Help! fish in community tank dying ..

[kebuchan]

Hi all,

On Saturday morning I noticed one of the Cherry barbs acting odd, seemed a little "tipsy" and his tailed seemed like it was nipped. Then later that day I noticed another Cherry doing the same thing, with 1/2 missing tail fin also the ailfin molly had a couple of white spots on his tail. I immediately took the barbs and the molly out and put them into a 2G "med" tank and put in some QuICK (only thing the LFS had). I thought it was ick, so I raised the temp to 82F and added salt (per directions), also added quICK to the 55g community tank.

Sunday morning, both barbs are dead and another one in the community tank has a missing tail.
Sunday night, male Kribensis has a few spots on his tail and he seems to be rubbing up against rocks and shells etc. Since it was 24 hours I added some quICK per the directions.

Monday morning (now), one 6" Bala is floating upside down, dead. No spots or fin nips or anything. Also, an American-Flag fish has part of it's mouth missing but again, no spots or anything and she's still alive and seems to be swiming around OK but looks bad.

Two Badis Badis were in this tank but I moved them out on Thursday, they look fine so far in another 10g.

What the heck is going on???

Only other thing that's new is some brown algae like that thing's developing in this one section on the glass, not sure if that's an indicator of anything.

The inhabitants of the 55G are:

3 Bala sharks (2 left)
2 Kribs (Pair)
6 Cherry barbs ( 3 left)
6 Zebra Danios
2 American-Flag fish
1 Sailfin Molly

I'm not sure what to do.... Help!!

Also, my 20g is empty, I need to dump water in it if I'm going to try and separate any of these fish out but it wouldn't have cycled or anything would just be water with dechlor.. What does one do in a case like this with an emergency tank.

Kevin

 

[Lotus]

It sounds like a bacterial infection. See if the LFS has some medication that matches the symptoms. Did the spots look the size of grains of salt, or were they larger? If they were larger, it definitely isn't ich. Moving fish to other tanks won't really help, you'll probably have to treat all the fish. However, if some are in other tanks and don't show symptoms within the next weeks or so, it's probably OK to add them back once you're done treating.

I think is what you used was Quick-Cure, which works OK for ich (but sometimes kills fish).

 

[skratikans]

what are your water perimeters?

 

[MissFishy]

My immediate suggestion is to do an immediate large water change. Do some research online to see if it is ich or something more serious. Either way, I would raise the temperature to around 84 and keep all of the current fish in the same tank. If you move them around, it will just stress them out more.

How long has this tank been set up? When was the last time you added fish?

 

[kebuchan]

things looked more stable, it's been almost 2 days and no more deaths. However, the 2nd bala shark is really sluggish, mainly hovering around the glass on one side and going up for air every now and then. It has a lot of spots (ick) on it's back and tail.

I put quICK in for the past 3 days but I forgot to take the activated carbon out of the filter so I don't know if the Ick meds did any good. Anyway, last night I took the carbon out of the filter, did a 50% water change and added the quICK again.

It's definitely ick, I just wonder if I should try some other meds.

temp is up at 84F. I added aeration b/c the shark seemed to be going up to the surface for air. Now there are two air stones going going (100%) and a treasure chest thing as well. Seems like enough air for the 55G.

Is there a point in Ick infection where it's too late? The shark looks like it's got more spots on it that it did last night.

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[MissFishy]

If the ich is too severe, the fish may not have a chance. Most people on this forum recommend the salt and heat method as opposed to any actual medications. If you had carbon in the filter, the medication probably didn't do much good.

IMO, what I would do now is slowly raise the temp to 86, make sure the air pumps are pumping away, and keep the fish as destressed as possible and hope for the best. Sometimes the medications are too strong and may finish off any weak fish. Leave the temp up at that level for about 2 weeks, then slowly lower it. Assuming of course that all signs of spots have disappeared.

 

[FroggyFox]

Be careful about raising the temp too high while meds are still in the tank. I'd do a water change and let carbon run for a bit before implementing the salt/heat method.

 

[kebuchan]

well...

I took the carbon out yesterday, did a 50% water change to get rid of the meds. Then put the meds back in. Will take that as day 1 and do the meds for 3 days as per the directions on the bottle.

I raised the heat on Saturday when I first found the parasite (didn't know it was ick). It's at 84F, I put salt in then too (1 tbsp per gal).

After the 50% water change, I added 50% of the salt.

The thing that gets me is that one shark seems to be getting more ick spots :-( Rest of the fish are not getting worse.

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[kebuchan]

ok.. I just did another test of my water (myself). My ammonia must have spiked, it's up at 3mg/L ...

So I did a 50% water change, actually a little more, probably 60%. After refilling it up again and waiting an hour it was slightly better but still somewhere between 1.5 and 3mg/L

The guy at the LFS suggested some Spiro something, it was bacteria in a tube. I didn't buy it ... would it have worked?

How frequently can I do the water changes? Is twice daily too much ? I'm trying to drop the ammonia..

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I would do a 50% water change daily for a couple days til the meds are gone, then SLOWLY raise the temp to 86-87 degrees. No need to add salt either. To kill ick, you need the temp above 86 degrees. And lots of aeration, the more the better.

 

[FroggyFox]

was it BioSpira? Biospira is bacteria that is refrigerated and does work for cycling tanks. Its possible that the medication you put in before was an antibacterial something and knocked out a lot of your good bacteria while trying to get rid of the ick... In any case if you've pulled all of the medication out and your tank is re-cycling the Biospira might help get your bacteria colonies back in order, but its not going to do anything about the ick.

 

[MissFishy]

BioSpira is the only bacteria cycling product I know of that actually works. However, in order to use it properly, you should have a low reading of ammonia, as low as possible, otherwise the ammonia will just kill off the biospira. The biospira also must be refridgerated where you purchase it, otherwise it is just dead and useless. I have a small section on biospira on the link in my signature if you're interested in giving it a try.

 

[Dan Steveo]

no meds for ick? and turning up temp without salt? would this not just speed up the cycle? i agree with the meds killing bacteria and the other advice but no meds.... it seems a bit far fetched to help the ick...

 

[lauraj]

I've been lucky so far and haven't had any Ich, but I've read on this site, as well as on others, that raising the temp and adding salt is the best and safest way to treat your fish for Ich. Also saves you some $. But you have to catch it early and treat them before their weakened state makes them more vulnerable to other infections.

It sounds as if your fish were weakened by the Ich and so picked up on some bacteria infection as well. In that case, I believe the meds would have been necessary.

Good luck. Hope you can beat it and save the rest of your fish!