Mystery Disease

[littlefishy]

Wondering if anyone has any ideas...I have a 50 gallon FW community tank with plants and one artificial ornament. Has been stocked with a variety of fish for a few months now. I put a new log ornament in the tank (washed it in a bucket of tank water first) and about 3 hrs later 4 of my fish were dead. I tested every thing ...all levels were close to perfect. PH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate..etc. I immediately removed the log and did about a 30% water change. A couple hrs later there more more dead fish. The total death toll was 9. I did 2 more water changes over the past week and all seems to be back to normal. Has any one had a bad experience like this with artificial tank ornaments??

 

[littlefishy]

All of my fish except one(yellow swordtail) and the water frog were affected.
The ones that died were: 2 tiger barbs, 2 neon tetras, 1 honey gourami, 1 rasbora, 3 mystery fish...no one knows what they were. (Looked like a baby guppy-about 1/2 inch long and spotted in VERY neon orange and yellow and black) The ones that survived ..barely were 2 dempsey cichlids, tiger barb, 2 gouramis, orange swordtail.

 

[MissFishy]

Sounds like there was something on the log that poisoned your tank. It's a good thing you did the water changes to get it out. Keep up with the water changes every couple days for a couple weeks just to make sure you get it all out. If you want to put the log back into the tank, I would suggest boiling and soaking it for a few days to get out whatever was hurting your fish.

On a side note...your tankmates don't seem to be very compatible...maybe do some research on each of these fish to see what should be with what.

 

[TLH]

Where did this ornament come from and would it be possible to provide a link to it so we can see what it is?

Most artificial stuff is sealed to make sure it doesn't contaminate your tank,I think,especially concrete.Maybe this one slipped through without being done.

 

[littlefishy]

I hate to admit it, but it came from Walmart. Even after I said I would never buy fish stuff at Walmart.

As for my fish being compatible ..I didn't think the barbs and Cichlids would get along with other fish I had in there but they seemed to think that they were tetras. They all hung out together with the neons and Rasboras. ..Until the log tragedy.

 

[Lotus]

I would assume there was some kind of poisoning from the log, if the fish were fine for weeks before, then suddenly died after you added the log.

Do some large water changes and put some fresh activated carbon in your filter to remove whatever it was from your tank.

My guess would be that perhaps they sprayed the area for insects, and it got on the log. It could be any number of other things that got on it. Perhaps that random bottle of soap that was left in the pet department, or whatever else people seem to like to do in those stores.

 

[littlefishy]

Thanks for the suggestions.