For close to a year now I have had a mysterious problem affecting all but one of my tanks. It starts out by the fish losing energy, appetite, and direction. If its a catfish, the very first sign is the barbells dying back from the tips and curling, eventually falling right off. the first incident started immediately after my battle with camallanus worms. I used fenbendazole (didn't work) then levamisole (worked amazingly). Before the levamisole I went away for a week and left implicit instructions for my girlfriend on care and medication requirements. A black ghost knife died behind a rock and she didn't see it causing a major ammonia spike killing almost all of my fish. Right after that is when the weirdness started to happen...
Almost every new fish I introduced into the system, not all, gets the same thing.
After the initial loss of energy and appetite, some fungus starts to grow on the fish. It gets worse and spreads until the fish eventually dies.
At first I thought it was columnaris, so I treated with seachem kanaplex... No improvement.
I treated with salt... No improvement.
Ive done major water changes, filter cleans, gravel vacs, you name it. If it has to do with tank maintenance, I stepped it up a few notches to try and combat this.
I got so fed up with losing almost all of my fish/money that I emptied out my big tank completely of fish and left it running for over a month as I figured that whatever is doing this needs fish to keep doing it.
The first two fish I put in died within a week of the same thing. An arowana, and a sailfin pim catfish. The arowana stopped eating first, then stopped swimming and started to sink backwards while it tried to keep itself righted. The catfishes barbells curled, turned white, and fell off. The arowana sunk to the bottom and died, the catfish developed fungus inside its mouth and then died.
In a different tank, I bought a small clown knife fish. It stopped eating, then it sat on the bottom and started to fall over on its side, then it developed fungus near the back of its tail. The fungus spread and it died.
In a separate tank I had an African lungfish. He stopped eating and became even more lethargic, it became a chore for it to swim up for air. All four of its fins developed fungus on the tips, slowly died and fell off. It developed more fungus patches around its body and eventually died after about two months of the first signs.
I put some convict cichlids I had been breeding for a while from a different tank into the one with the sailfin pim (while it was still alive) and they are still happy and thriving in the same tank along with my gold Saum green terror and an African toothed catfish I had shipped from Vancouver island a month after the sailfin pim died.
In the same tank the clown knife died I put in 5 baby peacock bass and one baby ripsaw catfish. They have since grown (still babies) and I have put them into a bigger tank to grow more. They have been in that tank maybe two weeks, last week I added two baby walking catfish and a yellowtail spiny eel. Just today I noticed that the barbells are curling on the walking catfish and they have no appetite or reason to their swimming path, though every other fish in the tank is fine (as far as I can tell). Before the signs on these walking catfish the last fish died from this over 3 months ago! What the hell is happening?!
I added salt to the tank and purigen to the filter, then jumped on this forum to see if there is anybody that can help.
My parameters are all fine, I do weekly water changes and gravel vacs. I over filter by double the recommended filtration, and always siphon out un eaten food.
This is driving me CRAZY!!! I have lost so many of my favorite fish, and wasted so much money on new fish only for them to die right away in a seemingly healthy tank with other fish swimming around completely fine. Please, if there is anybody out there that knows anything like this and can help I would really appreciate it.
Almost every new fish I introduced into the system, not all, gets the same thing.
After the initial loss of energy and appetite, some fungus starts to grow on the fish. It gets worse and spreads until the fish eventually dies.
At first I thought it was columnaris, so I treated with seachem kanaplex... No improvement.
I treated with salt... No improvement.
Ive done major water changes, filter cleans, gravel vacs, you name it. If it has to do with tank maintenance, I stepped it up a few notches to try and combat this.
I got so fed up with losing almost all of my fish/money that I emptied out my big tank completely of fish and left it running for over a month as I figured that whatever is doing this needs fish to keep doing it.
The first two fish I put in died within a week of the same thing. An arowana, and a sailfin pim catfish. The arowana stopped eating first, then stopped swimming and started to sink backwards while it tried to keep itself righted. The catfishes barbells curled, turned white, and fell off. The arowana sunk to the bottom and died, the catfish developed fungus inside its mouth and then died.
In a different tank, I bought a small clown knife fish. It stopped eating, then it sat on the bottom and started to fall over on its side, then it developed fungus near the back of its tail. The fungus spread and it died.
In a separate tank I had an African lungfish. He stopped eating and became even more lethargic, it became a chore for it to swim up for air. All four of its fins developed fungus on the tips, slowly died and fell off. It developed more fungus patches around its body and eventually died after about two months of the first signs.
I put some convict cichlids I had been breeding for a while from a different tank into the one with the sailfin pim (while it was still alive) and they are still happy and thriving in the same tank along with my gold Saum green terror and an African toothed catfish I had shipped from Vancouver island a month after the sailfin pim died.
In the same tank the clown knife died I put in 5 baby peacock bass and one baby ripsaw catfish. They have since grown (still babies) and I have put them into a bigger tank to grow more. They have been in that tank maybe two weeks, last week I added two baby walking catfish and a yellowtail spiny eel. Just today I noticed that the barbells are curling on the walking catfish and they have no appetite or reason to their swimming path, though every other fish in the tank is fine (as far as I can tell). Before the signs on these walking catfish the last fish died from this over 3 months ago! What the hell is happening?!
I added salt to the tank and purigen to the filter, then jumped on this forum to see if there is anybody that can help.
My parameters are all fine, I do weekly water changes and gravel vacs. I over filter by double the recommended filtration, and always siphon out un eaten food.
This is driving me CRAZY!!! I have lost so many of my favorite fish, and wasted so much money on new fish only for them to die right away in a seemingly healthy tank with other fish swimming around completely fine. Please, if there is anybody out there that knows anything like this and can help I would really appreciate it.
