# Rummynose Tetra Death



## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

I bought 20 rummynoses today, and i noticed that one of them had a white patch on its back. It wasn't fuzzy or lumpy, just looked like a patch of discolored scales.

The fish didn't look sick and schooled with the others just fine. However, i decided to be safe and took it out.

I put that fish by itself in my 2 gal dymax, and a few hours later, it was stuck to the overflow, belly-up.

Did that rummynose die from a disease, or from loneliness? Should i be worried about the rest of my rummynoses?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

It could be a case of neon tetra disease (which can afflict other tetra species), or some other protozoan infection. I'd watch the health of the rest of your tetras, keep top notch water parameters and be prepared to remove any infected animals.

If you do have infected fish that are showing signs of disease, remove them. A 2g tank is too small to be a good QT for most fish - it'll just stress them out further. You'll need a bigger tank (preferably 10g+), which will also make dosing meds much easier and more accurate.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

ameekplec. said:


> It could be a case of neon tetra disease (which can afflict other tetra species), or some other protozoan infection. I'd watch the health of the rest of your tetras, keep top notch water parameters and be prepared to remove any infected animals.
> 
> If you do have infected fish that are showing signs of disease, remove them. A 2g tank is too small to be a good QT for most fish - it'll just stress them out further. You'll need a bigger tank (preferably 10g+), which will also make dosing meds much easier and more accurate.


I don't have any other tank, and meds are out of the question as the tanks all have shrimps in them. Basically, the best I can do is isolate any infected fishes and hope it does spread to others.

Right now, there are some rummynoses that show signs of distress: one is having trouble keeping upright, and a few others are gasping and flicking fins rapidly. They are still schooling together however, and the red in their head is pretty strong.

I don't see any sign of white patches on any of the remaining fishes. Should I remove the fish that is flipping over, or wait to see if it can recover?


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## tankies (Feb 1, 2012)

where you bought these rummies? how long have there been in the store?


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## matti2uude (Jan 10, 2009)

I believe I got a dozen at the same store as you. I lost 75% of them. I got a dozen more from the store a little further north and haven't lost one.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Yeah, for what I've seen, if one fish has it, it'll kill many of the school. It's usually bad news bears when it shows up, especially if left unchecked.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

matti2uude said:


> I believe I got a dozen at the same store as you. I lost 75% of them. I got a dozen more from the store a little further north and haven't lost one.


Were you able to tell what the tetras died of?


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## matti2uude (Jan 10, 2009)

No I wasn't able to figure it out. I just treated them for a broad range.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

I scooped out all the tetras that had white patches. I now have 12 tetras left in the tank, and they all have ich. I turned the heat up to 32C yesterday, and this morning the rummynose tetras were all zipping around the tank like hyperactive kids on a sugar high.

I've read that rummynoses actually do best in temperatures of 28C to 32C, but they do seem a lot more hyperactive than before. Not sure if I should be worried?

Anyone have experience treating rummynoses for ich with heat only?


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## mdvo (Nov 10, 2011)

I had a case of ich with my rummynoses when I first brought them home, treated with heat only. turned the temp up to 32, as you have, and that's actually where I've kept it since. ich was gone in about a week. Didn't use any salt of meds of any sort.

I also had a rummynose die somewhat suddenly from a strange spot that appeared on its body, not so much a patch on the scales, but it appeared as an opaque patch on their normally translucent body. The tetra behaved normally, but the patch slowly spread and got darker, until the tetra died about a month later. It never showed any other signs of illness, and ate normally right up until it died. It was almost like a cancer - do fish get cancer?


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## JulieFish (Apr 8, 2011)

Pretty much anything can get cancer. Fish can also get non-cancerous tumors and die from them too. It's nowhere near the leading cause of captive fish death, but it happens.


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## FlyingHellFish (Mar 7, 2011)

Name of stores would be great, were they on sale or something? That a lot of rummy.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

mdvo said:


> I had a case of ich with my rummynoses when I first brought them home, treated with heat only. turned the temp up to 32, as you have, and that's actually where I've kept it since. ich was gone in about a week. Didn't use any salt of meds of any sort.
> 
> I also had a rummynose die somewhat suddenly from a strange spot that appeared on its body, not so much a patch on the scales, but it appeared as an opaque patch on their normally translucent body. The tetra behaved normally, but the patch slowly spread and got darker, until the tetra died about a month later. It never showed any other signs of illness, and ate normally right up until it died. It was almost like a cancer - do fish get cancer?


I ended up adding salt to the tank last night, after I discovered a pale patch near the tail of one tetra. I don't know if it's columnaris or neon tetra disease, so I put in salt to be safe. The strange thing is, the tail area also has a dark red spot, and I've noticed it on 2 other tetras that have since died.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

It's definitely columnaris. Great....


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## walleye (Oct 27, 2010)

i bought 20 rummynose 10 days ago from ai. 15 died in a week and 5 left. 5 are very healthy. i should have wait enough time before i went there. i think these fish are new shipment.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

The Rummy Noses are now in my main tank and are very healthy and active. Of the 20 that I bought, only 9 survived.

I used heat + salt to treat the ich. I started with heat only: this was a mistake, as the heat precipitated a columnaris outbreak. 3 tetras died from columnaris, a few days into the heat treatment.

Columnaris spreads very quickly, at least in temperatures of 90F/32C. It took only a few hours for the first white fuzz to appear, and for the fish to die.

I ended up adding about 6 tablespoons of salt into my 20-gallon tank. On the 6th tablespoon, I noticed the fish were acting strangely, so I did a 10-15% water change. In the end, I estimate that I put in 1 tbs of salt per 4 gallons of water.

I set the temperature to 90F/32C for the duration of the treatment (10 days). Then I kept the fish in quarantine for a further week before moving them into the display tank.

I also had cherry shrimps and plants in the tank. I could see no adverse reaction from shrimp or plants, from either salt or the high temperature.

---

One major difficulty I had was in the beginning. Some fishes kept showing signs of Neon Tetra Disease, and I did not want to take the risk of an NTD outbreak, so I took those out and put them in a bucket. Those fish never survived the night. I incurred 8 deaths this way, in the span of a weekend.


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## Smashy (Dec 11, 2011)

Wow that is a lot of dead fish. I hope you guys that had the same problem with the same store called and let them know of the situation!

Glad to hear that at least a few made it.


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