Homaloptera tweedie dying?

[milalic]

I have an established 20gal. tank with quartz substrate. It's about 1/3 full with Hornwort. It has an air sponge filter and an internal filter that shoots air across the tank. The internal filter provides about 120 gph of flow.

I have about 30 Homaloptera tweedie in that tank. They have nice coloration and appear to be completely healthy. I feed them decapped brine shrimp eggs but I don't know if they eat it or not. About every other day I find one fish dead. The dead fish have wide open mouth and arched backs, as if suffering.

What could be causing the fish to die like that?

[milalic]

Pictures of the fish (big files):

http://www.invertzfactory.com/images/ca ... weedei.jpg
http://www.invertzfactory.com/images/ca ... eedei2.jpg

[shari2]

Hi Pedro, it would help if you could please do the following:

If you have a health problem with any of your fish, whether it be loaches or any other freshwater fish, please copy and paste the following along with your answers. This will help the other forum members to build up a picture of what is happening in your tank and will aid in a more prompt diagnosis and treatment recommendation:


* How long has the tank been set up for?
* Water temperature.
* Your maintenance regime (e.g. how often water changes are carried out, what percentage of the water is changed each time, how often you clean your filter/s and how do you do this?)
* Has anything new been added to the tank recently? (fish, plants, live food, decor etc).
* What other fish are in the tank?
* As detailed a description as possible of the symptoms the fish are exhibiting (remember a photograph can speak a thousand words).
* How long ago the affected fish were added to the tank, and how long the fish have been displaying symptoms.
* Your current water parameters - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (please don't say 'my water is fine, the levels are ok', we would like actual numbers from the test results).

Many thanks,
The LOL Moderators.

[milalic]

* How long has the tank been set up for?

More than a year. It has never had a filter crash (cloudy water)

* Water temperature.

78F

* Your maintenance regime (e.g. how often water changes are carried out, what percentage of the water is changed each time, how often you clean your filter/s and how do you do this?)

20% water changes 1 or 2 times a week. Running the tap water through 3 gallons of activated carbon. Also adding a light dose of Cloramex to take care of any possible leftover chlorine/chloramine.

* Has anything new been added to the tank recently? (fish, plants, live food, decor etc).

Nothing has been added. A light dose (1/2 a dose) of Nitrofuracin Green from http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/products3.html was added once on the 3-rd day when we saw that 1 or 2 loaches are diying.

* What other fish are in the tank?

No other fish. Prior to putting the loaches in that tank the tank housed about 100 Microrasbora erythromicron. None of the M. erythromicrons had any issues.

* As detailed a description as possible of the symptoms the fish are exhibiting (remember a photograph can speak a thousand words).

The fish die in full color. Mouth open. Arched back. No red spots in the gill area when looking at the fish from below. This morning there was a single dead loach that had a few internal red spots (usual sign of bacteria)

* How long ago the affected fish were added to the tank, and how long the fish have been displaying symptoms.

The fish were added 10 days ago. The first one died on the second day. Since then - no visible symptoms. Just 1 fish dead every 1-3 days.

* Your current water parameters - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (please don't say 'my water is fine, the levels are ok', we would like actual numbers from the test results).

NH4 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0 - 2 (hornwort plant and light feeding takes care of that)
pH - 7.1

[shari2]

Thanks, Pedro.

I have to say, I'm stumped.

You have noticed no unusual behaviors? Darting, gasping, flashing, lethargy, loss of appetite?

That medication you used recommends continuing treatment for 10 days. Using the treatment for a single dose is not likely to do any good.

Since you mention the red spots on the last fish, I'd complete a full course of treatment. It has to be something internal that is progressing from fish to fish. Odd that they don't seem to succumb other than one at a time...

[chefkeith]

Hi Pedro, Welcome to LOL.
Laurent (Glostik) has mentioned that you're his fish guy. I hear good things about your fish.

Anyway,
1st I always look for potential water quality issues and water chemistry problems, but this might be impossible to find since the fish have only been with you for 10 days.

When you got the fish, do you know what the water parameters were in the fish bag?
For water quality we need to know NH4, NO2, and NO3 of the water in the fish bag.
For water chemistry we need to know the Kh, Gh, pH, and TDS of the water in the fish bag and in the tank they went into.

If any of these water chemistry numbers were vastly different from the fish bag to the tank that you put them in, then it's possible that their internal organs / osmolarity system could of been damaged. Sometimes even 1 hour drip acclimation procedures are not good enough to prevent osmotic shock. If this happens sometimes the damage is irreversible and there is nothing you can do but wait, which could take hours to several weeks.

You said "This morning there was a single dead loach that had a few internal red spots (usual sign of bacteria)" This makes me think even more that it is damaged internal organs.

Some fish dealers will add salt to the water to prevent parasitic infections and nitrite poisoning. The best way to test fish bags for this is with a TDS meter. If they did add salt to the water, then you should try to match the salinity of the bag water to the tank water in addition to drip acclimating them.

What is your acclimation procedure?
Has this dealer ever sent you problematic fish before?

If it's not water quality or water chemistry, then it's probably parasitic, which is what you were probably treating for already with the Nitrofuracin Green (btw, has salt in it). You should probably keep up that treatment and make sure any changes done to the water chemistry are done very slowly.

For now, I don't think you can do much but wait. Fish can recover amazingly from many things, but it just takes time.

I wish the fish much luck in their recovery.

[milalic]

Thank you for the responses!

No unusual behavior. The fish don't really breath hard either. I have a hard time telling if they eat because I don't see them get excited about the food. But the food does not accumulate, maybe because of the few snails in that tank.

Our experience with the Nitrofuracin is that at some point it becomes very powerful. Too powerful for the fish to handle. The idea behind chaning water every day and adding more of the medicine is to slowly reach the final concentration. With some fish after day 3 - 5 the fish get lethargic and a 50% water change without adding the medicine really perks them up. So we decided to try a light dose of the Nitrofuracin despite the instructions.

Today we didn't see any fish have any red spots. Everybody is alive too.

I like the osmotic shock hypothesis. Usually the fish come in bags with cloudy water or water that smells like Ammonia. So we rush to move them in our tanks. We don't see a point of acclimating fish that swim in a stinky bag and some are already dead. This particular exporter has been great about that though - very low DOA. Still - so far we have acclimated only very few fish (Chocolate gouramies for example). So we can't say what were the water parameters in the bag with the Homaloptera.

I think that from now on we will start with checking pH and TDS on all bags despite the appearance of the water. The water that the fish come in is soft so there shouldn't be a big difference there.

[Martin Thoene]

Certainly points to acclimatization problems or the knock-on effects of capture and transportation. I worry about the feeding regime too. The side view looks rather skinny.

Homaloptera tweediei are a very visual hunter and need movement in their prey. They will feed on such things as brine shrimp or even individual bloodworm floating in the current will attract them. They'll hunt fish fry too. Unlike other Homaloptera such as orthogoniata, they won't in my experience show a great interest in frozen lumps of food or sinking pellets.
In other words they're not a taste/smell food finder.....they're hunters.

Martin.

[milalic]

Loaches are doing better and eating live bloodworms released to areas were there is flow and movement in the tank. No more deaths.

Very interesting behavior when they hunt for the food.

thanks for all the advice.

[chefkeith]

Pedro, good to hear.