One of my 2 little blues died yesterday - the strangest thing is that there was nothing wrong with it yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon my friend called and said its acting strange - swimming around and around, upside down and is going crazy through the tank. Couldn't get hold of the vet and the speciality fish shop gave me some blue medicine to put in the tank - to no avail, he/she died... the rest of the tank's little one's got white spot now. Don't know if they arrived like that a week ago (nothing was wrong then). The water I've tested this morning: Nitrate - 2; Nitrite - 0; Water - Hard; Alkalinity - moderate and PH - neutral (6 - 8). I've tested with Quick Dip strips by Jungle which claims that "the strips are designed from the same technology used in medical and science laboratories, giving hou fast and accurate results". Advice anyone?

That's too bad, sorry to hear about your los it really is horrible when fish die. I have never used to these strips before so can't comment, someone else will have to advise on that. I have always favoured the liquid type test kits. I very much like aquarium pharmaceuticals. Tetra makes good test kits but AP better in my opinion because they utilise less bottles in some of the tests and the results only take five minutes to come through rather than 20 minutes on ammonia in the Tetra kit

If you are quite sure that your water is in good condition, it is really hard to determine what caused the fish death. I would advise you to carry out extra tank maintenance for the next week. If your fish has got white spot and you can see the cysts then medication probably won't work as the parasite responsible for white spot is immune to medication at this stage in its life. You need to turn the temperature up and leave it like that for around five days. Properly around 30°C. Your fish will be okay so don't worry.

Thank you for your reply - I'll do a ± 30% water change tonight (the water is still very blue from the medicine) and turn the heat up to 30 degrees. What puzzles me pink is the fact that there was absolutely nothing wrong yesterday morning - they all came to the surface to grab their food with waggly tails... and I lost my 2 reds as well, forgot to mention that (the little ones). So, I'm back to the drawing board, change more water, test every day etc.

Was that methylene blue you used?

I know exactly what you mean about fish dying for no reason and not seeing it coming. My large red Oscar which I lost recently was perfectly okay in the evening, the next morning, she looked like she had been dead for a week as you can see by the photograph. I think she had a catastrophic bacterial infection that took hold overnight.

Oh no!!! So sorry about that... sjiezzz its part of the family that's gone when something like this happens. I'm not a paranoic person, but apart from my other tanks, I'm like an overgrown, overprotective guardian angel over my two "grown-ups" - and have cried my eyes out last night over my babies. But I suppose sh*t happens and the only thing to do is to try one's best. Thanks for the moral support

Yip, it was methylene blue... was it a bad thing? 'Cause then I'm going to kill that guy at the fish shop...

Methylene blue can be used for all kinds of things to do with fish. It is often used when hatching out eggs.

Elsabe wrote:


I must admit, I did shed a tear when she died. She was such a lovely fish, I absolutely adored her

Elsabe wrote:


Wow, so you've lost 3 of the recent 6 you purchased huh? (First the 2 reds, then 1 Blue) Too bad..
I hope you can save the remaining Oscars.

Were the 6 Oscars placed into an established "cycled" aquarium? Or were they placed directly into a new tank set up? How big is the tank the remaining three are in?

That's hard to say. If you used it as directed chances are it wasn't the blue stuff that did that.

Ok, a few days later and I've got only the 2 little reds left... I'm clueless as to what is wrong. They were put in a cycled tank (the water was cycled just over a week, but it was an established/used pump and gravel). One little tiger survived and a friend (out of the good of his heart) bought me 2 other baby tigers - though 3 times bigger than the little ones. Before you could say "tiger" - it just gulped 1 of the only 3 remaining babies. The tank is 90cm tank, about 120 litres. I've removed the 2 little reds to a small tank, just for the time being - I'm cycling a new big tank for them - and hope that they might make it. I've took water samples and the dead fish to a fish specialising shop yesterday and bough an extremely expensive additional test kit. Everything tested correct, that's what I cannot for the life of me understand! I am considering cycling a total new tank and get rid of that tank - I think it must be jinxed! Hope for the best, I really don't know what to do anymore

New arrivals to a tank normally die for one of two reasons. Firstly stress can play a big part in their demise. However, this is normally only in the first couple of days. After then, they normally settle down. Unfortunately, it's normally water quality that sees fish off.

If you can, get some liquid tests. I highly recommend Aquarium Pharmaceuticals or Tetra