Help! My Axls are dying!!

Hey Guys I need some serious help. My axls keep dying.

I was given 2 axls for my birthday in Sept 03. and I got another for Xmas 03. They were in good health - eating ok etc...

But about Early M<font color="aa00aa"><font face="arial,helvetica"></font></font>arch they all went downhill really quick - I lost the first 2 within a fortnight of each other & the last one about 4
weeks later.

The Symptoms: Lost the dorsal/tail fin and their tails went really skinny (fat reserves dried up), then the gills started to shrivel. Then their bottom jaw started to swell. They stopped eating & just got weaker. The sad thing was that they had no energy & they used up what energy they had trying to eat. Eventually the were too weak to hold themselves upright. I noticed on my Golden axl that she had blood spots? on her tail & coming out of her cloaca - she died about an hour later.

We had the water tested for everything possible & it was perfect. I was feeding them every 2nd/3rd day alternating between earthworm, pellets or bloodworms and only occassionally beef heart. With a weekly 20% water change.

After I lost the last one - I did a total tank clean. I got rid of the gravel, plants etc... I did a thorough clean with bleach & rinsed it completely (quite a few times). I then put in a new bio filter, new plants (from a different shop) and new (thoroughly washed) large gravel. I also added Aqua18 (a Nitrobacter) The water had been chlorine treated with Start-rite and had been left to sit for a bit over 48 hours (in sealed containers - so there could be no outside contaminates) I then left it cycling for about 2 weeks.

I have since gotten another 2 from a different store ( as someone suggested that it was an internal parasite - picked up at the store I got the first 3 from).

But now these ones are going the same. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me!!!!!!!!!

I've recently (but after they got sick) changed my filter from an internal bio-filter to an external hangon carbon filter.

BTW - I live In Perth West Australia & I keep the water temp down with ice bottles it never gets more than 18º

I hope that someone here can give me some answers! I can't sit by and watch my babies suffer anymore.

Nette

Hi Nette glad to see you made it here. I posted a response to you on the yahoo site about 'sterilising' the tank as far as possible before re-using it. If you didn't see it, say so here and I'll repeat my advice.

In the meantime can you post some more details of your tank set-up e.g temps, levels of nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, size of gravel etc.

Also split up your babies into bare plastic containers for now. So that if it is down to infection you can reduce risk of cross contamination.

Thanks - I did get your advice on the sterilization.

I think that it is too late to worry about cross-contamination as they are both looking the worse for wear. They both became sick at the same time.

They are now not eating anything at all.

I will get back to you with the tank details.

Thanks for trying to help me.

Cheers!

Neete if you'r online now go into chat forum

Just thought i would let you know that my babies are eating again.

Woohoo

wtg Nette

Did you finally determine cause of your problem?

Nope the problem still has me confuzzled .

I just tried to feed em like I've been doing every night for the past few weeks (trying that is & not succeeding)& they came straight up ate 1/2 a block of blood worm & a food pellet each.

Then the next afternoon they were hunting around the bottom of the tank & so I thought I'd see how I go & they had 2 pellets each.

I'm a VERY happy lady ATM

Thanks for the help & advice.
Nette