Cyanide poisoning infecting other fish?

[kingkai512]

i recently lost a flagfin angel to some very strange symptoms, he was eating fine and very social. One day i came home to him lying on the substrate breathing rapidly, then over the next 30 minutes he started swimming very erratically, seizing up and shaking rapidly. it was quite a scary sight. There was no other dots, specs or any sign of any infection on him, he was very healthy looking and just ate the previous day.

so a couple of days later, my pearlscale butterfly had the exact same symptoms and i have had him longer than the flagfin. i even saw him this morning before i left swimming fine. after doing some research on cyanide poisoning, is it possible that the flagfin infected the water? can a cyanide poisoned fish infect other fish with its waste?

also how do i upload a video? i have the video of the pearlscale swimming just like the flagfin did, both of them started having seizures during the last moments of their life.

 

[Big G]

Do you QT your incoming fish and treat them prophylactically for flukes & Ich/Velvet? Has anything "wet" been added to your tank during the last 30 days or so?

 

[kingkai512]

they were both in the same quarantine tank with the flagfin being the newest addition

 

[Big G]

Sorry for your loss. Beautiful fish. There are two conditions that cause rapid death: Velvet and gram negative bacterial infections. Breathing heavily is one of the symptoms of Velvet and it spreads rapidly infecting other fish in the tank.
Many fish suppliers are treating their fish with sub therapeutic levels of copper to lower losses but keep the fish looking in decent sellable condition. The problem is the fish are then sold and the sub therapeutic copper wears off and velvet comes roaring back, often without the normal visible symptoms, usually attacking the fish's gills first, unseen. By the time the fish stop eating, lethargic, breathing heavy its almost or too late to save the fish. Not cool. After loosing a whole tank of fish in QT because of this, started dosing with copper ASAP and have lost zero fish since.

 

[Humblefish]

FWIW; cyanide poisoning is not transferable. Both fish would have to be exposed during collection.

When a fish gets hit with a squirt of cyanide solution, its liver immediately begins trying to neutralize and remove the compound. First it metabolizes it; then it converts it into something called thiocyanate. The fish then ejects the thiocyanate in its body just as you and I might expel toxins: It pees the thiocyanate out.

However, thiocyanate is just a salt which no longer contains any of the toxic cyanide. So, it does not risk other fish to exposure.