my pictus cats died !

[bravefish90]

Hello, I just signed up, and I am sorry to say that my first post is an unfortunate one.
My three pictus cats just died today, after surviving a major " ich" attack on all of my mollies three months ago.
I came home from my early morning jog to see all my pictus lying upside down in their favorite cave. The biggest one looked like his flesh had been torn off, but the others seemed perfectly normal (compared to him)except that they were dead.

They shared a 50 gal. tank with
1 x male betta
1 x red claw crab ( He eats snails )
3 x cory cats, "speckled"
4 x rainbow sharks
5 x red wags
6 x gold skirt tetras

My brown knife fish, Blayde also died within the past three days, and the past week there have been many small pond snails.
A website suggested that they may have eaten some eggs and that they may have hatched in their stomaches,but that would not account for the biggest fish's skin,would it? Thanx for your replies, Brave fish

 

[ashleigh]

can you give us some more information on your tank? like how long has it been running, are you testing the levels, how much are you feeding, etc. unless the website you mention is somehow talking about parasites, I don't think it is possible that eggs hatched in their stomachs. I'm thinking there may be a lot of issues going on in your tank, like ammonia or nitrate poisoning or something along those lines. are you doing regular water changes?

 

[bravefish90]

The tank has been running for two years. The day before they died ammonia level was 0 nitrIte was 0 and NitrAte was 4( I always do four tests and average them out) I have been changing 10% every week for the past year, and I only feed what they can eat in less than a minute, three times a day. Their dit includes tetrafin crisps I can't remember their name f/d bloodworms every other day,Topfin algea chips, 2 every feeding time and hikari sinking pellets (for the cories but the pictus and the sharks loved them)

My PH is 7.0 steadily

 

[ashleigh]

huh. I thought overfeeding becasue of the snails, off levels because of the slight overstocking (you don't mean 4.0 right?) how long have you had the pictus? how did you treat for ich? how old are your test kits? how are you filtering the tank?

 

[bravefish90]

The filters are the big ones you see at Walmart that say For 30-60 gallons. they are the ones with the quick cange cartridges.I have two of those. I treated for Ich with two table spoons of salt and by raising the temp. to 82.( my tank heater is always set to 74 but my tank is always 73) my test kits are not even two weeks old and are the dropper kind with the test tube. My pictus cats were six months old. Or I had them for that long anyway. Am I really overstocked?

 

[ashleigh]

not horribly- four rainbow sharks is a lot in a 50 though. I would think that you would want your temp up around eighty all of the time though- I just noticed the ich was three months ago too- sorry I missed that the first time. you didn't notice anything wrong with them beforehand? gasping for air, wounds, etc?

 

[bravefish90]

The sharks are very small, as of now four inches. But I was going to give three back to the store they came from due to their desire to eat my banana plant. And I know that they can become much larger because the guy at the store has a "Not for sale " tank with a thirteen incher in it .
I did not,however, see any signs of stress whatsoever. My pictus cats were "talking" @ 6:00 A.M but they always did that. It was after my run at 8:00 that they died. So basicly they died ,of unknown causes , within those two hours.

 

[ashleigh]

I wish I could tell you. someone will be able to though- I am at this point I'm sleepy, dumb, and not very helpful. I'm sorry about your fish.

 

[bravefish90]

Thanks for your help, Ashleigh. I hope someone else can help me, as my betta is now not doing well at all either.