11, 2012)

I'd post a pic, but there's really nothing to see. I can see any outward sign of anything wrong. No spots, no frayed fins, no redness anywhere, etc.. They're all still juveniles, so I don't think there's any real agression happening. I haven't been able to observe any agression as I've been looking at them (even with the light off).

At this point, I'm thinking I just treat the whole tank with a general cure of some kind, and see what happens. I can't think of what else to do.


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## Shizark (Mar 26, 2012)

I treated a fish with Bloat. Treated the whole tank with Metro+. Didnt work, lost the fish within 5 days of him starting not to eat. 
This just happened to me this week.

I already went and bought a tank and set it up as a "hospital tank".

Everything I have found says you have to isolate the fish to give it any chance, but at best your chances are 50/50 if it is bloat, even with every cure in the book.

I am very new to fish keeping just to keep that in mind.


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## GTZ (Apr 21, 2010)

If it were my tank, I'd do a large water change, 50% or more and throw some carbon in the filter for 24-48 hours. Discontinue feeding brine shrimp and you might want to consider switching to a lower protein content food. Zoomed lists Spirulina 20 at 45% protein. Whether or not this is a good protein, I don't know. Not all proteins are bad.


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## Vgimlet (Mar 11, 2012)

We had the exact same problem starting three weeks ago. We lost 4 fish over a week. They were all juveniles - 1 white lab, 1 Pseudotropheus sp. Elongatus Ornatus, 2 Otopharynx lithobates (sorry, only have the latin names the LFS gave us )

Set up - 
130 gallon tank which has been stocked for about 3 months. 
Was cycled fishlessly in January this year.
29 juvenile fish, 1 red Emperor adult, who is very peaceful and doesn't go after even my little demasoni, and 1 Plecostomus. 
No overtly agressive fish. The juvenile zebra who started acting agressive recently got the stuffing beat out of him by a Kenyi female the other day, and he's been a changed fish. (No visible damage to him, either.)
Coral substrate.
Mostly lava rock for the hiding spots.

It's my husbands' tank, he changes the water 1/3 to 1/2 about once a week. 
He feeds once or twice a day, and all the food except the algae pellets is gone in a minute or less. 
OSI Spirulina and Cichlid flakes mixed together, and a few floating Hikari gold pellets. 
The plecostomus gets two algae pellets, the tropheus and the other fish love them.

The only symptom was clamped fins on the sick fish, and before they died they stayed near the bottom of the tank. Two of the four who died stopped eating the day before, the other two ate. All the other fish were eating. Only 5 or 6 fish had clamped fins, the others were fine.

AFter the first fish died I had DH check the water.
Nitrates were a bit high (Between 35 and 40), 
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
PH 7.9, which is where it's been from the start

I felt it was a nitrate problem and had him do a water change. Nitrates went down to 10-20. They seemed better for a few days, and then we lost another fish.

Over the next week we did more water changes, about every other day, 1/3 of the water twice, and a 1/2 water change once. This seemed to help slightly, but not for long.

2 of our 3 Zebra's were looking bad - I was afraid we were going to lose the bigger one no matter what. My little Demasoni and one of the yellow labs started looking iffy, even though they were eating.

Other than knowing something was wrong, we couldn't figure out what was going on either. 
The only visible problem with the tank was slightly cloudy water. No big algae bloom. No visible parasites, ick, fungus, any of the usuals. I starting wondering if it could be the silk plants in the tank, or one of the rocks. Something leaching into the water over time and poisoning them.

Finally I did some poking around and decided to cross treat with Melafix and Pimafix. I didn't think it was bloat, because we have one trophus in the tank, Dennis, and if anyone one is going to develop bloat it would be him. (I have two fish in DH's tank - the tropheus, and my demasoni). My thought was some kind of bacteria, or possibly fungus - but cross-treating certainly wasn't going to make anything worse.

After one day the lab was back to normal, by day two the smaller of the two zebras was okay, and by day 3 I noticed the bigger zebra is much better. We are going to continue to treat for the whole week, and we may treat into next week. The big zebra looks fine to my husband, but I am thinking we want to keep treating until he looks fine to me. 

Maybe this will help you, maybe not. I am thinking it may have been bacterial.


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## Vgimlet (Mar 11, 2012)

I just want to add - after we started treatment we lost no more fish, and everyone has been healty and happy since. 
DH has also decreased his feedings to once a day.


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