Newbie with sick fish- Help!

[missi]

My poor mollies!
Got to work this morning to find a dead molly and a dead guppy. Both appeared completely healthy when I left Friday. Both of the bodies were covered in a white slimy film. Now i've noticed that something is wrong with both of the remaining mollies. One has a swollen eye with a bit of a red spot on it and the other has a patch of white fuzzy, slimey, fungus-y like stuff on her back between her head and her fin that looks like what the two dead fish were covered with. Sound familiar to anyone? Both mollies are swimming and eating just fine. One looks as if she may have given birth over the weekend, but I see no fry in the tank. All the other fish still look great- not that that will mean anything tomorrow-- this hobby sure is frustrating.
I haven't tested the water yet this morning. Temp is 75 degrees.

 

[dreambaby]

Missi...
sounds like what my fish came down with....i was told it was a fish disease called ick.
I treated with ick gaurd and ick away...im afraid i didnt catch it soon enough though as both of my tanks were killed off. Some of the treatments i have been given were to raise the temperature of your tanks to about 82 and make it slightly acidic by adding salt. I hope my advice can help but like yourself i am pretty much a newbie in the fish hobby... i hope your fish do better than mine did.

Dreambaby

_______
55 gallon- three adult swordtails and 15+ fry , 20+ guppy fry, 2 loaches, 4 catfish, 5 plecos
29 gallon- empty
29 gallon- empty

 

[Purple]

Nope - it's not Ich or Ick. Ich looks exactly like grains of salt on the body and fins of the affected fish.

White patches or fuzy stuff indicates a fungal infection - red spots are usually a sign of bacterial infection.

The two often go together - it starts off as a bacterial infection, then the weakened fish gets the fungal one as well. A lot of anti bacterial and anti-fungal meds recognise this pattern, and the meds are tailor made to treat for both at the same time. Read the med packets in the shop until you find one that clearly states it does both - and then carefully following the dosing instructions, treat the whole tank.

The treatment normally takes three days - then, if after a week there are still signs of the problem, do a water change and repeat the treatment.

 

[missi]

I started treating with melafix yesterday. It is supposed to treat fin and tail rot, open red sores, open body wounds, and eye cloud/popeye/body slime and mouth fungus. Says to continue treatment for 7 days. I am treating the entire tank just in case.
Incidentally, I lost the molly and a clown dojo last night. My last molly is active and eating, as is the last clown dojo. All other fish look great.
I am headed to the LFS now to see what meds they have- The melafix is all walmart had. I also finally have a nitrate spike today- so I guess I need to see if there is a product to reduce those numbers. The melafix says not to change the water until after the 7 day treatment.

Temp 76 degrees
ph 7.0-7.2
ammonia 0 ppm
nitrite 2.0 ppm
nitrate - off the charts, stayed at 5.0 ppm until today.

29 gal
1 dojo loach
1 clown loach
2 cory's
1 guppy
4 neon tetras
2 apple snails
1 balloon belly molly
medium planted

 

[Purple]

nope - melafix won't do it - it's like treating pnemonia with paracetamol

get the correct meds as per my last advice

melafix is a tonic - and that's all it is (and to heck with what that stuff says it does on the packet)

Ammonia turns to nitrite - nitrite turns to nitrate - nitrate is removed by water changes (anything below 30ppm is fine - so a reading of 5ppm is negligable)

the most reasonable way to deal with nitrate (which can't "spike") is a water change - try one before you add whatever meds you get from the lfs) - all those additives the lfs will sell you to deal with nitrate are rubbish - trust me on this - my tap water is 30ppm nitrate so i've been through this before *thumbsup2

 

[missi]

Ok, the last molly died today. His eye was HUGE. The swollen area behind his eyeball was all red, like he was bleeding behind his eye. Is this Popeye?
I guess everyone else in the tank is okay- looks that way anyway. I changed about 35% of the water yesterday afternoon. Todays levels are :
ph 7.0-7.2
ammonia 0 ppm
nitrite 2.0 ppm
nitrate between 5 & 10 ppm
Temp 78 degrees

Maybe I did something wrong when I checked the Nitrate yesterday- it's never showed over 10 ppm before. Or maybe the water change took care of it. I have no idea. Is the Nitrite level harmful to the fish? I've never seen it less than 0.5 ppm and I thought that once the ammonia levels dropped, so would the nitrite?
I'd like to pick up some meds to have on hand in case something happens again- can someone suggest what I should get? There are so many different things, brands, etc. that I have no idea which is which and what works and doesn't. I hesitate to rely on the lfs at this point, as they were all too happy to sell me a tank and fish all in the same day. One would think that they'd know about cycling a tank- and let the rest of us n00bs in on it when we're in a hundred dollar hurry to buy fish.
Thanks for the help

 

[Purple]

a med kit is as essential as a test kit - nothing worse than noticing something just before you go to bed and having to wait till you can get to the shop to sort it out

jungle labs stuff seems pretty ok (presuming you are in the USA oh invisible one - lol) - get a combo fungal/bacterial as above - and something for Ich just in case - those are the main two you'll run into at some point (everyone has ich once)

the desease could have been "pop-eye" - treatments the same - anti-bac - lower stress, clean water etc......your nitrate level is fine - below 20ppm can safely be ignored, but try not to let your nitrite get any higher than it is now (2ppm)

as long as you learn by your mistake (which was to trust the lfs) then it's all a step forward - (you should have seen me when I started - complete mess)

 

[missi]

Thanks purple-
I went and picked up one of each kind of med I could find. I'm armed and ready now! Actually, I think I may have made it over the rough spot. All fish seem to be doing great after a weekend of being left alone. There is a clown loach gone missing, but I can find no 'parts' lying around. Either he's hiding or he was eaten- a mystery for now.
I finally found a place that sells biospira- got some of that, too. I'll be setting up a 55g today and am confident I'll have much better luck this time. Gotta say thanks to all for the help and advice. What a great forum! *celebrate