# 2 leopard cats suddenly died



## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

in my 80 liter 2 cats suddenly died/dieing. i found one this evening dead at the back and the other was breathing hard and erratically swimming, they where swimming happily and eating a lil as usual this morning and still swimming this lunch time. The second cat is currently breathing normally ish at the back and on its back i think it is 2 late for him 
I haven't added anything new to the tank for a while. 
The weird thing is none of the other fish are ill and swimming round happily! 
Could any one shine some light in any reasons what this could be??
really not cool! just seen my large angel George has cotton wool like thing on his back!  and some of the fish are right at the surface, but not breathing hard. any one know why they are at the surface? i have an air stone in there with them so a lil confused by that. any advice would be much appreciated! i am gona go get some treatment for George first thing tomorrow. aaagh lil scary!


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## psusaxman2000 (Dec 22, 2009)

Do you have CO2 running on the tank? Could be an overload of CO2 that is causing the fish to have trouble breathing and trying to surface to get air.

What are the specs around your tank?


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

Nothing special just filter. light, and airstone! no co2.
I did a water change after the 2 cats died, could this be anything to do with it?? i don't think it is but u never know! 
i have 2 admit that the tank is a lil over stocked. due to lack of knowledge when i got the fish! but up until now this has not been a problem! got a 300l w8ing for a room to be decorated for them


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

ok ... its got worse worke up this morning and half of the tank is dead! a small shoal of black widow tetras and my doubble reds ... well th emale cant find the female! S****


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

ok so here are the results of the tests
Amonia less that 0.1 
Nitrite some where around 0.1 
Nitrate *75* i think i have found the problem 
and the ph is 7

can any one tell me hot to drop the nitrates?? 
i have already cared out a 30% water change and cleaned the filter and the intake any thing else i can do??
and this is a planted aquarium 
how have i got it this wrong??

just tested my tap water and it has a nitrate lev between 10 -25 is this normal??


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## vicky (Feb 18, 2010)

Wow, so sorry. I had something similar once and it is very overwhelming. Cotton wool like thing could be ich. Do you see any on the others? Or what looks like grains of salt stuck to them? Definitely keep performing large water changes and run a uv sterilizer if you have one. Do you have fast growing stems or floating plants that are regularly pruned and removed from the tank? That and water changes will bring down nitrates. You might need to reduce your feeding.


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

i think i have been over feeding this week but it looks like the high nitrate levs are the killer ... unless the cottonmouth stuff kills super fast and it is the internal variate that they have! but thanks for the input i have just done another test after using the clean water from the fish place and it looks like the levs of nitrate have gone down a lil but not as much as i thought it would! 
the 2 angelfish are at the bottom and i don't think they will make it! sad times the angelfish is my Girlfriends she had him when he was a niper about 5-10 yrs ago! 
so all i have left atm is 1 female double red and 3 gold panchax i just hope they can make it some thing has got 2 survive!


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

So sorry. Weird that the nitrates would be so high with the others so low. You'd think you's see the others elevated too. I think Prime will reduce the nitrates. Activated charcoal will also absorb the nitrates and other nasties that could be in the water. The water changes should have reduced them if they were coming from your over feeding.

It sounds to me like you may have some disease that ran through your tank. The cotton stuff may be a secondary infection. I'm so sorry for you. Loosing fish that you've had for so long it tough!


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

i know sad times but at least i still have 4 panchax left ... the only survivors ... are they genially hardy fish?? i thought they would have died over night! but i got lucky with them!  
is a 20% change twice a day 2 much?? or should i only be doing it once a day? and thanks for the advice


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## vicky (Feb 18, 2010)

How does the water test now? How are the remaining fish acting? BTW, how old are your tests? They do expire and become less accurate. With the problem you are having I don't think you can do too many water changes.


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## Gordan101 (Feb 3, 2011)

the tests are brand new bought them a couple of days ago, and the nitrate lev is about the same as my tap water so that is about the best i can do. 
The remaining panchax are acting normal and eating a lil so i think they are doing well! I have moved my gold fish in to the tank ... have been planning to move them in to it for a while, when the tank downstairs was set-up was going to move the tropics in to the new big tank. Seeing as though there is just panchax in this one atm i have moved 2 of the goldfish in to it. there current tank is far 2 small so ime just treating the other 2 of for white spot in there current tank, ime also treating this tank just 2 be safe. but they are all looking happy, healthy and swimming around so its all gravy 

Just a thought but would adding more carbon to the filter help to reduce the nitrates in the tank or would it not make much of a difrence? it is currently only a small ish sack of carbon in the filter.


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## vicky (Feb 18, 2010)

Glad you're still smiling and things seem to be on the mend. I'm still a big fan of floating plants to remove nitrate. Goldfish* love *duckweed, but Frog bit seems to last a little longer. Good luck to you.


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