Help! Fungal Infection!

[lelover]

I'm a first time fish doc here and I need some help before all hell breaks loose. The tank is 125 gallons and has the following inhabitants.

7 labs
4 acei
4 albino socolofi
3 dolphins
3 phenochilus
1 eyebiter
1 OB peacock
1 benga
1 albino eureka jake
4 clown loaches
1 big pl*co

The tank has been set up for about six weeks. I used established filters and haven't had any cycling problems. The ammonia and nitrite measures zero. Nitrates are at about 20. I change 25% of the water every two weeks and treat the new water with a chlorine & cloramine detoxifier. I feed cichlid pellets and spirulina flake 3x a day. I also give them mysis or brine shrimp once a week.

I added the socolofi and clown loaches about 10 days ago. About 5 days ago the socolofi started staying in an upper corner of the tank. The next day he was either in a top corner or laying on the sand. I put him in a hospital tank and treated with the only medicine I had, clout. The next After about 36 hours he was swimming around happily so I put him back in the main tank. Yesterday he was back to swimming in the corner or hiding on the sand under some rocks. I also notice that two of my acei had white cotton-like markings on their sides. I added 1 tablespoon of salt for every 5 gallons of water and turned the temperature up to 85. I put the socolofi back in the hospital tank and gave him another dose of clout. Today his cadual fin is shredded to bits and the base of it is red. He is twirling about and swimming upside down now. I'm sure he's a goner.

I did some disease research today after my initial plan seems to have failed and it looks like he's got fin rot and my acei have some other fungus. I'm worried that the entire tank has it now and don't know what to do.

Should I turn the temp back down? Should I treat the entire tank with maracyn? Please help!

 

[blue_ram]

Clout is a medication for treating parasite problems; it won't do you any good. Since I can't see your fish, I can't make an accurate diagnosis, but I believe your problem is most likely a bacterial. Unfortunately, it sounds like you've got the extremely virulent form of fin rot. They usually kill within 48 to 72 hours. You really need an industrial strength antibiotic (e.g Cephalexin, Tetracycline ) to kill those bacteria, but they are hard to find at LFS. Salt would most likely be of little use. Try Maracyn-II, MarOxy or Furan; they may clear up most of your problem. They should be available everywhere. I must caution you, that this may kill all your bacteria in the filter bed, and may your aquarium to go through cycling again. Any case, make sure you continue your treatment for at least 10 days (or directed by the instruction), whether the fish start look fine or not.

BTW, if you already have a hospital tank, why didn't you use to quarantine your fish in the first place? I never add new fish to the main aquarium directly. They always get quarantined for 2 weeks before they get added to the main tank. Quarantining your fish will spare you from some serious headaches.

 

[WILDER]

If they have fluffy patches on there sides it sounds like columnaris.

http/www.nippyfish.net/flexibacter.html