Weird disease?

[Harlebleondora]

Hi, I have a 40 gallon breeder with
1 bristlenose pleco
4 hangels rasbora
3 black neon tetra
15 sterbaI corydoras
100ish endlers, they breed a lot and I'm having trouble finding homes for them.

Recently 3 adult female endlers turned up dead and today I noticed almost every single female endler is looking sick, clamped fins droopy tail and a few have a sunken belly and they are all very
slow and tired.

All the other fish seem completely fine, just the female endlers.
I normally do two 40% water changes a week and the temperature is 26 degrees celsius.

I'm about to do a water test, I checked last week and it was

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate barely readable
Ph 7ish

The tank has been set up for about 2 years.

They are also flashing a bit and have clamped fins and finrot

 

[mg13]

that is a LOT of endlers!!! have no experience in those things, but this is the first time I have ever seen or heard anyone say they have 100 fish of any kind in any size tank...

 

[Harlebleondora]

UPDATE

I did a water test and this is what I got, I'm using the apI master test kit.

Ph - really pale yellow, like tap water with a yelllow tinge, below 6?

Ammonia - a very slight green tinge about 0.1 ppm

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - about 3ppm

Seeing as everything was fine a week ago and I haven't changes anything what has happened? What should I do to fix it?

Thank you.

 

[mg13]

UPDATE

I did a water test and this is what I got, I'm using the apI master test kit.

Ph - really pale yellow, like tap water with a yelllow tinge, below 6?

Ammonia - a very slight green tinge about 0.1 ppm

Nitrite - 0

Nitrate - about 3ppm

Seeing as everything was fine a week ago and I haven't changes anything what has happened? What should I do to fix it?

Thank you.

have you been working on treating the finrot?

anymore deaths?

 

[alink]

Do you know the hardness of your water?

Livebearers need hard water and higher pH. If your pH is that low, that could be your problem. Have you tested the pH from your tap after aging 24 hours?

Are you sure you are doing the nitrate test correct? If so, is the tank heavily planted? That is a low nitrate reading which is good if its accurate, but I ask because without plants it should be higher, especially with all those fish you have in there.

 

[Harlebleondora]

Do you know the hardness of your water?

Livebearers need hard water and higher pH. If your pH is that low, that could be your problem. Have you tested the pH from your tap after aging 24 hours?

Are you sure you are doing the nitrate test correct? If so, is the tank heavily planted? That is a low nitrate reading which is good if its accurate, but I ask because without plants it should be higher, especially with all those fish you have in there.

My normal tap ph is 7.6 aged so I'm not sure what caused the massive ph drop, what can I use to increase ph?

Yes the tank is heavily planted and my nitrate is normally barely readable but it has spiked quite a bit.

 

[Harlebleondora]

have you been working on treating the finrot?

anymore deaths?

I've put some aquarium salt in, I have some melafix and pimafix but I'm holding off on it in case I need to use a different med.

When I did the water change I found another 3 female endlers dead.

 

[alink]

I would do water changes, 25% at most, to slowly bring it up without giving big shocks to the tank. If you can't keep the pH stable, you probably have low GH or KH. You can use things like limestone or crushed coral that will release minerals into the water which will keep your pH stable.

EDIT: I'm not even sure if this would be the cause of the Endler's. I know very little about them to be honest, I just know they are livebearers and know that livebearers need hard water with a higher pH. 7.6 should be fine, but if your water is soft, that COULD be a problem, but it might not be the cause of the deaths.

 

[Krysty]

Whoa! 100ish endlers?
Could the problem be an overcrowded tank?
I hope you can find homes for them soon.

 

[alink]

I've put some aquarium salt in, I have some melafix and pimafix but I'm holding off on it in case I need to use a different med.

When I did the water change I found another 3 female endlers dead.

That might prove to be a bad choice with the aquarium salt. Plecos and corydoras are scaleless fish and therefore don't have the protection that other fish have against salt, same reason copper in medications isn't good for them.

 

[Harlebleondora]

That might prove to be a bad choice with the aquarium salt. Plecos and corydoras are scaleless fish and therefore don't have the protection that other fish have against salt, same reason copper in medications isn't good for them.

Yeah, I've been going easy on it. Any ideas for slowly, and if possible naturally raising ph?

 

[alink]

Yeah, I've been going easy on it. Any ideas for slowly, and if possible naturally raising ph?

Did you miss my post?

I would do water changes, 25% at most, to slowly bring it up without giving big shocks to the tank. If you can't keep the pH stable, you probably have low GH or KH. You can use things like limestone or crushed coral that will release minerals into the water which will keep your pH stable.

EDIT: I'm not even sure if this would be the cause of the Endler's. I know very little about them to be honest, I just know they are livebearers and know that livebearers need hard water with a higher pH. 7.6 should be fine, but if your water is soft, that COULD be a problem, but it might not be the cause of the deaths.

 

[Harlebleondora]

Did you miss my post?

Thanks, I did miss it. I'll do some smaller water changes. Do you think 25% every day until its under control is too extreme?

 

[alink]

Thanks, I did miss it. I'll do some smaller water changes. Do you think 25% every day until its under control is too extreme?

Not at all. You could (it your schedule allows) do one in the morning and one at night leaving 9-12 hours between them. If not, one a day is fine. Test before each one to see what kind of progress you are making. If the pH isn't moving, then you should get some thing like I mentioned. You wouldn't need a lot of either option. Just a single decent sized, or a couple smaller, limestone rock, or a media bag with a handful or 2 of crushed coral is enough. Like I said before though, I'm not at all saying this is going to stop the deaths of the Endler's.

 

[Harlebleondora]

Not at all. You could (it your schedule allows) do one in the morning and one at night leaving 9-12 hours between them. If not, one a day is fine. Test before each one to see what kind of progress you are making. If the pH isn't moving, then you should get some thing like I mentioned. You wouldn't need a lot of either option. Just a single decent sized, or a couple smaller, limestone rock, or a media bag with a handful or 2 of crushed coral is enough. Like I said before though, I'm not at all saying this is going to stop the deaths of the Endler's.

I haven't found any more dead and the ph is just above 7. I'll keep an eye out and will do a water change soon.

Thank you!

 

[mg13]

I haven't found any more dead and the ph is just above 7. I'll keep an eye out and will do a water change soon.

Thank you!

Awesome! keep us posted!

 

[Harlebleondora]

Awesome! keep us posted!

It seems to be fixed, I lost 9 fish, all female endlers which was weird but the ph is just above 7 and everyone seems good

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[EndlerGuy]

I have had several people write to me describing those symptoms and I have experienced it myself when I first started raising Endlers.

It seems to that it can happen to anyone in any part of the world.

In nearly every case it happens when the Endlers are overcrowded. It seems to creep up without really being noticed or sometimes it shows up after a dramatic change in water conditions such as when moved to a new tank or when more than 50% of the water is changed.

The females are especially susceptible but in extreme cases the males can get sick also.

If you look at your Endlers closely you may see some cloudiness on the caudal fins of some of the fish. This seems to be one of the first signs before they start getting clamped fins.

You may even see Dropsy symptoms on one or two of them. The easiest way to see any that might have Dropsy symptoms is to look down at the Endlers from the top of the tank. Look for fish that seem overly fat.

I have not found a cure for any of the Endlers that show signs of Dropsy (their organs may already be too damaged) or the female Endlers that get too thin.

If you have any fish that are showing signs of Dropsy or are very thin I would recommend removing them immediately and separating them from the rest of the fish.

For the rest of the fish which are only showing minor symptoms I have found that a combination of Melafix and Jungle Lifeguard All in One Treatment Tablets along with the addition of salt works well to help the fish that are not too ill and to stop the progression of the disease.

Unfortunately the fish that get really sick from this illness will probably never be quite the same and may show some signs of weakness the rest of their lives. Their fry however should be normal and healthy.