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Any ideas how I've killed my fish?

mrhoyo

mrhoyo

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Halifax, UK
About 3 weeks ago I treat my corydoras tank with eSHa GDEX in an attempt to kill planaria. After finishing the course it didn't seem to do a great deal so I left it a week and then changed about 40% of the water with a view to trying something else later. Now all fish and snails are dead. Everything looked fine before the water change so I'm confused, I did the same routine as usual.
It was the corydoras longipinnis tank (that took me 6 months to get hold of and have been fine for over a year 😡).

When I eventually decide to re-stock, am I safe to keep the mattenfilter and plants etc or does it all need to be binned?
 
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Hello - sorry to hear that. Not good.

What were the symptoms of the dying fish, and how long did it take for them to all die? I am not sure of your setup, water change routine etc so it might be handy for to remind us or point us to your journal if you have one.
 
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Bradders said:
Hello - sorry to hear that. Not good.

What were the symptoms of the dying fish, and how long did it take for them to all die? I am not sure of your setup, water change routine etc so it might be handy for to remind us or point us to your journal if you have one.
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This one was a low tech with various epiphytes, some beech wood, sand and leaf litter.
Water was approx. 40% with Prime. Temp was similar to the tank.
No symptoms from fish, one day they were fine and the next time I saw them they were dead.
 
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Did your fish die right after the water change overnight?
 
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I don't think so, not all of them anyway as I saw some after. I haven't checked them for a couple of days so not sure exactly when ot happened but the ones i found varied from quite decomposed to fresh looking.
 
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Multiple deaths like that no obvious symptoms , just my opinion could point to a water quality problem, maybe a dead fish -hidden was decomposing in the aquarium? ,even though the water looked OK it wasn't. The medication you used and stopped ,did you use activated carbon after treatment.?You will be starting again so it should be better to replace your filter sponge with new IMO. You could carefully save your healthiest plants and disinfect them in a plastic container, Sorry about what's happened 😐
 
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Hi all,
Sorry for your loss, I don't have any real suggestion to make. I've not used eSHA GDEX (Praziquantel), but I've killed Planaria with Panacur (Fenbendazole) without any issue. Praziquantel is usually regarded as the least toxic (to non-target organisms) option.
mrhoyo said:
When I eventually decide to re-stock, am I safe to keep the mattenfilter and plants etc or does it all need to be binned?
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They should be fine.

cheers Darrel
 
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It's bizarre. I've emptied the tank and refilled it, I'll leave without livestock for a while but keep changing water anyway. Hopefully that way anything on the plants gets cleaned off because they're looking really good and it would be a shame not to use them again.
 
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Sorry to hear of this @mrhoyo

Only thing I can think of would be the water company adding extra chlorine into the water system obviously its a long shot.

A typical dose of Prime deals with 1ppm chlorine, if they had to emergency dose these levels could be anywhere north of 2 ~3 ppm, so lots of chlorine still in the water. As a rule I dose 2 ~2.5 times the standard dose of safe just incase the worst should happen.

Again it's a long shot and the assumption is you used tap water.
 
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Hi all,
John q said:
Only thing I can think of would be the water company adding extra chlorine into the water system
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I'll be honest, that was my <"initial thought as well"> and that the Planaria treatment was just a coincidence

cheers Darrel
 
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I think the best approach, although temporarily painful, is to do some chlorine and chloramine tests on the tap water for a while - especially before adding new water to the tank with livestock.

Mass and fast fish deaths like that usually only occur with a) poisoning and b) oxygen starvation. The fact this happened after a water change would suggest the former.
 
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dw1305 said:
I've killed Planaria with Panacur (Fenbendazole) without any issue.
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Tank is still livestock free except my new army of planaria. Is there a recommended dosage or just bung a packet of (I'm assuming) granules in?

Tank is 70l.

I could just empty the tank completely but I want to make sure the buggers are dead regardless.
 
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Hi all,
mrhoyo said:
Flipping planaria!
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They might be <"Rhabdocoelas flatworms">, they are much more resistant to pesticides. You can tell than and Tricladia apart, if you look at the head it is a point, rather than an arrow.
mrhoyo said:
Is there a recommended dosage or just bung a packet of (I'm assuming) granules in?
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<"Fenbendazole, planaria calculating dose.">. You could also try a <"Planaria trap"> or <"What are these?">.
mrhoyo said:
I could just empty the tank completely but I want to make sure the buggers are dead regardless.
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They are <"incredibly tenacious of life">. It is a bit like diatoms or cyanobacteria, they are pretty much universal in liquid water. I always have a few, they aren't visible after <"Hydra treatment">, but ~6 months later I'll start to find them again on the "monitoring pebbles".
dw1305 said:
A "flat" stone definitely works to collect them, you want a flat, but slightly rounded pebble where the leeches will congregate at the junction between pebble and substrate during the day. You can see mine at the bottom right of the image, two granite pebbles. I have them in all the tank, most are "flatter" than that.
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cheers Darrel
 
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Hi all,
mrhoyo said:
Pure evil.
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I think normally the cure is worse than the pest.

I'd guess that the Shrimp attacking species are an absolutely <"tiny proportion of the total"> and that 99% of people who have <"visible Flatworms"> have species that are pretty benign.

I think it is the same problem for both Flatworms and Leeches, they both combine having the "eurgh" factor with being difficult to get a definitive ID on <"What are these little creatures?">.

I think "kill them with fire" is a fairly common initial (and understandable) response.

cheers Darrel
 
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