# Black skirts dying out slowly. No clue why :(



## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

Hello everyone, I've been keeping fish pretty successfully for the last 10 years or so but I'm having an issue that I'm really not sure how to deal with. I've never seen anything like this before. Here are some details about my tank before I get to the actual problem. 

My tank size is 65 gallons

Last water test was done yesterday. The parameters were:
PH: 7.2
Ammonia: 0 
Nitrate: 20 
Nitrite: 0 
Tested using the marine land fresh water master test kit. 

The temp is kept at a steady 75

Freshwater tank

The aquarium has been up and running for a total of 2 or 3 years now. 

The inhabitants of the tank are 1 kissing gourami, 7 neon tetras, 6 black skirt tetras, and 4 albino corys (Had the gourami for 10 years so far and all of the rest have been replaced as they have died of old age) 

Never had a chance to quarantine anyone for long before they died. 

I have a pretty well planted tank with some java ferns and water wisteria and one ornamental vase in the center of the tank that I got from a pet store. 

Tank has gravel substrate. 

Currently using a national geographic cf 70 canister filter with built in uv sterilization. I have a heater large enough to handle 80 gallons of water. 

Very little natural light exposure and I have the light timer set to about 10.5 hours of light per day. 

I change about 25 percent of the water weekly and the last water change was done last night using normal tap water. 

I use prime as my main water conditioner. 

I do a gravel vac every week.

They are fed twice a day. Once a day they get flake food and algae pellets (Algae pellets are given to them at both feedings) the second feeding of the day they are given brine shrimp and daphnia to help the black skirts keep from getting constipated. 

The issue I've been having is exclusively with my black skirt tetras. I just lost 2 of them about 2 weeks ago now. One of them I'm fairly sure died of constipation. The other one though was swimming towards the top of the tank and staying there for a few days before he finally laid down on his side at the bottom and never got back up. After a few days in a separate tank I realized that he wasn't going to get better and had to euthanize him. So one died that way, another died of what I thought was constipation and now just since this morning when I saw everyone up and swimming there is another black skirt settled on the bottom of the tank. He is now in a plastic bag sitting in the main tank until I can get my hospital tank back up. I didn't notice any odd behavior from him in the last few days and there are no obvious signs of disease. The first of the fish died after we went on vacation for a week and the ammonia spiked while we were gone. I figured that it might have been ammonia poisoning and I've gotten the levels back under control since. This one is having the same issues with an ammonia level of 0. I'm wondering if there is some kind if parasitic thing going around that I'm not aware of. I'm planning to quarantine the entire school at the end of the day just to be safe.


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## Devyn (Oct 4, 2015)

How long have you had the black skirts?


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## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

Well I've had some of them for 2 to 3 years now and I want to say that I've had the ones I got to fill the school out for just over 2.5 months now. I had a school of 8, I'm not down to 5. Hard to tell which ones are the ones dying. I know that at least one of them was from the new batch that I just bought and I believe that 2 of them were older. like between 2 and 3 years old.


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## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

After some more research and seeing some old pictures of the fish that died about 2 weeks ago I'm convinced that he had some kind of intestinal parasite. The fish that died today had no signs of it whatsoever though. I have one fish in the tank that is still bloated. Going to a fish store tomorrow to see if anyone can make any suggestions about what could be killing them all off.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Over the years I've had many fish die in quarantine (I quarantine all new fish for close to a month). Prior to their deaths, I sat in front of the tank studying the fish to pick out the best ones in the tank. So you can imagine my surprise when I take home the fish I deemed the best and they die on me in days. It happens to all of us, only if you don't quarantine you can't necessarily be sure which fish are dying, or that they won't infect the others. I know that doesn't exactly help you determine why they died - thats actually not an easy thing to do. Sometimes there are obvious indicators, but more often all we can do is make a more or less educated guess. You should definitely get yourself a quarantine setup and keep your new fish there for at least 2 weeks for observation.


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## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

I do have a quarantine set up and I have started doing that more recently. I was just concerned because they were dying off one at a time at a rate of about 1 per week and it was freaking me out. I have a kissing gourami named Shavo that I've had for over 10 years now. He's the one I'm most concerned about. I'd be devastated if anything ever happened to him. Whatever this is seems to only be effecting the black skirts though.. No new causalities today. Maybe the hard part is over. Still have one that's been all puffed up for over a month now. Pretty sure he has intestinal worm. I'm gonna run to the local fish place today and see if anyone has any recommendations. Thanks.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

I would have removed that one fish a month ago.... I hope it hasn't infected your gourami.


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## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

He was in quarantine for some time but I put him back because he refuses to eat when he's on his own like that. I didn't want him to starve. I think I know what kind of worms he has and they're fairly easy to treat. I'm not super worried about it after doing some decent research. I'm going to a fish expert in a bit and I'm sure it will get settled out. Definitely going to set my quarantine tank back up and separate out anyone who needs to be out of there for awhile.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Let us know what your fish expert has to say, yeah?


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## medicalcrayfish (Mar 13, 2017)

Well, they tested my water and said that everything looked fine. They said that they suspected that the gourami might be bullying the largest black skirt and that it can cause stress and make them susceptible to all sorts of things. She said that she didn't think it was a parasite but that if he started acting odd to call them. He shows no signs of distress and seems to be doing better. They also told me that sometimes if a fish suffers from something that makes them bloat up like Bob did that they do not always return to their normal size. He is significantly smaller than he was and I was still worried because he didn't return to his normal size, but according to the fish person sometimes they just stay bigger like that. I'm switching them to a food that has garlic in it so it should help. If anything goes wrong I'll be right back here asking questions.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Stress manifests itself in a variety of ways, that's for sure. In a way it can sort of weed out the weak - kind of a silver lining. Stress that an otherwise healthy fish can handle just fine can take down a fish that has issues going on. Stress in and of itself isn't a bad thing - it's intertwined in all of life. But in a closed system the fish can't always get some down time to balance the stress.

Switching to a high quality food, with garlic, like NLS is probably the most significant thing you can do to prevent digestive issues.


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