Yesterday, I put about 10ml water clarifier, and the other day, I put about the same doze. Also, I put some artificial gravel (white)as a sort of decoration. I rinse the gravel before I put them inside the aquarium. When I examine the dead fish, it has some whitish matter on its fins. Are these fungus or bacteria? I also notice that one of my kois had that same whitish thing on its fins. So, what I did was to separate my kois from the rest of the fishes cause I don't want to contaminate the other fishes. The rest of my fishes (black moor, black molly) seemed to be fine. Can anyone help me what's going on?
2007-06-21 17:40:51 · 6 answers · asked by Sporty 2 in Pets ➔ Fish
Are you testing your water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate? Koi and goldfish produce a large amount of this, and it's toxic to fish with just a little in your tank. If the tank is less than 2 months old and you added all the fish soon after you set up, you don't have the bacteria needed to change the ammonia into nitrite (also toxic), then to nitrate (nontoxic in a moderate amount). This is what's meant by cycling.
Ammonia poisoning can alo happen if your tank is older, but you've used an antibiotic medication recently, are overfeeding your fish, or if your tank is overstocked. The koi will eventually outgrow the tank, because the can get up to 3+ feet long each. (also, the koi and goldfish are coldwater, the molly would prefer higher (closer to 80o) temperatures.
If the white you were seeing on the fins looked like small pimples (bumps the size of salt grains) that would be ich and the rest of the fish will probably get it as well. But I'm thinking it's more likely that what you saw was a fungus that was more stringy - this is normally found in all aquariums, but only becomes a problem if there's already something stressing the fish. So I think your water quality with ammonia and/or nitrite is the real problem here. If you can do a water test for these, or have your pet store test a sample of your water, that can confirm it. You may need to do a water change for the remaining fish anyway, and I'd advise this if you won't be able to get the water tested until tomorrow. I would suggest at least a 25% water change, and is the water test results on that still show anything is too high, do another water change tomorrow. You would ideally be doing 25% changes every week, but if your fish are overcrowed, and especially if the tank is cycling, you may need to do changes more frequently.
Some additional info:
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm - on cycling
http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/stressdisease.shtml - photos of ich and fungal infections
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/fungin.shtml - treating fungus
http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml - treating ich
2007-06-21 18:58:07 · answer #1 · answered by copperhead 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is a nitrate cycle that your tank needs to go threw to put bacteria in the water. I had the same problem with a dwarf puffer and an oscar. what you can do to fix get 6 goldfish put them in for 3 weeks thats how long the cycle is. Take them out and put other fish that you want in there.When you rinse your rocks and stuff dont use HOT water. Use warm but more in the cold. I hope this helps good luck.
2007-06-22 01:00:35 · answer #2 · answered by avbb2006 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its called ick we also have kois and before we learned so much about them we had a few die of it too but its so simple to treat if you catch it soon. go to your local pet shop and tell them you need ick treatment. keep an eye on your fish you will see the white on them like you said but it takes a few days for that to kill them so if you catch it soon you can save them. if you got other fish in there they will catch it you can do a treatment in a bucket and quartentine the fish or use it straight in your tank. we did the tank thing and it works great. good luck and im sorry for your loss.
oh by the way you said you put in gravel? its not the fine sandy kind is it? make sure its the bigger rocks.
2007-06-22 00:47:04 · answer #3 · answered by iamleopardladie 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Maybe it is because the kois are not familiar to the doze or clarifier!
2007-06-22 00:51:43 · answer #4 · answered by Twahir N 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
take a water sample in to be checked
2007-06-25 12:10:43 · answer #5 · answered by cheri h 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://www.vcnet.com/koi_net/disease.html
I don't know about fish but this might help.
2007-06-22 00:46:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋