HELP woke to dead loaches and sick discus

[leanne31]

I woke this morning to find a dead flying fox catfish, 1 dead clown loach, 1 clown loach upside down well on its way to dying and another looking real sick, I turned my light on and none of my discus came out when I took a closer look they were all a bit dark and lost their red eyes. I spoke to my sister Karen (Kaza) and she says its probably from me putting a new canister filter in and I didnt know I had to wash it out I just tipped in the round balls in the bottom and switched it on. My worse one is a blue turk which has a sore on his head where it looks like hes scraped it on something but the rest are just dark and sitting in a group in the corner.
I have done a 50% wc added some cycle and a extra airstone. Ive disconnected the canister antil I can fully scrub it and just have the original filter going does anyone know if theres anything else I can do to get them back on the road to recovery I was thinking maybe some stress coat or something like that I hope they dont die :cry: thanks guys

Leanne

[kkiu]

That would probably be the problem. Generally i just give all new equipment/media a thorough rinsing in tap water.

Im not sure on this, but them losing their red eyes is because they were sleeping.

perhaps add some carbon to the tank if you can. In case there were some chemicals in the new canister and its media

[leanne31]

I was just watching my blue turk which is the worse one and he was swimming as I was getting the dead fish out and it looked like he was not seeing straight he was bumping into things that explains his sore head.

Leanne

[kalebjarrod]

50% water changes daily with water of the same temp

add some salt and dim the lights, temp to 30-31

they should be alright, let them settle a little more, then clean your filter and try again

[Merrilyn]

Sorry to hear that, just when things were going so well. Do another 50% water change, and another later this afternoon. Some stress cote in the water will help, as will a little salt to prevent the sores on the turk becoming infected.

That's rotten luck Leanne.

[leanne31]

I did do a 50% wc this morning I'll do another this afternoon I havent connected the canister back up yet I thought i might take all those round balls out and add some carbon for now and when better put them back in. I have some slight improvement though my clown loach has turned right way up and got a bit of colour back not a hell of a big change from the discus though> I just cleaned out my internal filter and it was slimey and had white powder in it so I say the culprit was the balls in the canister, I'll know next time to wash thoroughly. I did add some epsom salt to help with stress at half a tbs per 40 ltrs do u think thats enough :?:
Havent lost any discus cross fingers but I hope Im though the worse of it they arent gulping at the surface anymore and breathing looks back to normal. My poor kids didnt even get to take any lunch to school this morning as I was busy doing my tank think I better take them some now :? If anyone can think of anything else I can do please let me know. :lol:

[Kaza]

Leanne how are the fish?

[leanne31]

I totally washed out all filters and added carbon to the canister. I've done another 50% wc and put double dose of geo liquid in the water. They have improved they're not hiding as much, still a tad dark and the turks have there bars up but there eyes are back to the normal red colour. They did eat a small amount of black worm before so they're feeling a bit better but still not 100% my rm has lost just about all its colour though but hopefully in the next few days they should all be back to normal. I was very weary about plugging the filter back in I hope its alright now I dont want to re poison them. :cry:

Leanne

[Kaza]

You will be fine now, turn the canister back on as long as it is totally cleaned out. With all the water changes and cleaning going on, watch out for any ammonia spikes, so feed sparingly for a few days.

[leanne31]

I turned the filter back on this afternoon and so far so good. They still not eating but dont really expect them to at the moment as they poo is running out like water. They are swimming to the side of the tank to greet me again which is a good sign and Karen the pigeon blood I told you about that wasnt breathing out of one gill is better it must of been blocked from all the white sludge stuff from the filter. I've checked my ammonia and nitrite they are both 0 and my nitrates on 5 so thats all good hope they better by morning.

Leanne

[leanne31]

Im starting to dread getting up and looking at my fish as my last two clown loaches died over night and my discus still arent better. A couple of them are dark and 5 out of the 8 are only breathing out of one gill. I did another 50% wc this morning and i disconnected the canister antil they are better. When I did a wc I wiped the inside of the glass and it had a white powder like substance on it obviously from the balls I put in the bottom of the canister its this that's probably blocking one of their gills, i've added another airstone and turned the light off this is just so upsetting that this is something that I have done to them. :cry:

Leanne

[goldenpigeon]

u cant blame yourself too bad leanne. we all experience this through out keeping discus. atleast now you know and you WONT do it again because you have seen results.

just keep up the water changes, salt and keep the canister off until further notice. otherwise that is all you can do.

[Kaza]

Leanne
hang in there, you know that discus are tough little buggers and yours were really healthy to start with.
What concerns me is the tank has gravel on the bottom, the white powder will be in the gravel, if you clean it the powder may cloud the water causing the discus more gill problems. What do others think??? However if you leave it they will pick at the bottom and thus inhale it.
A no win situation.
Could you put the discus in a small tank, clean the gravel and run the filter for a few hours before putting them back.

[Bill T.]

Leanne.

Given that your fish are breathing from one gill, I wonder if you have a concurrent gill fluke problem which may have bloomed due to stress? - especially if there have been additions to your tank in the last week or so.
You might like to run this by Ladyred - she seems to know a lot & I have found her advice to be pretty good.

[leanne31]

Thanks for that Bill but I'm almost pretty sure the gills are just blocked form all the white powdery substance that the canister threw out. I did another wc and added about 150g of rock salt to my tank on advice from my lfs and since then I now only have 3 fish (the smallest 3) that are still breathing from one gill and unwell the other 5 are just about 90% better, swimming around and eating well. I put the salt in a pile and it dissolved and tiny little bubbles rose and the discus went and sat above it and shaked like dogs in it, it was really weird but it looks like it may of helped them. Merrilyn should I still do 50% wc twice daily or reduce that, I havent vac the gravel yet didnt want to stir things up just yet may do little bits at a time from tomorrow. thanks for your help everyone.

Leanne

[Merrilyn]

I wonder what that white stuff was, in the filter. Maybe a call to the manufacturer or distributor might help to clear it up. At the very least, it's some kind of gill irritant, and at the worst, it's a kind of toxin.

Leanne, I'd try to vac the gravel without tossing it around too much. If you get clouds of white stuff swirling up, then the only thing to do, is to put all the fish in a holding tank of some kind (even a new garbage bin will do) and tear the whole tank down and scrub everything, gravel included.

Sorry, I know it's going to be a huge job. Wish I could be of more help.

[leanne31]

I bought a pro aqua CF -1000 canister filter and it came with round sand like balls in the bottom of it sorry Im not very sure on what they are actually called. When I ended up disconnecting the filter some of the balls had disintegrated into powder I rubbed a couple together and and it felt like really fine sand. So you could imagine I didnt even rinse these balls or the filter for that matter so this powder was getting flushed around my whole aquarium all afternoon and night antil I noticed it in the morning, I dont think it would of been toxic or they wouldnt surely of packed it in the filter but as i didnt rinse it it must of clogged up there gills. With the addition of the rock salt today I still have one which isnt breathing properly but still swimming and eating and 2 that arent breathing properly, quite dark and arent eating or swimming around etc these 2 are the smallest and probably cant handle it as much. But cross fingers so far have only lost 3 clown loaches and a flying fox but 1 of my bn is still not accounted for either.

Leanne

[Bill T.]

Glad to hear about the improvement.

Why not ditch the contents of your canister filter alotgether. I have used biomax ceramic filter media in the past with good effect (always wash it first before use). The purpose of these products is to provide a large surface are for useful bacteria to colonise. Once established they do a marvelous job of converting ammonium to nitrite to nitrate (I think I got that sequence right).

I run a couple of eheim external canister filters. Bottom half of the canister has ceramic filter media, then a large course sponge, then another lot of ceramic media, then a fine filter mat, and the option of a carbon mat which does a great job of removing pollutants.

[leanne31]

Thanks for that Bill I did chuck those little balls actually with great force out the back door :lol: I replaced them with charcoal and have reduced wc down to 50% daily not twice. Considering my tank is established with gravel, rocks, plants, driftwood,a ship and a internal filter I probably didnt even need those balls in the filter as my tank must of been riddled with good bacteria anyway but oh well. This morning my fish are much happier ALL are breathing with both gills, only one remains a little dark and not totally happy. They're begging for food when I walk in so they have to be feeling better. :lol:

Leanne

[Kaza]

Leanne, those balls should not be breaking down when you rub them together. After they have been washed well, nothing should be coming off them. Dont use them, I would also email age of aquarums and tell them about your problems. Other people that buy that filter could have similar problems. I have balls, noodles and some kind of rocks in my filters (depending on who made the filter) but none break down or crumble.
PS I gave the babies some black worms, two of them had an end each and were shaking around looked like dogs with a bone. They are just so cute.

[Merrilyn]

Leanne, that's such good news. I'm glad everyone is nearly back to normal. Keep us posted on what you find out about those balls at the bottom of the filter.

[Bill T.]

Hello Leanne.
Just wonderring how your fish got on?
In my experience, external canister filters work a treat - you just got unlucky with those little white things. Also, the aquarium looks better without the internal canister. Less fuss when you need to give it a clean. I'm sure if you got some good quality filter medium, you would be happy with the results.

[leanne31]

Hi Bill Im pleased to say all my fish are back to normal, eating a looking great. I ended up losing all my loaches a catfish a couple of platys and a black neon. Ive had no problems with my canister since i stripped it down and scrubed it out so I guess i learnt my lesson there and I hope other people here that think you can just buy a filter a plug it in like me realise that too. Im still running my internal filter and will continue to do so for a couple more weeks antil I know its safe to turn it off. Once again thanks for your advice and comments and Im glad my crisis is over. :lol:

Leanne

[Merrilyn]

That's really good news Leanne, and great advice for everybody.