3 of my fish died (strange)

Ok so I am in need of our help yet again. These are the facts:

I have 90 gal freshwater with probably somewhere around 50 small fish community fish. I have been adding new fish every week, 2 or 3 fish at the most.I've be running this tank for over 4 moths and never lost not even one fish all up until this morning.

I am using pressurized co2 that goes directly from the co2 tank into aquarium. (Maybe I should filter this co2 through some bottle of water before I put it in the tank ???? Don't know) This co2 is on from 7am-6am, and after that the air kicks in.

I am also using liquid plant fertilizers and sometime co2 booster, but my co2 levels are always in blue zone as supposed to green and yellow so it is not like I have too much co2 in the tank.

My ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are at absolute 0 and I am checking that every few days.

The fish that died are angelfish, blue german ram, and boesemani rainbowfish andall of them are still small you can say Juvenal fish.

As you can see two of them belong to cyclids and I was wondering that maybe pH went waaaay to low over night or something and killed them (note,,,I don't have co2 ON during the night), but then blue german ram and boesemani rainbowfish I got this Friday and maybe there was something off with them. My angelfish was with me for 3 weeks and don't know what happen to him.

I still have some more angelfish, boesemani rainbowfish and blue german ram that are doing absolutely fine and I got all of them the same day as the fish that died.

As far as eating rainbowfish eats the best out of all, german ram and angelfish are kind or shy. Maybe I did not see them eating good and that is why they died but why all three of them in one day?

The last part of information is that all of these fish died with their mouth wide open?! Can anyone explain what is going on? I just don't want to loose any more fish especially if I don't understand the cause of this.

As always thank you all.

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Permalink Reply by Russell on April 10, 2012 at 11:51am

Im not sure about the chemistry but all i can say is angels are pretty weak when they are young. German rams are even more weak so any water chemistry change will stress them. Rainbows are pretty hardy on the other hand so im not sure whats going on there.

I would recommend not adding any more fish to the aquarium and depending on how many plants you have in the aquarium, limited the Co2 doses to half for a week or so to see how the fish do. Try adding some filter start which has stress eliminating chemicals (so i was told).

That aside it could be some sort of disease. If the fish were not eating prior for about 3 days it could be because they had bladder infections. Check their fins and scales for abnormal colours and observe how they are swimming in the aquarium.

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Permalink Reply by Milos Stevanovic on April 10, 2012 at 12:29pm

Yeah I will def. reduce co2 input just to see if that will help anyhow. I will also check my pH level early in the morning around 6am to see how low really is.

it is really strange since my water parameters are perfect and I wend through cycling without loosing any fish but now this??? Very strange.

Thanks for reply mate.

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Permalink Reply by Russell on April 10, 2012 at 10:36pm

Yeh. Its a tricky hobby. In 10 years time ill probably qualify to be a marine biologist! LoL

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Permalink Reply by Milos Stevanovic on April 18, 2012 at 9:54am

Finally after almost a week of changing water everyday up to 50 % and loosing total of 9 fish my water is finally OK and fish are doing fine. WOW man this was one tough week for me given the fact that water parameters were at zero all the time except Nitrate that was at its highest 5.0 ppm.

Still do not understand the cause of this but I think that one of the fish I got the very last time had some kind of diseases and that diseases attacked some of my cichlids and tetras. Very strange since the store I am getting my fish is highly rated (Absolute Fish, NJ)

Next time before I put fish straight into my main tank I will have to keep them in some quarantine tank for a week just to make sure everything is ok.

Thanks for your help guys.