Kuhli sudden death--oh, no! another one!

[TammyLiz]

Dissappointingly, this morning one of my kuhlis were dead. Hopefully someone here will be able to shed some light on the situation.

Last night my husband and I were both bothered by sounds of splashing and of sand being kicked up into the filter. The third time it woke us up, at 2:30am, we decided to turn on the light to see what was going on. (but come on, are these fish or babies?) Everything seemed to be in its place, all kuhlis were accounted for, the filter was functioning properly. One of the kuhlis was looking a little greyed out, but I looked closely and it wasn't fungus, nor was it patchy, so I decided it was probably mood. I noticed it was the one that had two of its black bands partially joined. Then when I got up this morning at 6:45, one of the kuhlis was dead. It was the one I had noted looked a little off-color 4 hours before. The other two were resting in the back of the tank. I tested the water. Ammonia 0, NitrItes 0, NitrAtes 8, pH 7.0.

Other possibly pertinent information.

There was a nitrIte spike when I first added the kuhlis several days ago. It lasted two days but was only high (3ppm ) for the first one. I did a 30% water change the day it was high, but it didn't seem to bring it down very much. The next day I tested again and it was only 0.5ppm. The third day it was 0, and has stayed at 0 for the several days.

They had been in the pet store for slightly more than a week before I went to pick them up.

There is a diamond tetra in the tank that has popeye in one eye. I believe she injured it while trying to avoid being netted when I moved them into the tank a couple of weeks ago, infection set in, and she still has not been able to recover. I plan on moving her to another tank and treating her, so the kuhlis do not have to go through the medication. (If I can catch her...they are unbelievably fast Another one of the diamond tetras injured his mouth while I was moving them, but he has recovered. They do NOT like being netted!)

I fed them an algae wafer last night, which they did not eat. It was still in there this morning. I also fed one two nights before that, but I suspect the diamond tetras were the ones to eat it. They were very fat.

There were no markings of any kind on the dead kuhli. I have a picture in case anyone is interested. He was laying on his side on the bottom.

Nothing else to note. I am wondering if it could have some connection to the nitrIte spike but I'm wondering why it would happen a few days later rather than while it was high. Or could he have killed himself while splashing around?

[mikev]

Most likely, good old KUSS (search LOL for some old posts).

Basically, some %-age of new kuhlis die; the only way to avoid it is to get them from stores that had them for a couple of weeks in good conditions. Recently shipped kuhlis would suffer losses, sometimes as high as 100%.

Based on the cases I've described here before and some new ones, the good news are that (1) KUSS deaths seem to occur within a week -- so if you make it through one week, you can relax and (2) most of KUSS deaths are not of "wipe out epidemics" type.

(This is much better than, for example, my hillstream situation, where it is a slow, apparently 100% fatal, and an epidemics all right. HOWEVER -- a killer kuhli infection, likely also viral, does exist too -- I've seen it, once)

So relax, give it a few days, and the surviving kuhlis will be OK.

If you hit this situation again in the future, be careful not to mix your new kuhlis with the old ones for a couple of weeks --- but this is not your problem now.

As for graying out -- happens when you turn light on suddenly. (Or lift rocks/driftwood that kuhlis hide under.). Probably not significant. I don't think there is anything about splashing, or eating -- very often kuhlis take time -- a week or two -- to get into eating habits.

hth & good luck.

[Barracuda518]

Stripped Kuhlis seem to die like that quite often. I got a LFS to order me 10 of them and they arrived on a Friday. I went that Sunday to get them and they all had died. He told me that happened quite often.

[Wendie]

I was lucky with the last batch I mailed ordered for. They are all doing fine and getting fat!!! It took me about 4 batches of fish before I managed to keep a group.

[TammyLiz]

Do you think it could still be KUSS even though they were at the LFS for a bit more than a week before I bought them? I would have bought them when I first saw them if I hadn't considered that. I guess it could be, though. Its still under, or around, two weeks since they've been shipped. It's sad, though. I think I'll take it in and see if I can get a replacement. I am assuming it'll be OK not to quarantine, unless they've gotten yet another shipment in, seeing as they would have been shipped together.

[TammyLiz]

Another one is now laying on it's side twitching! I can't help but feel like it is my fault.

[mikev]

Do you think it could still be KUSS even though they were at the LFS for a bit more than a week before I bought them?

NO.
Of course, KUSS is just a collective term, not a specific disease, but you got something else.

Crying or Very sad Another one is now laying on it's side twitching! I can't help but feel like it is my fault.

The only time I saw a kuhli "twitching" was related to nematodes....
If you have the one who died earlier, take a look at what is inside now.
(Did you give them levamisole anyway?)

I do hope this is not the case....

I am assuming it'll be OK not to quarantine, unless they've gotten yet another shipment in, seeing as they would have been shipped together.

Given my recent experience this is not an assumption to ever make.

[TammyLiz]

Mike, I am ashamed to say that I never ordered that levamisole. My yoyo's growth has taken off and I was in a little bit of a money bind. Now I wish I had gone ahead with it.

The second one is now dead. I would treat the single remaining one with levamisole if I had it. At this rate she'll be dead before the day is even over. What a bummer. I figured after waiting a week and going back for them they'd be ok. I didn't actually confirm that there had been no other orders in, since the guy who does the orders was not there and the others were pretty busy with other (stupid) customers. (Plus, I was doing some complaining about the way they keep their bettas, and a situation involving 3 males in one tank. It was terrible.) But I just assumed the kuhlis were the same ones. I'll call and ask about it before completely ruling out the khuli shipping issue.

I can go back and get replacements for the ones that have died--IF theirs are still alive. But I'm not so sure I should do that. I have an unoccupied, cycled, 10 gallon tank with gravel substrate, although in a high-traffic area of my home. Still I would like to have kuhlis but what should I do? If I don't take them back I'll be wasting my money--these were a little expensive for kuhlis--$4 each. But, you know, we are talking about lives here so I wouldn't want to waste any others in case they picked it up in my tank.

I have the two bodies in my fridge. I have been extremely queasy lately no matter what I do (I have both the flu and morning sickness, with incredible results-- I can't eat, and I can't not eat), and there is no way I'm going to be able to cut one open myself right now. I am not sure if my husband would do it for me when he gets home or not--I've never asked him to do that before.

[mikev]

Tammy:

Really sorry to hear all this. I know how you feel all too well....

------------

Darn. Levamisole is one drug to keep on hand...

There is one thing you may want to try to do: reread my PM on TFF on how to manufacture your own. If worms is what you are indeed dealing with, you may be able to save the last kuhli yet. I did. You'd still have to treat the tank heavily with the real thing, my solution would buy you only a delay for a few days.

Absolutely do not get replacements, IMHO. Get the store credit toward the next batch, you should be able to argue this, or just write off $4...it is just not worth the pain you'd feel if new kuhli's die too.

As for the autopsy: I totally understand what you are saying. Scrap it. If these are small worms (capillari type) you may not always see them w/o a magnified glass. Instead, put the dead kuhli into a glass of tank water and see if anything creeps out.

Regardless of what you see/don't: I think you should invest in the drug as the first priority. Treat every new loach as a rule. This will eliminate at least some of the more unpleasant problems. I'm not saying worms is the cause, but kuhlis dying from infections/kuss/poisoning tend to simply slow down, roll over and die. Twitching indicates that something inside disturbs them. Both the kuhli I lost to the worms and the one I managed to save behaved in such disturbed fashion.

I figured after waiting a week and going back for them they'd be ok

*Usually*. In my hillstream episodes, NO problems were noticed until after two weeks. In your case, one week at the store does eliminate KUSS, but does nothing about the possibility that the kuhlis were infected on the last day at the store...and if so, you'd see deaths perhaps 3 weeks later.

Best of luck to you!

[Jayhawk]

You can also try Prazi Pro which has Praziquantel, which is an actual antiparasitic like Levamisole is. It's pretty common in most LFSs today. I, ans several other keepers who frequent The Puffer Forum, have used it successfully with puffers.

Eric

[mikev]

You can, but imho the chances are against this working. Prazi does nothing against roundworms (incl. nematodes) and these are the most likely suspects in *acute* cases.

Also, it is not that cheap. The smallest bottle of PraziPro I could find around here was $45. Levamisole you can get for $15 on the net.

[TammyLiz]

It seems it doesn't make a difference either way. During the night, at about 4:00am (what would I do if this tank wasn't in my room?), the filter started making a terrible noise that was impossible to sleep through.
You can probably guess the rest of the story, and if you don't want to hear it, don't read on. I've heard this story several times from others but I had looked at my filter and though my kuhli would only be able to get into the basket, and not the impeller. I figured that if it became an issue I would fix it then, since I didn't believe they would get hurt. Somehow, though, she made it into the impeller housing. I'm not sure but I think she may have been doing the same thing the night before when I was hearing all those splashing noises. She had funny marks on her yesterday that I knew must have been associated with the splashing and rough play the night before, but now I can see they are consistent with a trip into the filter. This time she was jamming the whole thing up, and upon turning the filter off and taking the impeller out, she squirmed around, stuck around it. We tried to be careful removing her, but when we returned her to the tank, she thrashed around with a terrible wound in her stomach, and was dead in less than a minute. I was feeling a little hopeful about her surviving since she was more active than the other two, but it was being active that did her in.

[Jayhawk]

Oh, poor thing. I had an adult kuhli who died stuck between the two slitted sections of the Aquaclear's intake tubes (I have two tubes stuck together). I've since rubber banded a mesh bag over the filter intake and had no more deaths...it's amazing where they can get in.

Eric

[mikev]

Poor thing indeed, very sorry to hear this.

I had this happening twice: a Pleco and then (recently) a SpA hillstream got into the filter *through the outtake*; the filter made it possible for the fish to climb up against the flow. The Pleco was perfectly fine, but the SpA loach -- when I found it in the morning in the filter -- looked horrible. Had a huge white patch on its back (all coloration gone -- just as Jim described the patchy disease -- except I knew this is no disease) and lots of red streaks all over the body. Swam erratically for a couple of days, so I wrote it off, but it somehow made it. Now, month later, I'm not even sure which one it was.--the patch is totally gone.

The weird thing about the incident is that SpA's were not doing anything like this before -- and it happened exactly on the day of the nitrite spike. Like if the loach was trying to escape the low oxygen conditions...

I got rid of the filter after the incident, of course.

But --- sorry to say this -- you are not off the hook. Whatever killed the kuhlis may still be in the tank. So I'd still suggest going through with levamisole.

[NancyD]

TammyLiz, I'm sorry for your loss. Not to be bossy but in your expectant condition you should be extra careful with diseased fish & drugs. I'm pretty sure I've read some of the dyes like malachite green &/or methylene blue & some antibiotics are not good for fetus health. I don't know about wormers. Sorry to sound alarmist, you've probably thought of it already.
Nancy