Possible Parasites....

[SorryEh]

I noticed 2 weeks ago one of my cichlids scratched its head area against a rock twice and I did not think much of it. I now have noticed 4 fish do it at least twice and one fish has done it 3 or 4 times so I am pretty sure there is some sort of parasite. There is no visible parasite on any of the fish and the scratching is very minimal, I usually only see some scratching every 3 or 4 days and I am looking at the tank for over an hour a day. Everyone is acting completely normal apart from the scratching, they are all eating and creating healthy looking waste.

Water is changed 15% weekly and I often do 5% water changes every 3 days or so while vacuuming the substrate of waste. When I change the water all I use is my well water and I add a bit of API ph down to get the new water at a steady 8, also add API stress coat to each bucket of new water and then let the water aerate for at least 30 minutes.
Tank has 5 African cichlids and 2 BN plecs, the cichlids are all around 2 1/2 to 3 years old, the plecs are around a year old.
I am almost sure this suspected parasite was introduced by the newest inhabitants, 2 cichlids or the BN plecs, although only one of the new cichlids has scratched once and that was today, 3 weeks after I got them. Also recently introduced multiple pieces of mopani wood but it was heavily boiled and soaked, not to mention it was dry when I purchased it.
There should be not foreign chemicals introduced to cause this, I make sure I am washed and clean of anything when I work on the tank.
I normally would have added aquarium salt by now but I have these new BN's so that's not possible.
I hope this was enough information for some help here, never dealt with anything like this in my 10 years of doing this, worst I have had was a major fin rot on one fish and that was a simple treatment. Thank you in advance for any replies.

Tank size: 55 US gallons and has been running for over 2 months now
pH: 8
ammonia: 0 ppm
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 15 ppm
kH: I have not tested my carbonate hardness
gH: I have not tested gH recently but the water I am putting into my tank has a gH of around 250 ppm
tank temp: was 75F but I raised it to 81F a week ago

 

[SorryEh]

I forgot to add one thing odd I have noticed, two of the cichlids have had extremely heavy breathing in the past 2 days, I assumed this was because my aerator died 2 days ago and the aeration is pretty low right now (Don't worry new one coming tomorrow) but I thought I should add this incase it could be something else

 

[SorryEh]

The last fish to not show signs just did it twice, it is now everyone.

 

[Colin_T]

I assume you have a filter running on the tank in addition to the airstone?
If yes then have the filter outlet spraying across the water surface. That will provide sufficient aeration for the fish.

The rubbing on rocks and heavy breathing can be a water chemistry problem (ie: contaminated well water) or a parasite like Ichthyopthrius (whitespot) or Oodinium (velvet).

Whitespot is easily seen as little white dots on the body or fins. Velvet can be very hard to see and when fish are heavily infected they produce a gold sheen over their body. The easiest way to check for velvet is to shine a torch on the fish and see if any of them have a gold sheen. If they do then you have velvet in the tank.

If you do have velvet or whitespot it would have been introduced on the new fish. The new fish might have had 1 parasite on its body or gills. And over the last 3 weeks this parasite has divided and infected the others.
The following link has info on Ich, but velvet is treated the same way.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-is-ich.7092/page-2

Heat treatment requires no medication and you simply raise the tank temperature to 30C (86F) for 2 weeks. You need to increase aeration when you do this because warm water holds less oxygen than cool water. If it is velvet then turn the tank lights off during treatment as well because the Oodinium parasite can photosynthesise (make energy from light), and this can make it harder to kill.

It's also a good idea to do a massive water change (75-90%) and complete gravel clean before raising the temperature. The big water change will dilute the number of free swimming pathogens in the water meaning there will be fewer to infect the fish. Gravel cleaning the substrate will remove a lot of the parasites sitting in the gravel while they are dividing.

It is also a good idea to wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean soap free sponge. And clean the filter too. The less organic matter (rotting fish poop) in the tank, the less bacteria that will be feeding on it, and there will be more oxygen for the fish.

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re: the 15% water changes you normally do, they are basically useless. Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms ranging from bacteria, viruses, protozoans & fungus. Doing small water changes will only dilute these organisms a by a small amount (15% in your tank). This leaves 85% of the micro-organisms in the tank where they can potentially harm the fish. If you do a bigger water change, say 50%, you reduce the number of harmful bugs by 50%. This leaves less of them in the water to infect the fish. The same deal with diluting nutrients like nitrate. Bigger water changes will reduce the levels in the tank water a lot more effectively than smaller water changes.

I would suggest doing a 50-75% water change each week and gravel clean the tank when you do that. The fish will be fine with big water changes as long as the pH, GH and temperature are similar, and as long as the water is free of chlorine/ chloramine and or other harmful chemicals.

Your well water should not contain any chlorine or chloramine but it could contain chemicals from agricultural or mining runoff that has leached into the ground water. However, the only way to find out what is in the water is to have it tested for various chemicals. Some people get around this by having live Daphnia in a pond. They take a sample of well water and add 20 or 30 live Daphnia. If the Daphnia don't die in 24 hours the water is safe to use. You can use live shrimp instead of Daphnia. Basically shrimp and Daphnia are sensitive to chemicals, so if the water has any nasties in it, the shrimp or Daphnia tend to die very quickly.

You aerate the well water so that is good and will ensure the water has sufficient dissolved gasses in it before it is added to the tank.

 

[SorryEh]

Thank you for the reply. I will certainly do a massive water change in the morning and do all the steps you said, I will raise the temperature when I get my new air pump tomorrow. I just fed everyone and did an inspection and there is no gold like sheen or white spots on anyone...yet. One question I have about raising the temperature is are there any other issues to be worried about, never had any of my tanks above 82 degrees. I am fairly certain the well water is good, I live at the foot of hill which has no large agricultural or mining activities or anything of the sort, also I have used this water for a long amount of time before this. I have been reading up on ich and I saw that one of the first stages is seeing the white spots, which is strange because I have no observed anything of the sort. Either way I will follow your instruction to kill this thing off.

Thanks for the reply again

 

[Colin_T]

The main issue with heat treatment is lack of oxygen in the water. Increasing surface turbulence will maximise the oxygen levels for the fish.

Clean water, gravel and filter will help to maximise the oxygen levels by reducing bacteria feeding on the waste. The bacteria use a lot of oxygen.

The other issue is increasing the temperature slowly. If the tank is 24C (75F) then raise the temperature about 2-3C per day until you reach 30C (86F). If the temp is 27-28C (81-82F) then just raise it to 30C (86F).

You raised the temp to 81F a week ago so just raise it to 86F now.

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Well water is generally safe and you don't have any mining or agriculture nearby so it should be ok. If you are really concerned you could filter the water with activated carbon before using it. Just use a small power filter with some activated carbon and let it run on a bucket of well water for a day. That will absorb pretty much any chemicals that might be in the water.

You can also have carbon in the filter on the main tank but it will absorb medications or plant fertilisers so has to be removed if you use them. But I would try heat treatment first and if the problem hasn't settled in 2 weeks then look at the water or other possible issues

 

[SorryEh]

The main issue with heat treatment is lack of oxygen in the water. Increasing surface turbulence will maximise the oxygen levels for the fish.

Clean water, gravel and filter will help to maximise the oxygen levels by reducing bacteria feeding on the waste. The bacteria use a lot of oxygen.

The other issue is increasing the temperature slowly. If the tank is 24C (75F) then raise the temperature about 2-3C per day until you reach 30C (86F). If the temp is 27-28C (81-82F) then just raise it to 30C (86F).

You raised the temp to 81F a week ago so just raise it to 86F now.

-------------------------
Well water is generally safe and you don't have any mining or agriculture nearby so it should be ok. If you are really concerned you could filter the water with activated carbon before using it. Just use a small power filter with some activated carbon and let it run on a bucket of well water for a day. That will absorb pretty much any chemicals that might be in the water.

You can also have carbon in the filter on the main tank but it will absorb medications or plant fertilisers so has to be removed if you use them. But I would try heat treatment first and if the problem hasn't settled in 2 weeks then look at the water or other possible issues

Sounds good, I am starting the heat treatment right now. I run carbon in my filter currently. Still no visible signs of anything on them, I am going to start heating it up after this water change I am going to do.

 

[SorryEh]

Update, I have done 75% water change, cleaned the entire filter (boy was it a mess, I hadn't messed with it since I got the tank so the bacteria could get full established, lets just say I should of cleaned it weeks ago) scrubbed the glass, and put nice fresh water in. The temperature is at 85, I am having trouble with one of my heaters so I might have to keep it at 85, that should be fine right?

 

[Colin_T]

85F is borderline but if that's all the heaters will do then keep it there for 2 weeks minimum. If possible keep it there for 3 weeks.

When you do water changes during heat treatment, warm the new water up to 85F before adding it to the tank.

 

[DeniseTed]

Thank you for the reply. I will certainly do a massive water change in the morning and do all the steps you said, I will raise the temperature when I get my new air pump tomorrow. I just fed everyone and did an inspection and there is no gold like sheen or white spots on anyone...yet. One question I have about raising the temperature is are there any other issues to be worried about, never had any of my tanks above 82 degrees. I am fairly certain the well water is good, I live at the foot of hill which has no large agricultural or mining activities or anything of the sort, also I have used this water for a long amount of time before this. I have been reading up on ich and I saw that one of the first stages is seeing the white spots, which is strange because I have no observed anything of the sort. Either way I will follow your instruction to kill this thing off.

Thanks for the reply again

When my pink convict cichlid started rubbing against it's rocks yet showed no signs of illness, I watched and waited to observe. They do use their bellies to move sand around normally. Rubbing on rocks is different and when I noticed it happening more than on occasion, I did a water change, vacuuming and treated water with Melafix. Seems it's tea tree oil based and smells great. So I treated as directed on bottle and the rubbing stopped.

 

[SorryEh]

When my pink convict cichlid started rubbing against it's rocks yet showed no signs of illness, I watched and waited to observe. They do use their bellies to move sand around normally. Rubbing on rocks is different and when I noticed it happening more than on occasion, I did a water change, vacuuming and treated water with Melafix. Seems it's tea tree oil based and smells great. So I treated as directed on bottle and the rubbing stopped.

I will research that, thanks. It's only one of them I have seen use the sand, the rest use the rocks

 

[SorryEh]

One of the cichlids is showing extremely weird swimming patterns, he is darting in circles in the middle of the tank, it could just be due to the increased breeding interest there has been between him and a female, but it is quite rapid. He is eating and does not have any visible signs on him of parasites of any sort, he does have a whitish tint to his face, under is mouth area.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish could be stressing out due to heat but it depends on the cichlid. African Rift Lake cichlids have more problems with heat than South/ Central American. However, lots of fish become sexually excited and start breeding when there is a slight temperature increase and this is often accompanied by males displaying different colours/ patterns and display behaviour to attract females.

If you can post a short video clip of the fish swimming erratically it might help with identifying the issue. Just post it on youtube and put the web address here and we can view it at youtube