# Fish Disease Epidemic



## chadban316 (Dec 7, 2011)

Hi, my name is chad. I've owned cichlids since i was 13, so its been 12 years now. I've always had jack dempseys and oscars. This is my first time using this site but im very knowlegable about most things when it comes to cichlids. So let me explain my set-ups i have goin on so you may understand what is happening. I Have a 75 gal. with a male dovi. a 75 gal. with a BIG male jack 2 females and 3 convicts and a pleco. These 2 tanks are fine and *** had them running for over 2 yrs now. I also have a 30gal. with 8 very small africans, and a 10gal. that had my carpintis (Texas cichlid). these tanks have been running for about 6 months. No problems in any of them. So i had 4 tanks running great.

SO about 2 months ago a freind had a spare 10gal and I wanted to get a green terror and a firemouth, so he let me have it.(obviously im going to move them to bigger tanks when they grow) I bought my green terror and firemouth form petsmart. the green terror was a bright beautifull fish. then she scooped out my firemouth and i noticed something wrong. He was swimming VERY irratically, bashing himself against the container and swimming upside down and sideways. So obviosly i told her i dont want that 1 and she also said somehting is worng with that one. So she scooped another and he seemed fine. So i take my fish home put them in the new 10gal. and they get along great. So about 1 week later i wake up and get out of bed and my green terror starts freaking OUT. Bashing himself on everything with no care for injury. any slight movement at all made him loose it. after freaking he would swim upside down almost as if he had lost balance and lay on his side and breath hard. So i look at the firemouth and he is already DEAD. So i tested my water nitrates, nitrites, amonia, ph, all o fit and everything is fine. so i assume it was some freak accident do a 50% water change and the terror died hours later that day. so i went back to petsmart got my terror again and a firemouth excepth this time the first 3 firemouths she pulled out all were freaking and swimming oddly like the first i saw. so i disnt get it from there i went to a dif. pet store. brought them home and things seemed fine untill about a week later same thing happened. the firemouth was freaking out hurting himself and labored breathing and swimming off balance. i kept thinking it had to be amonia poising but the tests were fine and there not swimming at the top they swim at the bottom. I assumed maybe somehting in that new tank was a pollutant so i took my surviving terror out and put him into the 10gal. with the carpintis(Texas cichlid) to save him and immeaditly knew it was a bad idea bc i probably just spread whatever was killing them to my Texas cichlid wich is my 2nd fav. fish bc of his patterns. so I took the terror right back out and put him back in his origanal 10gal. The firemouth died later that day and the terror survived. i put Mela-fix in the Texas tank to try and ward off whatever may had been in there. I waited my terror out for 2 weeks and he still lived so i assumed whatever had been killing them had disapated, so i got another firemouth. evrything seemed fine once again...Whew

I Bought another 30gal. to put my Texas cichlid in so he can grow more and moved the terror and firemouth into the old 10gal. the texas was in. About 3 days pass and i get a Red devil to live with the texas and they got along great. But after being in this new tank about a week my texas starts showing signs hes sick like the others were. hard breathing, odd swimming, bashing everything. i did a 25% change of the water and he died a day later..i was so so mad i thought this thing was gone and it came back after killing no fish for about 3 weeks then it magically strikes my texas. and now as I type this the red devil is dying 3 days after the Texas did. He is on his side and on his last breath... there is a pleco and a baby flounder in the same tank as them and there fine as it seems.

Why is this thing selective? why is it killing certain fish? my terror who was exposed is still alive and yet hes smaller? same as the pleco and flounder, they are still living. adn now im afraid of cantaminating my other tanks bc i have put my firmouth with my african tank.. i have no clue what to do or what im dealing with. its not amonia poising bc there gills arnt brown once they die either. although in my texas's gills he did have a large red mass and the gill plate inside of one gill. looked like a cist or blood blister if that makes sence. i know that hing wouldhave labored his breathing dramataclly. IF anyone can help with anyhting or have seen or heard these symptoms before please let me know. My friend had a fish die the same way about a year ago, it was a leperenus. agian im not a moron and i do take care of fish succesfully so please dont put ammonia or test your water bc *** done that..its not the water. i think i brought home the fish plague.  thank you i hope someone can help.


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## heaya (Oct 18, 2011)

Check the library.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/f ... h_list.php
Surely you won't, but I'd avoid ever buying fish from that same Petsmart again. I'm not dogging all chain pet stores, but the one you went to seems to not keep up with their maintenance. They all share one huge filtration system, so whatever it is, is spreading to all of those fish. You might have not been the first person to have it happen, and the fact remains that they still continue to sell these fish to people. The girl that originally helped you get the fish was the smoking gun in your story to me, the fact that she gave you a fish, and not until after it was acting bizarre, said there is something wrong with it, just shows she probably doesn't have much personal knowledge aside from the placards they have on the tanks. (which tend to have a ton of misinformation) I hate seeing stories like this. It makes me upset since not everyone has the option to order fish or has a reputable LFS to get theirs from. Good luck with the rest of your fish, if you do get more, try the trading post here, or join a club.


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