Every fish I fed silversides to yesterday is either dead or sick. Aw, crap. No puffers thankfully (no piscivores) My lionfish looks like he's going to be ok though a little stressed, but he's very large (14") and only had a couple silversides. The live fish seem to have vomited out the bad silversides - the cleanup crews in none of the tanks are touching them!!
One of my anglers (3.5") died, my other angler (4") is breathing heavy and still trying to retch. I witnessed him still vomiting up silverside bits half an hour ago. I performed a 50% water change shortly followed by a 75% on the surviving angler's tank - I don't know what might have been in the silversides but if nassarius snails won't touch it, it's bad.
The lion appears stable.
The angler's tank read and still reads
SG 1.024
NitrAte less than 1 ppm
Nitrite undetectable
ph 8.3
alk 10
phosphate undetectable
ammonia undetected
temp 78
Please, any advice on how to treat my fish will be of help.
Thank you!
Tainted silversides, Help!
Forum rules
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Read this before posting!!
Since this board has been up, we have found there are several questions that routinely get asked in order to help diagnose problems. If you can have that information to begin with in your post, we'll be able to help right away (if we can!) without having to wait for you to post the info we need.
1) Your water parameters - pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and salinity (if appropriate). This is by far the most important information you can provide! Do not answer this with "Fine" "Perfect" "ok", that tells us nothing. We need hard numbers.
2) Tank size and a list of ALL inhabitants. Include algae eaters, plecos, everything. We need to know what you have and how big the tank is.
3) Feeding, water change schedule and a list of all products you are using or have added to the tank (examples: Cycle, Amquel, salt, etc)
4) What changes you've made in the tank in the last week or so. Sometimes its the little things that make all the difference.
5) How long the aquarium has been set up, and how did you cycle it? If you don't know what cycling is read this: Fishless Cycling Article and familiarize yourself with all the information. Yes. All of it.
We want to help, and providing this information will go a LONG way to getting a diagnosis and hopeful cure that much faster.
While you wait for assistance:
One of the easiest and best ways to help your fish feel better is clean water! If you are already on a regular water change schedule (50% weekly is recommended) a good step to making your fish more comfortable while waiting for diagnosis/suggestions is to do a large water change immediately. Feel free to repeat daily or as often as you can, clean water is always a good thing! Use of Amquel or Prime as a dechlor may help with any ammonia or nitrite issues, and is highly recommended.
Note - if you do not normally do large water changes, doing a sudden, large water change could shock your fish by suddenly changing their established water chemistry. Clean water is still your first goal, so in this case, do several smaller (10%) water changes over the next day or two before starting any large ones.
Update:
Angler is breathing slightly less heavily but still noticeably "off" and breathing abnormally. He is walking around a bit. I added an airstone in addition to his powerheads and filter just to bring up his oxygen. Added carbon to filtration.
Lionfish is doing well though not begging for food when I pass his tank as is normal.
Anybody have any tips other than to change their water? I'm planning to do a bunch more changes in case whatever was in the silversides has leached into the tanks.
Angler is breathing slightly less heavily but still noticeably "off" and breathing abnormally. He is walking around a bit. I added an airstone in addition to his powerheads and filter just to bring up his oxygen. Added carbon to filtration.
Lionfish is doing well though not begging for food when I pass his tank as is normal.
Anybody have any tips other than to change their water? I'm planning to do a bunch more changes in case whatever was in the silversides has leached into the tanks.
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The Fisherman
- Fahaka Puffer
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dang, im really sorry to hear that Meander! that must have sucked....
I hope the rest of your fish pull through ok. I dont really know what to tell you, I dont know that there is much you can execpt wait and hope. WCs sound like a good idea.
one question though, how did the angler walk around? I didnt know fish had legs....
I hope the rest of your fish pull through ok. I dont really know what to tell you, I dont know that there is much you can execpt wait and hope. WCs sound like a good idea.
one question though, how did the angler walk around? I didnt know fish had legs....
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Pufferpunk
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Thanks for the suggestions and support, folks.
I drove to PetSmart and told them my story and insisted they throw out the rest of that batch of silversides so no one else has a tragedy. They did. It's a possibility the silversides actually got warm and then were refrozen!
Over $100 worth of fish (possibly another $65 if the other angler doesn't make it) including my favorite angler
down the toilet - figuratively speaking in the angler's case. That's just my fish.....who knows who else got some? I hope I got the only bad pack.
I drove to PetSmart and told them my story and insisted they throw out the rest of that batch of silversides so no one else has a tragedy. They did. It's a possibility the silversides actually got warm and then were refrozen!
Over $100 worth of fish (possibly another $65 if the other angler doesn't make it) including my favorite angler
down the toilet - figuratively speaking in the angler's case. That's just my fish.....who knows who else got some? I hope I got the only bad pack. They sure do. The little guy that didn't make it used to run across the rocks at me to get his dinner. They're really cool fish. They have a fishing rod, legs, and they coast about using jet propulsion when they go into the water column.The Fisherman wrote:one question though, how did the angler walk around? I didnt know fish had legs....
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ChesapeakeSwellfish
- Mentor
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That's a shame meander. Sorry for your loss. I think you are probably correct in thinking the silversides may have been frozen, then thawed (for who knows how long) then re-frozen before you got them.
There's a fish similar to silversides that you could try as food & its sold as "people food" in seafood dept., so "might" be less risky - the smelt Osmerus mordax. Its a little bigger than the silverside, but same body form and no spines. You might even ask about having seafood dept save you the smallest ones - as most people want the largest. And you can eat them yourself! Delicious!
There's a fish similar to silversides that you could try as food & its sold as "people food" in seafood dept., so "might" be less risky - the smelt Osmerus mordax. Its a little bigger than the silverside, but same body form and no spines. You might even ask about having seafood dept save you the smallest ones - as most people want the largest. And you can eat them yourself! Delicious!
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The Fisherman
- Fahaka Puffer
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- Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 2:46 pm
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- Contact:
without problems.