Aquarium Superbug?

[awesometimmyj]

i recently bought a new platy. it turned out it was sick and the diseases spread to its new tank mates. i tried all the medicines and aquarium salt and nothing worked. half my livebearers have died and i lost another this morning. does anyone know a treatment that will cure diseases fast? i noticed ick, fin rot, and mouth fungus, so the treatment has to work for all of them. i need responses quick because three more fish are showing signs of sickness. 

 

[DeanoL83]

i'm not too familiar with the medications or treatment required sorry, but have a couple suggestions which may help.
 
1. If you have a separate tank handy maybe remove those fish which look the most sick to hopefully stop the spread of the disease.
 
2. Have you done a water change?  Maybe a large water change for a few days in a row may help and give time to treat any symptoms? 
 
 
A few other questions.....
 
What other fish are in the tank?
Do you have any water stats for your tank?
Were any other fish bought recently or just the single platy?
 
 
Sorry I couldn't be much more help now....hopefully some of the other experts here will answer soon.

 

[awesometimmyj]

i have no other tank but i will do the water change. My tank had about ten platies and swordtails, a guppy, three tetras, a gourami, two corys, a pleco, white clouds and danios. now i have lost the danios, white clouds, the guppy, and most of my platies. i havn't seen my pleco for a while either. i only bought the one platy because it had the rare crescent pattern on its tail. here are my water stats : carbonate hardness was 40, general harness was way high at 180, ph was 6.5, nitrite was 0, nitrate was also high at 150. i believe the problems are caused BY the deaths because they were alright right up until the first death.

 

[fluttermoth]

How big is your tank, OP, and do you have a test result for ammonia? Are you using liquid (or tablet) style tests or the paper strip kind? How long has your tank been set up?

 

[awesometimmyj]

my tank is 35 gallons, the tests are on a paper strip, the tank has been up for more than a year, and the ammonia result was zero. also, there is more bad news. another platy and a swordtail are becoming sick, and my two corys are acting strange. i need help FAST because so far, there's been a 100 percent death rate - no fish have recovered.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Can you post a close up pic of one of these sick fish.
 
And describe any symptoms, the more details the better, white spots, cotton patches, red sores, red gill, lethargic swimming, swimming at bottom or at water surface  etc etc
 
And perhaps you could mentions if you've added anything new to the tank, new fish or decor, plants substrate etc
 
Lastly, would change the paper strip tests, these can be innaccurate, i would recommend you use a liquid or tablet based test kit, more accurate and reliable. API master test kit is one such example that is popular amongst keepers.

 

[DeanoL83]

A nitrate reading of 150 is very high....maybe your tank is too overstocked?  What sort of filter do you have?
 
I would be doing large water changes every day or two to keep those nitrates down.  Also consider putting more live plants in to help.
 
In my very unprofessional opinion, I would say that nitrates of 150 could be whats contributing to the illnesses.

 

[Bubbelzzz]

A nitrate reading of 150 is very high....maybe your tank is too overstocked?  What sort of filter do you have?
 
I would be doing large water changes every day or two to keep those nitrates down.  Also consider putting more live plants in to help.
 
In my very unprofessional opinion, I would say that nitrates of 150 could be whats contributing to the illnesses.

 
If the diagnosis of the first post is right, then I would totally agree. These diseases only occur if the fish are not kept very well.
Even though test strips are known te be very inaccurate, I cannot imagine that they would be off with 150. So i would consider adding more plants, especially the ones that float will really decrease the amount of NO3. However, I would also recommend to do a large water change of at least 50% for a couple of days. 

 

[awesometimmyj]

I had several moneywort plants in the tank but around the time the fish got sick they all died, so I doubt adding plants would help.
 some of them had spots like the ich, they all had fin rot, and one had some growth on her mouth. a lot of them developed the flat or indented stomach that you see in unhealthy livebearers, and they stopped eating and swimming about a day before dying. Also, the platy was the only new addition to my tank for about a month. the only other cause I can think of was a group of swordtail fry born around the time I got the new platy. but I moved them to a small tank before the disease started. It is possible that the disease has now killed all its hosts and is gone. I have no pictures because the last two fish with symptoms died this morning.