Is My Tank Infected ?

[Faythee]

Long story short....

Added 2 Gouramis
1 week later see one Gouramis lip looks weird
days later....1 dead Danio with no symptoms
Treat tank with Maracyn
Notice tetra has cloudy eyes...dead next day
Continue to treat tank and use Maryox as well because I noticed a white spot near injury
Today the Gourami was dead even though he looked better and ate yesterday

Rest of the fish appear fine except for one Danio whose belly is HUGE. Has been for weeks and I have tried peas. Apparantly the antibiotic hasn't helped either.

I want to remove all my fish (except corys) this weekend and return to LFS. I was going to do it before, they got ill so tried to doctor them first which didn't work

Now I am afraid to add new fish thinking the tank itself may be infected. I suppose I could just do alot of water changes first.....but could it still remain in the sand substrate and on plants ? Would the antibiotic have killed it all ?

 

[lil.guppy]

With that medicine make sure you have alot of circulation and areation. Take out your carbon. Dont add new fish to the tank. Remove dead fish ASAP. Once everyone is all well, you do daily partial water changes and add your carbon to remove the medicine. I would wait a few weeks until you know the medicine is out of the tank before adding anything new to it.
For future reference incase this happens again, it is better to treat fish in a seperate tank rather then in the community. It lowers the risk of infecting and stressin the other fish out. Some people even quarentine new fish for a week or two before adding them to their current community tank.
Hope this helps!

 

[doresy]

Test your water and state the levels for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and Ph.

Always should be the first thing to you do whenever a problem arises then go from there

 

[Faythee]

Thanks. I did do all that. I removed carbon, followed medication instructions (5 days), added a bubbler....plus have 2 hob filters. etc. etc. etc.

No ammonia or nitrite. Nitrates approx. 10, ph a tad high at 7.5-7.8 (my tapwater) but don't think that would cause it.

I treated the whole tank because it appeared to be more than one ill fish. I think it was the Gourami to start with. I have never had luck with them. They all seem to be ill in the stores around here. I have lost a total 4 now. I do have 1 very healthy Opaline in another tnak and 1 pearl left in this tank ....so have lost 4 out of 6 in the past 8 months. No more Gouramis for me.


I guess my question was......will numerous water changes be safe to later add fish or do I need to completely strip the tank and start over ? I would like to keep my 3 Corys in there and they cannot go to my big tank or will get eaten. Thank you !

 

[mikev]

Long story short....

Added 2 Gouramis
1 week later see one Gouramis lip looks weird
days later....1 dead Danio with no symptoms
Treat tank with Maracyn
....

Maracyn (Erythromycin) is a nearly useless drug: it is effective only against gram-pos bacteria, and almost every pathogenic bacteria in aquaria is gram-neg. The only common bacteria it is good against is BGA... In some cases it does some good when used with Minocycline, but mostly it is just a waste of time and $.

Use either a gram-neg drug (Minocycline) or a drug effective against both gram-neg and gram-pos (Furon, Kana,...)

hth.

 

[Faythee]

I am sorry I should have specifed Maracyn-2 which I believe is for the gram negative.

 

[mikev]

Minocycline (M2) is a decent drug and what you are describing does seem bacterial. You never know now which antibiotic will work because of resistance.

Overall, IME the two drugs most likely to succeed are Furan and Kana, in this sequence. Can be used together for extra push, but using them together will knock out the biofilter in most cases. Using Furan externally and Kana internally (food) is probably the strongest safe combination. Minocycline is the 3rd choice for me.

hth