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Help, fish dying rapidly!!

_Maq_ said:
Shrimps are OK.
Fishes are OK, until some of them get into trouble and decease quite rapidly.
--- From that I derive that there's no toxicity in action. Rather a parasitic disease.
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All fish and shrimps seem absolutely fine now apart from the cardinals, is there something that can affect the cardinals more such as stress?? Do you think that the toxicity from the potential spike affected them more than the others?? Could it be some kind of disease and if so should I ise any kind of meds?? 🤷🤷🤷🤷
 
Mattant1984 said:
should I use any kind of meds?
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I'm definitely not the person to provide advice on fish diseases.
However, I suggest not to overestimate the counter-argument that no new fishes were introduced. Many parasites are commonly present and don't stand a chance against immunity system. And then, one day, something happens, the host gets stressed, and the parasite gets its opportunity.
But again, I'm not good at fish diseases. I only wanted to turn your attention to that possibility. If I knew what's your problem, I'd tell you straight away. But I don't.
(Generally, I'm rather skeptical toward applying potent medications, namely when a small number of common fish is under attack. You can call me cynic but if you take into consideration the price of medication, the damage it may cause to the whole tank, full of expensive plants etc. ... Sometimes it's better to endure some losses. Just my point of view, of course.)
 
_Maq_ said:
I'm definitely not the person to provide advice on fish diseases.
However, I suggest not to overestimate the counter-argument that no new fishes were introduced. Many parasites are commonly present and don't stand a chance against immunity system. And then, one day, something happens, the host gets stressed, and the parasite gets its opportunity.
But again, I'm not good at fish diseases. I only wanted to turn your attention to that possibility. If I knew what's your problem, I'd tell you straight away. But I don't.
(Generally, I'm rather skeptical toward applying potent medications, namely when a small number of common fish is under attack. You can call me cynic but if you take into consideration the price of medication, the damage it may cause to the whole tank, full of expensive plants etc. ... Sometimes it's better to endure some losses. Just my point of view, of course.)
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@_Maq_ thanks for your response and I agree with you in regards to adding meds, I've never really been a fan as I feel thay can do more damage than good especially with inverts present in the tank.

I do possibly think the stress of everything may have caused something to happen and as you said it could have bought out some kind of disease from an otherwise healthy fish.

I'll keep going with some water changes and let the tank settle for a while. Fingers crossed no more fish deaths however I dont really think the last 6 cardinal ls will last too long if I'm honest.

Thanks again for your help with things 🙏
 
_Maq_ said:
I'm definitely not the person to provide advice on fish diseases.
However, I suggest not to overestimate the counter-argument that no new fishes were introduced. Many parasites are commonly present and don't stand a chance against immunity system. And then, one day, something happens, the host gets stressed, and the parasite gets its opportunity.
But again, I'm not good at fish diseases. I only wanted to turn your attention to that possibility. If I knew what's your problem, I'd tell you straight away. But I don't.
(Generally, I'm rather skeptical toward applying potent medications, namely when a small number of common fish is under attack. You can call me cynic but if you take into consideration the price of medication, the damage it may cause to the whole tank, full of expensive plants etc. ... Sometimes it's better to endure some losses. Just my point of view, of course.)
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This, reading through this I think a few things have happened.

Old filter almost certainly saved the system, while a whole aquarium is more stable than a filter alone, taking the filter from and old one to a new tank is pretty much universally considered as instant “cycling”. Its why I can run a sponge filter for a week on one tank and move it to another new tank and experience no losses.

If the fish were effectively, swimming fine and then over the course of a few minutes dropping dead I’d be baffled and assuming they’re swimming in bleach.

New water will have been very different from old, and with that as @_Maq_ says that stressed the fish, which opened up the opportunity for something existing taking out the weak. If only one type of fish was dying it would further strengthen this claim.

It’s not clear how long the filter was left not running between old and new, but as soon as water stops running g through them there is a decline in the bacteria. I think it’s exponential too 👍

Always run an air stone or raise up the return flow on new setups with fish, by doing so you’ll increase the dissolved oxygen and that’s another variable you can remove.

Some other titbits, always reuse water and as much substrate as you can on new tanks. Again, it removed these variables. However a fresh water change, dechlorinated, at tank temperature and ideally filtered through carbon is the best medicine imo.
 
@castle thanks for the input and tips I appreciate it, the weird thing is the new tank was set up with water siphoned directly from the old tank (about 75%) then topped up with fresh and the filter was turned off, moved over and runni g again in about 30 minutes.

In regards to the fish dying they seem to be swimming around fine then I'd say over the course of 5 or 6 hours they are lying on their sides. It's really a learning curve as I've never had anything like it happen before
 
I’m going say chroline/chloramines then 👍 water company might have dosed higher, likely if you’re getting heavy rain or some sewage mishap.
 
So a bit of an update and I've not had any more fish losses over the last few days, the remaining 6 cardinals seem fine at the moment 🤞🤞

I have however done some water testing and have so big changes since starting the small tank.

So ive always known the water in my area is pretty hard and previously when I had my large tank running I had the following results:

PH 7.8
KH 12
GH 15

Since setting up the new tank and adding the aquasoil my readings are now as follows:

PH 6.8
KH 4
GH 7

Now this is a huge drop and I'm wondering if the aquasoil would have caused this?

Aslo would this drop in the above be a reason for the fish dying??
 
@Conort2 here's a couple of pics of 2 of the remaining cardinals (Very hard to get a good pic lol)
20230324_193126.jpg
20230324_193945.jpg
 
They seem ok, no frayed fins or patches of discolouration. Although, I don’t know if it’s the pictures but they look a little bloated maybe? How is their breathing?
 
Conort2 said:
They seem ok, no frayed fins or patches of discolouration. Although, I don’t know if it’s the pictures but they look a little bloated maybe? How is their breathing?
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I've thought that a couple are a bit bloated and the bloated ones also seem to be breathing a bit more rapidly, I still think I might loose more to be honest
 
Mattant1984 said:
Now this is a huge drop and I'm wondering if the aquasoil would have caused this?
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The aquasoil can absolutely do this. I've observed this most notably in my largest tank when I rescaped it recently. My normal pH is around 7.8 but with CO2 and fresh aquasoil I was getting readings below 6!

I also experienced seemingly unexplained fish losses in the first week of adding them and the Cardinal tetras were the first to go. I fact, they started dying before they were added. I also experienced some fish looking bloated, amongst other symptoms. I don't know whether it was stress alone, stress that opened the fish up to disease or what, because just like yourself my ammonia and nitrite were reading 0. I did a treatment of Esha 2000 and the deaths stopped. This could have been purely coincidental as things settled but this is what I observed.

I think it could be a mixture of things for you. Don't rule out a possible infection and I think large water changes won't do any harm. For now you might have to ride this one out.
 
Courtneybst said:
The aquasoil can absolutely do this. I've observed this most notably in my largest tank when I rescaped it recently. My normal pH is around 7.8 but with CO2 and fresh aquasoil I was getting readings below 6!

I also experienced seemingly unexplained fish losses in the first week of adding them and the Cardinal tetras were the first to go. I fact, they started dying before they were added. I also experienced some fish looking bloated, amongst other symptoms. I don't know whether it was stress alone, stress that opened the fish up to disease or what, because just like yourself my ammonia and nitrite were reading 0. I did a treatment of Esha 2000 and the deaths stopped. This could have been purely coincidental as things settled but this is what I observed.

I think it could be a mixture of things for you. Don't rule out a possible infection and I think large water changes won't do any harm. For now you might have to ride this one out.
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Thanks for your comments and it's good to hear your experiences, I do think that the cardinals are a bit more delicate than some other fish and since their group has been reduced to only 5 they are now a lot more skittish which isn't helping, they were very bold in a large group of about 17.

In regards to your ph etc dropping did you do anything about it or did you just go with it??

I'm going to continue the water changes for a few more days I think
 
Courtneybst said:
I didn't. Over a short period of time (only a few weeks) the substrate stopped buffering because of my hard tap water and now the pH is in its usual range.
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Ahh right, so maybe the quick fluctuations in the water chemistry may have had an impact on the fish health as well 🤷🤷
 
To be fair it’s probably a combination of things, high ammonia, maybe a drastic swing in ph plus the stress of moving the fish which can make fish more susceptible to pathogens and parasites. One alone may have not been enough to kill the fish but a combination can tip them over the edge.
 
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