Flicking Fish

[STORM8104]

Hi, I have had my 240 litre tank up and running for 4 months now.
It has an external 305 filter. It's also heavily planted.
I added 6 new fish last weekend ( my lfs said this amount wouldnt cause a minicycle..well it did! )


My stats are
amonia:0.25ppm,
nitrite:0ppm,
nitrate:10ppm,
temp:25C
PH:7

Current tank population: 6 neon tetras, 3 platys, 2 red honey gourami, 3 bronze cory, 2 julii cory, i BN catfish, 2 albino cory, 4 black neon tetra, 3 clown loach, 2 dwarf blue gourami.

I have done 2 x 20% changes and added dechlorinator since the changes in amonia started to show up a few days ago.
However as well as a rise in amonia my fish have started to flash against plants and my corys against the sand substrate.
They did this a while ago so i treat them with sterazin and they stopped.
I cant see any white spots or slime, no red gills, although they do seem a bit crazy at times, raceing around the place, then hiding. Some have slightly stringy poo, some dont.
4 fish have since died and i am gutted to say the least, they seemed fine one minute, dead the next. I am totally clueless and still really new to the hobby. My fish seemed pretty happy before I added the new ones, laying eggs and building bubble nests and I think I have really screwed up somewhere. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as Im confused and disheartned,
thanks so much.

 

[geo7x]

The fish are flicking because of the elevated levels of ammonia in the tank.

Has the ammonia gone down yet? If not then carry on doing regular water changes (with dechlorinator as usual) until the ammonia level stays at 0.

Once the ammonia is down the fish should stop flicking. Don't worry, you haven't screwed up, once the ammonia goes down to 0 the fish will be fine.

 

[STORM8104]

The fish are flicking because of the elevated levels of ammonia in the tank.

Has the ammonia gone down yet? If not then carry on doing regular water changes (with dechlorinator as usual) until the ammonia level stays at 0.

Once the ammonia is down the fish should stop flicking. Don't worry, you haven't screwed up, once the ammonia goes down to 0 the fish will be fine.

Thanks so much for replying I'm sorry it has taken so long to post a reply, I have had major pc problems and was unable to post
I have been checking the levels every day and yesterday they finally returned to normal.
Amonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 10ppm.
The survivors are still flicking but not as bad. My clown loaches look as though they have whitespot (dusted with salt) at first I thought it was sand sticking but after a day of them not looking any better I thought I'd better start to treat the tank before it gets any worse, im using Interpet no6 and have turned the temp up slightly to 26/27oc. I hope this is ok?
Could anyone tell me a safe number of fish to add at once from now on as I really dont want this to happen again..Thanks for your help..

 

[chicklette]

Well it’s good your water parameters are stable now. That’s good. I would still carry out some water changes. The fish probably got ick from the poor water parameters and it probably stressed them out.

They can be flashing from the ick and the poor water parameters.

White string poo is due to a bacterial infection or parasites. I would definitely treat the tank for ick. Personally I love rid ick +. It had always worked for me. Be sure to take the carbon out while medicating as it removes the medication.

Don’t as salt as corys and loaches are sensitive to salt.

Looks like you are having a couple of problems; I hope it works for you.

Good Luck!