Sudden death

[kateswan]

I'm experiencing sudden deaths of catfish (plus one knight goby and one pantodon) in four separate tanks, all within a 48 hour period.

I have test kits for ammonia and nitrates which come back normal, which is to say none present.

The 220 gal. tank has been set up for a year, where I work during the day. I've lost 2 pim blochiis, the pantodon, and 4 horabagrus brachysoma in that tank, with another 2 horabagrus looking very poorly. No fish added in the last 2 months.

The other tanks are in my home, a 29 gal. where 2 julliis and 2 paleatus died; a 29 gal. where 1 agassizi died, (another languishing), a 40 gal. where the goby died. These are long-established tanks. No new fish added in the last 2 months.

All tanks runs at 77-79. There are different varieties of loaches in every tank, along with rams, ancistrus and a potluck of midwater fish.

The dying/dead fish seem to be slightly bloated after death; the bigger pims were twitching (possibly because they could not right themselves). There seems to be some loss of swim ability and respiratory distress similar to swim-bladder disorder, but much quicker onset, and more severe.

After trying to eliminate all possibilities, I realized I had fed the tanks frozen bloodworms from a new package 2 days ago ... which I normally only give to the big guys at work. Because the gobys like them so much, I treated everybody at home to a few also, with some of the tanks getting a little more than others because of the number of cats/loaches in various tanks.

Is it possible that food poisoning is the cause of this rash of deaths? Has anyone every gotten a bad batch of frozen bloodworms?

The fish that primarily eat flake/algae wafers seem 100 percent healthy and unaffected.

It's been a bad couple of days. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Kathy S

[Tom2600]

Kathy

Sorry to hear about you losing your fish. Its a shock when everything has been running smoothly for so long.

It sounds to me as if the bloodworm has in some way caused your fish to die. I would guess maybe the bloodworm had been defrosted and re-frozen at some point and maybe got infected?? This is something I have wondered about before but never (thankfully) had it happen to my fish.

I doubt there is much you can do because whatever has caused the deaths appears to have acted very quickly. I would guess your remaining fish should hopefully pull through.

All the best

Tom

[PlecoCrazy]

As Tom2600 was saying I also first thought that possibly your bloodworms had thawed and been refrozen. We sometimes run into this were I work and have to call up the suppliers we get them from and complain about their food thawing out before we get it and we throw it away. I would probably throw the bloodworms away just to be safe.

[kateswan]

Yesterday two more suncats died, two jullii, two peppers, another goby, an agassizi and a ram. These are from the tanks that got the most bloodworms. I run a total of 11 tanks ... nobody has died in tanks that got no bloodworms, and the tanks where I sprinkled a few are okay. The tank with the julliis and peppers I was hoping to get to breed ... they got a larger helping.

It's really looking like the bloodworms may be the cause.

Nobody dead this morning, so I'm hoping it's all over with ...

Kathy S