Bala Shark Death

Hello,
I've been into the aquarium hobby for about a year now and I've just had my first fish death. This happened in my 25 gallon tank (Also have an 80 gallon).
I was feeding my fish in this tank with bloodworm's and sinking pellets (For the catfish), My bala shark was eating well and all of a sudden it started losing control. It was floating around in all different directions, It was swim but just kept floating upside down and on its side, Was really sad to see. Well anyway, In the space of about 3 minutes from seeing a problem it was floating around dead . I have no idea what happened, This is really bothering me and I've become quite concerned about the wellbeing of the other inhabitants of my aquarium. I did everything as I was told to do when setting up this aquarium. Oh I forgot to mention this aquarium is about 5 months old. This is the first problem I have ever had with either of my tanks, Have never had any diseases, dead fish or anything like that.


When I first set up the tank I cycled it for 2 weeks without fish with nutrafin cycle added to the aquarium. It's a "Low tech" planted tank with the only regular additive being 'flourish excel' which I use a half dose of. I have around 2.5 Watts/ Gallon of light and the tubes I use are 6700k. It has a lot of plants (Can't recite the names), And they are looking healthy. Other inhabitants of the tank include an 8cm Black ghost knife fish (When its bigger will go in with my other fish in the 80g), 4 golden barbs, 1 bristle nose catfish and 2 bronze cory catfish. Water Parameters taken quickly after the death are the following:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
Ph: 7.4

I do not overfeed my fish, I'm using an Aqua One Canister filter and I do a 25% water change per week. I've done everything I got told to do by the lfs.
There was no aggression in the tank at all.

The Bala shark was only purchased from the store around 2 months ago and was acclimated to the tank properly.

This death is really bothering me as it happened so quickly, And I thought I was doing everything correctly.


Can anyone please help me with this? ???

Should I remove my other fish and stick them into a 10g, until I sort out the problem?
I think the bala shark could have eaten some substrate ferts that were exposed. It had to injuries or signs of disease.

Merged back to back posts.
Ken

 

I am so sorry to hear about your bala sharks sudden death, that is really sad.

Is your ten gallon cycled and ready for fish, what size are your gold barbs and other fish? Just because they may feel a bit cramped in it and stressed by the move.

I'd be inclined to do a partial water change and gravel vac now.

Was your bala showing any signs of illness at all before this?

Was the food (bloodworms) thawed out when you put it in?

It is recommended that bala sharks be kept in a 55 gallon minimum.

Please hang on for some members with experience of ferts, I have never used them so cannot tell you if they could have caused the bala to die.

 

It is recommended that bala sharks be kept in a 55 gallon minimum.

Just a point of clarification, bala sharks need MUCH more than 55 gallons. They get to be 13" long, are extremely active and need to be in schools of five or more. They require more like 500 gallons, TBH.

 

Thanks for that clarification

 

Thanks for the responses.

Just to clarify the bala shark was 8cm at the point of death and was only in there until it was big enough for the fish in my 80g 5ft tank, Also I have a close family member with a 400g aquarium in his 'fish room' that had offered to take the shark if I was unable to get something bigger than an 80g if it was necessary. He didn't have any idea what the problem was, He has since offered to hold my BGK in his 55 gallon community.

I did a 40-50% water change after I had removed the dead shark.

Yes the bloodworm's were thawed

No, The bala shark showed no signs of stress. It was eating normally (Loved bloodworm's), No clamped fins or any signs of disease.

Golden barbs are around 4cm. They are not aggressive in their current group. I did have 8 of them but decided to give the other 4 away to a friend of mine.

None of my other fish have shown signs of illness or stress.

 

Hello!
If this is truly your first attempt at fishkeeping and you went a year before your first death, I would firstly like to congratulate you on your efforts. Many people start with blindly killing several fish before they realize their mistakes and fix them.
Also, sometimes you just have to accept that the fish just died or had some kind of odd disease for a while that culminated in that death. I suppose the fertilizer is a possibility, but why would they sell poisonous fertilizer that fish would obviously have access to? That's what confuses me. I'm not a fert expert, so I could be totally wrong though.
Good luck, and congrats again.

 

Yes, First death until now. Mainly due to the fact that I have a great fish store near by and they are very helpful. Uncles been keeping fish for around 9 years aswell.

Got my water tested at the store and they can't see any sort of problem with my water quality.

I just don't like seeing a fish die like that =/
Lfs offered to replace the fish that I lost free of charge, Very nice of them.

 

I'm guessing your fish choked, trying to eat something that was too big. I've heard of it happening with bettas and platies.

 

Maybe =/

The substrate is a very fine flourite sand/gravel, Could it have choked trying to eat live plants in the aqaurium? If not I don't know what it could have choked on.

Hello,
I have merged your back to back posts. Being a new member, you may not be aware of the EDIT key at the bottom of every post that you can use for corrections and or additional thoughts. It helps to save a bit of space on the forum. Use it when you can please.
Thanks!
Ken

 

A very similar thing happened to my bala shark late last year. I had him with no signs of trouble for a couple of months and then one day, within hours, he would swim ok for a few minutes, then turn on his side, on his head, lay near the floor of the tank, all sorts of wrongs, then be ok again, then repeat his drunken-looking imbalanced swimming. I checked the water every few hours, did water changes, vacuumed, everything except quarantine but it was too late for that in the end anyway; he died after maybe 4 hours. My ignorance had him in a 23 litre community tank with ordinary gravel, a diet of pellets, flakes and bloodworms There had been no sign of any issues though. I knew the bigger tank was on the shopping list but I was naively hoping the fish would bare with me until I got funds and such sorted to rehouse them, as he was only tiny at that stage-4.5cm or so. It wasn't to be. I am a bit wiser now, but still have no clue as to what happened to him.

Sorry to hear about yours.

 

Good morning,

So sorry to hear about your Bala Shark. Sometimes things happen that are beyond our control.

It sounds like the fishes swim bladder (I call it a float bag) may have burst, causing it to lose it's ability to swim in the right direction. Can't say for certain though.

Again, so sorry for your loss.

Ken

 

Perhaps it was a swim bladder problem. But they rarely kill so quickly. I'd lean towards the fact that something probably got stuck in his throat.

 

I was thinking the same about the swim bladder.

Could have choked as well.

Poor guy. Always wanted a Bala.