Crashes SUCK *WARNING - GRAPHIC PHOTOS*

[Chappy]

My beautiful wilds tonight, about two hours ago:







I have very few fish regrets. In fact I have two. One was not buying a kazillion zebra plecos when they were $15/each - yes, I AM that old (!!!!), but my most recent one is when Charles got his first batch of wild discus in. He brought in 6 and at the time I only had one discus tank for both my domestics and wilds. I took two, and even that was pushing the limits of my tank. I wish I had taken the whole lot of them like my gut told me to. You can see them in the top photo - the two on the left. They look VERY different from each other. One is for sure a tefe. The second, blue one-I'm not so sure. But I wouldn't trade either of them for anything. Yup - I'll continue to kick myself for that one I think for a loooongggg time . I have seen colors on these fish that I've never seen anywhere else. They are pretty awesome fish and I couldn't imagine my wild collection without them. Thanks, Charles

The red cover throwback pair is in this tank because they spawn every 10-15 days. My dominant female pigeonblood in the domestic tank had gotten to the point of bullying the red cover female so badly that she couldn't even lay her eggs. In the wild tank, they are completely left alone. Unfortunately, the male is a bit of a klutz and knocks off the eggs with every pass he makes But at least they aren't being bothered in this tank.

I just L O V E my wild tank puppies They are pretty tough beasties. Three weeks ago, some mystery plague raced through all my tanks save for the 29 gallon grow-out tank. I have my suspicions as to what caused it, but I don't think I'll ever know for sure. Notice I said "what" caused it - I don't believe the crash was caused by any of my fish, I think it was something I did, or rather didn't do (wash my hands before a waterchange in the wild tank). Although my wild tank was hit the hardest, it didn't suffer any casualties. Just a lot of black fish, with clouded eyes, melted fins/tails all huddled together in a mass, many headstanding fish and fish lying on their sides. The only fish not affected AT ALL was my female heckel. That was three weeks ago; the pics above were taken about an hour ago. The following pics are when I first saw them three weeks ago. They got MUCH worse than this before they started to get better. I could not take pictures of them when they were at their worse because I was convinced I was looking at a tank of dying fish.










The domestics weren't so lucky. I lost 4 of them. This is what I was dealing with.



The above shows what looks like a small, easily treatable patch of white cottony fungus-like infection. In 11 hours this is what the same fish looked like before I euthanized it and started sterilizing EVERYTHING. I was SHOCKED at how quickly it spead.



I had removed three plecos from the wild tank prior to treatment with Furan 2before talking to Dale Jordan who advised me against any and all medication for my wilds. I put the plecos in my Osaka with angels, dario darios and a whack of other plecos. Two days later, all 9 plecos were dead, all but a handful of the 50+ dario darios were dead and my angels all had bleeding rotting fins/gils. The angels managed to all pull through but I have one Peruvian who's still "not quite right" after spending five days on its side at the top of the tank.

And through it all, Dale's japura green X's showed no signs of anything and look to be happy, growing little discus.

As I said before, I'll never know what caused all this, but I do know one thing for sure - it's really, REALLY important to WASH YOUR HANDS before working on your tanks.

Shelley

[Sharkbait]

What do you think was on your hands when you worked on the tanks?

[eternity302]

Sorry to hear about it!
And thanks for sharing!

I'm thinking I caused my flagtails death yesterday... =( sigh... i was really wondering if i washed my hands clean, but I dun think i did!

[stingraylord]

I never washed my hands before working on my tanks in the last 20yrs. I must have pretty clean hands as I have never had something like that happen! Sorry for the losses!! That's why I stick to my predator fish and hardy cichlids as most are pretty fool proof but you still might have the odd mishap. I was thinking of going back to discus someday but nah I don't think so after seeing that.

[onefishtwofish]

so sorry to here this shellie. we all know how meticulous you r about your tanks and how you love your fish. this kind of reminds me of the outbreak with the angels from the old forum. it started with the blues and there were many deaths in a brief time in many keepers tanks. there was talk of the discus/angel plague at the time, remember? same symptoms. any recent additions?

[traco]

Sorry to hear about your loss, Shelley. How long of a QT did they have before they were introduced into your tanks ... I wonder if one of the new fish brought something in? I hope everyone left is now on the mend.

[2wheelsx2]

That's just nasty Shelley. Good reminder to wash our hands when we put them in the tank all the time. I'm often guilty of it and have had a few mysterious deaths as well, so I have to remember.

When you're all stable and everyone is happy again, remember my PM. The offer is still open.

[target]

That's very tough Shelley. Glad at least some of them pulled through.

[Richard]

Sorry to hear that, Shelley. Do you feed them with raw or live food? That could introduce some problem, IMHO. I feed my discus with dry food or steamed BW only. My tank is quite stable so far.

[kelly528]

Holy smokes that bacteria spread FAST! It can't help that discus prefer the high temps conducive to crazy bacterial growth