Sinking, Clamped Tails and Recent Deaths

[kimberlyg01]

Hi everyone,

I’m brand new to the forum and a brand new owner of CPDs.
We recently got 8 juvenile CPDs, and around a week or so later (after they seemed to be doing well) we added a further 6 juveniles CPDs.
All of the fish, with the exception of 1, seemed to be healthy – there colour turning nice and dark with vibrant orange tails. The 1 exception was a female who’s tail appeared to be sinking and she was struggling to swim.

We went away for the night about a week later and came back to find 2 dead, 1 completely unaccounted for and the other 11 had lost all of their colour and energy and their tails were sinking and they were struggling to swim. Some of their tails were also clamped. A couple also have swollen bellies. We have since lost 2 more and we have no idea what’s gone wrong. (strangely enough the 1 female that had the sinking tail from the beginning is still alive)

The water parametres are fine. We did a water change and left the light on overnight, this seems to have really helped as most of their colours are coming back – but 2 fish still look very unhealthy and very pale with sinking, clamped tails and swollen bellies. Swimming looks an effort for them too.

Its thankfully been 24 hours since we lost our last one (I’m touching wood whilst writing…..)

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Or does anyone have any advice?
We’d be grateful for any advice!

Thanks everyone.

[BallAquatics]

Hi kimberlyg01, welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear you are having problems with your CPD’s. Since the water change had a good effect on them I’d continue with that for the next week or so. I think plenty of fresh clean water is the most important thing in fish keeping followed closely by feeding the best food we can obtain.

Dennis

[kimberlyg01]

Hi Dennis

Thank you for the reply and good advice.
Lucky for us they are continuing to improve everyday
The water change definately helped so I’ll continue to change the water regularly, hopefully they’ll return to their former healthy states soon.
It was awful in the 24 hours that we lost four – we didn’t know what had gone so wrong.

Do you have any advice on what to feed CPDs?
At the moment we’re feeding them a mixture of different things – just Hikari Micropellets & frozen daphnia at the moment. We’ve also got frozen brine shrimp and mini bloodworm but at the moment these items are too big for our tiny fish to eat!

Thanks again.
Kim

[BallAquatics]

Hi Kim,

Glad to hear that they are improving daily!

As a breeder, I like to feed lots of live foods, but I also use prepared food. I get all my food from Ken over at http://kensfish.com/. I feed golden pearls, shrimp sticks, algae wafers and on rare occasions crushed color flake. It seems to me that my CPD’s prefer to feed at or near the bottom of the tank, so I feed foods that will sink to that level.

Dennis

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