Decimated Tank

[purple_drazi]

I had a major problem with black beard algae and the only thing that eats it is the siamese flying fox. The only other solution was to rip out all of the afflicted plants (which was all of them) and replace them, and scrub everything else in the tank... so I chose to go the SAE route.
Bought four of them & put 'em in.
That was 3 weeks ago.

Since then I've lost 7 neons, both of my ottos, 2 of the SAEs, 2 panda cats and finally last Wednesday, a guppy.
%^$%&*!!!!
The only sign of sickness (other than all of my fish dropping like flies) that I saw was that the last fish to go, the guppy, was hovering in one place, seemed to be breathing really hard and had long, clear poop. Oh, and one of the neons had an ulcer on the top of its head before it croaked. With both of them, as soon as I saw evidence of sickness I put them into the quarantine tank. For all of the others there was no sign of sickness until I'd see the body.

I was on the phone to the lfs but all they could suggest was that it was a fungus and that "it happens sometimes". !! They claim that the SAEs were clean, the breeder is reputable and that they haven't heard of this problem from anyone else. Right. Whatever.

Nobody's died since Wednesday so I'm hoping that the "whatever it was" has worked its way through, the remaining fish have built up immunity and that we're out of the woods (though I'm not holding my breath).

I'm going to have to rebuild my community. Do I need to be concerned about the tank being infected?
How long should I give it before I try putting anyone new in there. Is 2 weeks enough? 3?

 

[WILDER]

Were they flicking and rubbing against objects with the heavy breathing, also were there gill red and inflamed,also how many of them have the clear poo, and the ulcer on the head needed to be treated with an anti internal bacteria med,

 

[pica_nuttalli]

it almost sounds to me like you had some sort of internal parasite infest the tank. i'd wait 6 weeks myself, and see what happens. i suggest such a long wait so that some additional time can be given for the parasite's life cycle to reboot. if the sudden deaths occur again, then you can be reasonably sure that its a parasitic problem.