fishy grand mal seizure?

Hau kolas..

Well last night my prized male Protomelas taeniolatus "Red Empress" cichlid
died suddenly and apparently quite violently..my wife was in the room, and
while not watching the onset,here's what she describes happenned to him:
roughly 2 hours after tank lights turned off, sudden violent splashing
followed by a dart to the surface, actually escaping the water, hit the
canopy and fell back into tank belly up, stone cold dead. She says his mouth
was gaping the entire time (15 seconds?). She put the dead fish in the
freezer, as I was at work, and unfortunately there it stayed all night, so
now I'm waiting for it to de-ice to see if anything is obvious. The fish had
been in apparent good health, in fact dominating the tank (ramshorn snails &
other africans as tankmates) quite easily, coloring was great, behavior and
feeding good, no external signs of infection or parasites. Last water
change had been 2 days ago (routine water change & gravel vac). currently
water parameters tests: Ammonia=0, nitrite=.125, nitrate=10 , ph=7.4, dkh=5
dgh=10, temp =81.7F. Slight elevation of the nitrite, otherwise "normal" for
this tank across the board. pH may be low in your opinion, yet that has been
consistant also. The tank is just over a year old, the fish perhaps 1.5
years, this fish has been in this tank since original cycle. other fish
appear and act a bit frazzled at the absence of the dominator, but otherwise
everyone looks none the worse for the wear..any ideas? I'm going tosee how
the fish is de-icing and maybe open it up for a look-see..appreciate any
advice you can give me.

lila pilamaya
**FREE PELTIER NOW!!**