Deaths in an established tank (long post)

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B"H

HI, I have a 29g, two year old established tank. About two weeks ago, I
had an 8 hour power outage. A day later, I noticed I had a dead two
year old 5 inch snakeskin gourami. Three days ago, I saw my two year
old 6 inch pleco had what looked kind of like fin-rot. By now i was
getting concerned because the snakeskin also had the same thing that
looked kind of like fin-rot before he died. So I did a large water
change (25-30%) and hoped I could figure out what was going on. A few
moments ago, I looked in and saw the Pleco was dead. In addition to
those dead fish, 3 fish have gone MIA, those are two tiger barbs, and
one Kribensis. The 3 MIA are nowhere to be found, I've looked in all
the caves and around the outside of the tank to see if they made the
"leap of faith," and they are nowhere to be found.

The current inhabitants of the tank are:
4 Tiger barbs
4 Cory's
1 Kribensis

The tiger barbs are relativley new. They came into the tank about a
month ago. The Kribs came about two months ago, and the cory's are out
because they've been here for over a year and a half.

The Ph is 7, the ammonia is 0, and the nitrate is 0. I'm assuming the
phophate is high though, this is because the water is cloudy. I'm just
at a total loss as to what could be happening. I'm going to continue
water changes, maybe 10-15% every other day, until I can gain control
over this. Does anyone have any ideas as to what's going on?

Thanks for reading,
Evan Davis

[Gill Passman]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> B"H
>
> HI, I have a 29g, two year old established tank. About two weeks ago, I
> had an 8 hour power outage. A day later, I noticed I had a dead two
> year old 5 inch snakeskin gourami. Three days ago, I saw my two year
> old 6 inch pleco had what looked kind of like fin-rot. By now i was
> getting concerned because the snakeskin also had the same thing that
> looked kind of like fin-rot before he died. So I did a large water
> change (25-30%) and hoped I could figure out what was going on. A few
> moments ago, I looked in and saw the Pleco was dead. In addition to
> those dead fish, 3 fish have gone MIA, those are two tiger barbs, and
> one Kribensis. The 3 MIA are nowhere to be found, I've looked in all
> the caves and around the outside of the tank to see if they made the
> "leap of faith," and they are nowhere to be found.
>
> The current inhabitants of the tank are:
> 4 Tiger barbs
> 4 Cory's
> 1 Kribensis
>
> The tiger barbs are relativley new. They came into the tank about a
> month ago. The Kribs came about two months ago, and the cory's are out
> because they've been here for over a year and a half.
>
> The Ph is 7, the ammonia is 0, and the nitrate is 0. I'm assuming the
> phophate is high though, this is because the water is cloudy. I'm just
> at a total loss as to what could be happening. I'm going to continue
> water changes, maybe 10-15% every other day, until I can gain control
> over this. Does anyone have any ideas as to what's going on?
>
> Thanks for reading,
> Evan Davis
>
Sorry to hear about your problems :-( I had a wipe out in my one year
established tank after the pump failed while I was on holiday a few weeks
ago - the tank cycled again - we think it was off-line for longer than 8
hours though - but from answers I've had to previous posts I've made 8 hours
could well have been long enough to kill off some/most of the bacteria. If
you had a power outage it could be a similar type of problem. Much the same
symptoms as you describe were seen on my fish that didn't make it.

I would continue with the water changes - I did 20-30% changes for a few
days after the problem to get things back under control. The main detectable
problem I saw in the tank were that the nitrites were up - and this was
after the first 30% change. So it would probably be worth testing for these.
I also used AmmoLock just in case. I would also check that the pump/filter
is working properly since the outage.

Hope this helps
Gill

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Thanks for the reply, I'm hoping the only roblem is that the bacteria
got wiped out, I can just re-seed from another of of my filters.
But I re-read my post, and I had a typo, I have no idea what the
NitrAtes are, the NitrItes are 0.

Again, thanks for the replies,
Evan Davis

[Gill Passman]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Thanks for the reply, I'm hoping the only roblem is that the bacteria
> got wiped out, I can just re-seed from another of of my filters.
> But I re-read my post, and I had a typo, I have no idea what the
> NitrAtes are, the NitrItes are 0.
>
> Again, thanks for the replies,
> Evan Davis
>

I guess you have multiple tanks then - was there any effect in any of the
other tanks - if the power outage killed off the bacteria I would have
thought the same problem would apply in the other tanks as well. Or did
they have a lighter fish load? Maybe, it isn't the same problem as I had - I
had a reading for nitrites. Could it possibly be something brought in with
the Tiger Barbs - is there any sign of disease/parasites on them?

When I had my problem the last fish died around 2 weeks after the failure.

I would keep up the water changes and see if anyone else on this NG has
something else to add

Gill

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See, that's the odd part. My other two tanks are perfectly fine, and
they are stocked heavier than the 29g. So, my current thought is that
the tiger barbs may have brought something into the tank. In the least,
I'm going to wait awhile before re-stocking the tank. My second theory
is that maybe the 3 fish that are missing died of some disease, and
they were eaten by the gourami and pleco, thus the pleco and gourami
getting the disease and died. Though to be honest that second theory
sounds a bit far fetched, even to me.

Evan Davis

[Peter Demski]

Another far fetched theory would be that the barbs did have something
and the power outage might have stressed your fish enough to make them
susceptible to it.

I would think that if your ammonia and nitrIte are 0 it's unlikely a problem
with your bacteria colonies but I will let someone with more experience
confirm that.

Sorry to hear about your losses. I will be interested to hear if you are
able
to determine the cause.

Peter

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> See, that's the odd part. My other two tanks are perfectly fine, and
> they are stocked heavier than the 29g. So, my current thought is that
> the tiger barbs may have brought something into the tank. In the least,
> I'm going to wait awhile before re-stocking the tank. My second theory
> is that maybe the 3 fish that are missing died of some disease, and
> they were eaten by the gourami and pleco, thus the pleco and gourami
> getting the disease and died. Though to be honest that second theory
> sounds a bit far fetched, even to me.
>
> Evan Davis
>

[Gill Passman]

"Peter Demski" > wrote in message
.. .
>
> Another far fetched theory would be that the barbs did have something
> and the power outage might have stressed your fish enough to make them
> susceptible to it.
>
> I would think that if your ammonia and nitrIte are 0 it's unlikely a
problem
> with your bacteria colonies but I will let someone with more experience
> confirm that.
>
> Sorry to hear about your losses. I will be interested to hear if you are
> able
> to determine the cause.
>
> Peter
>
> > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> > See, that's the odd part. My other two tanks are perfectly fine, and
> > they are stocked heavier than the 29g. So, my current thought is that
> > the tiger barbs may have brought something into the tank. In the least,
> > I'm going to wait awhile before re-stocking the tank. My second theory
> > is that maybe the 3 fish that are missing died of some disease, and
> > they were eaten by the gourami and pleco, thus the pleco and gourami
> > getting the disease and died. Though to be honest that second theory
> > sounds a bit far fetched, even to me.
> >
> > Evan Davis
> >
>
>
Of course there is the possibility that the bacteria colonies have
repopulated as the outage was two weeks ago - it was just a theory anyway
based on my recent experience....

Peter's theory sounds a reasonable one and not far fetched to me at
all....additionally I don't think that your theory on disease spreading by
other fish eating their dead companions is far fetched either.

Gill

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Just an update, last night I found the missing Krib, very much alive.
So I guess that might be the silver lining on this cloud.

Thank you for all the replies. I'll update everyone when/if I learn
what happened.
Evan Davis