Help My Fish Are Dying (Hole In The Head)

[mmiller26]

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Tank size:30 gal
pH:7.5
ammonia:0
nitrite:0
nitrate:40ppm
kH:unkown
gH:unknown
tank temp:80

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):
I have a blue gourami who has what im positive is hole in the head disease. there's one large white hole right on the top of his head and another smaller one developing closer to his face. he also had a spot of damaged area on his right chin area which looked different, it was more red and seems to be healing. I had taken a sample of water to the pet store a couple weeks ago and she said the paremeters were good except my nitrate was a little high and to do more frequent water changes. I showed her a picture of my fish and she said it looked like ich (the lesion was smaller then). I went home changed 50% of the water. Last week, i removed the carbon filter and began treating for ich with ich medicine and after the second day, my fish started acting weird. on the third day I lost 3 of my rasboras and another one on the fourth day. now all of my fish are acting weird, my dwarf gourami is getting a white spot on his head and my fishes fins all look tattered. they are dropping like flies

I have stopped treating for ich obviously because thats not what my fish has, I did another water change, and added a new carbon filter. my tank is cloudy and my fish are still acting strange and I dont want to lose any more of them. 

Volume and Frequency of water changes:
I had unfortunately, neglected to keep up with my water changes but usually I change 50% once per month as well as vacumming any waste. I have upped it to 25% every week.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:
I have a penguin filter with carbon and I added in Fluval Clearmax as I had been told this would help reduce unbeneficial bacteria and keep the tank clear

Tank inhabitants: 1 blue gourami 1 yellow gouramil 1 angelfish 1 dwarf gourami, 1 small pleco, 2 white tetras, 6 rasboras

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):
none

Exposure to chemicals:
just the ich medicine
 
Please help, Thanks

 

[DrSlackBladder]

I'm no expert in fish illness, being pretty new to fish keeping myself.  But from lots of reading, it seems that your fish have suffered from poor stocking and poor water quality for some time.  I'm sure someone else will chime in on specific treatments and/or diagnosis, but if I were you I'd be changing 50% water with temperature matched dechlorinated water every day.  It can only help.  And get an API liquid test kit so you can test water yourself rather than relying on the LFS!  Good luck, hope it not too late.

 

[DreamertK]

Usually they say that hith is caused by poor water quality. The best thing you can do for your gourami is to do daily water changes as DrSlack says. Its completely reversible if you start changing the water right after you read this message! That means now!

 

[mmiller26]

Thanks for the help I will do my best and update on how it goes. 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I've never experienced this, but the article I'm linking to was posted yesterday and contains some very good information regarding HITH and HLLE.
 
LINK
 
 
Ultimately, there are also pathogens that are responsible for HITH, but poor water quality can leave the fish vulnerable.  If I were you, I'd start with MASSIVE water changes - 90% daily and watch for any improvement (take PICTURES, so that you can compare each day's progress).  If it starts to get better, keep up the water changes... if it continues to get worse, seek the meds described in the article.  No guarantee that the meds will work, but if the water changes alone don't do it, its possible the meds will.
 
 
And in the future, you need to find time to do 25% weekly changes all the time.  I aim to do 25% weekly, 50% monthly and a 75% every 6 months or so.  Clean water is the only real option for your fish.  If you are upset about "wasting" that much water, use it to water your house plants, garden, etc.  This water is TREMENDOUSLY great for plants, terrestrial as well as aquatic.

 

[BerryAttack]

if you use tap water make sure you treat it ... thats all i got xD

 

[balajake]

I think your stocking is alot for a 30 gallon and I would be aiming for 50% water change a week. I do at least 60% weekly and have always done it on my big and small tanks. Fish that are used to it adore large water changes. 40ppm of nitrate isn't what I would call high though, I'd say that was pretty normal.

I'm not a fan of small water changes, I like large and frequent ones, but I do think they should be introduced slowly to fish that aren't used to them.water quality is key and there is so much more going on in a tank that just what you can see.

 

[timandbeth]

One thing which can be a common problem treating fish for a disease is your carbon filter. They are designed to chemically clean the water and remove and such substance, if you treat your fish for the disease then the carbon filter will remove it as it would any other chemical. 
 
While you do the course of treatment, take this filter out and replace a week or so afterwards.
 
Hope this helps!

 

[balajake]

Carbon only really works for a week or two from new. After that its just useful as an extra media for colonising good Bacteria

 

[byork]

Which ick med did you use? Are the fish still eating? Try medicated food oxytetracycline and metronidazole are readily available. Have you added salt? Can you post a photo of one of the fish?