Fish dying out

[Orion]

I have had a wonderful 10 gal planted community tank setup for several months now. Untill the past few days, there have been no deaths in the tank. Yesterday morning I found 1 sae dead in the back corner of my tank with no apparant cause for death. This morning I find my male cherry barb in the same exact place dead. ( I realise that the placement of the fish is because of the water current) I started to look for the 2 female cherry barbs and cant find them any where. The most likely suspect is one of my gars. One is about 3 1/2in, the other almost 2in. ( I know they need a bigger tank, and they will have one next trip to petsmart) I have never seen either of these two bothering any other fish other than the fry guppies. The barbs were over 1 1/2in. The SAE was almost 3in. There are bloodfins in the same tank that are smaller than they are.

I have never kept cherry barbs before and not sure on how hardy they are. Another reason for this could be that in the past few days my PH has swung wildly. I was late on changing out my DIY co2 and the ph was above 7.4, replaced it and within 36hours, it was back down to 6.2-6.4. Could this be a reason?

Any ideas would help. All my other fish are active as always.

 

[bobrob]

Maybe they got sucked into the filter but im no expert and dont know much about filters.

 

[geKo]

hum..

Internal filter?

I would do a water change to supply more oxgen to the fish. If its a internal filter it is probaly because theirs no movement of the top of the water!

 

[Orion]

Well, its a HOB filter. Its a planted tank with diy co2 injection. Over the past 2 days my plants have finaly starting pearling, so I would figure that this is putting more o2 in the water than what was in it before, and I had no problems before, the fish even didnt go to the surface at night.

They didnt get sucked into the filter, i checked and changed it yesterday, unless they decomposed super fast.

Not sure what is going on. All the rest of the fish look healthy and are acting fine. Just sorta worrying me.

Another possablity.....I cleaned the intake tube yesterday as well, it was super nasty. If by removing all this exess bacteria somehow caused something like nitrate to spike? I dont know, just making guesses and going over anything that I have recently changed or done.

 

[Coyote]

I did a search on the web. It seems like gars are predators and their eggs are toxic to many animals. You'd better move them to a seperate tank.

 

[Orion]

I'm working on that moving thing. Going to get a new tank before this weekend one way or another. If the gars ate the barbs, I would be able to tell it by looking at there stomach. Like I said, I dont see them eating the barbs, but not eating the smaller bloodfins. But hey, anything is possable.

 

[Coyote]

I'm just curious... what kind of gar are you keeping? Where did you find them? I haven't seen it in store around this area.

 

[Orion]

They were sold as Hujeta Gars, Ctenolucius hujeta. I have searched on the scientific name and found this to be correct as far as I can tell. They are also sold under the name of Slant Nose Gar. Quite the interesting fish IMO. This is a pic of one in my tank. Cant realy see his length, but he is only about 3-4 in.

 

[NTidd]

Yes, you probably shouldn't keep any gar with other smaller fish, but the symptoms of death sound like lack of oxygen to me.

 

[Orion]

I agree with you, it does sound like lack of oxygen NTidd, but it doesnt make since.......

 

[wayne]

A combination of the swing in pH + an ammonia spike might do it, especially as the pH went above 7, which means ammonia would ionise to a more poisonous form.
Weird that the barbs and SAE fell by the wayside, I'd expect the bloodfins to be less hardy?

 

[Orion]

Well, thats what I would think. And only one of three SAE's died. I checked the ammonia and it was 0, but that dosent meen that it hadnt spiked before I checked it. I wish I could check more than just the PH and Ammonia, by the time my test kit gets here, everything will probably be back to normal.

 

[RedTurquoise]

Measure your kh and ph then using this chart, you can get a measure of the amount of C02 in the water.
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-dietsch.gif


I dont think its a lack of 02 as the fish would be at the surface gasping for air. To me, the ph swings sound like the cause.

 

[Orion]

Hopefully my test kits will be here today. If not then tommarow. I will check it and find out. Thx

 

[Slacker]

Gar will eat other fish. They are native to my home state and they bite humans often. They also get very big, and from what ive found, belong in the wild. Just my opinion but if they are agressive (which gar are) then fish in your tank with them will die.