Please Help :(

[caige]

I found a dead fish in my tank, with it's body deteriorating. I took it out and performed a mass cleaning of my tank.. I changed about 75% of the water.

Anywho, before I cleaned the tank I had about 4 fish die and now I noticed that my Red Tail Shark, Tiger Barb and Cherry Barb have white spots on it. AS well as my two Angel Fish keep sitting in the top corner of my tank.

What do I do? Any help would be great.

Thanks!

 

[the_lock_man]

First thing you need to do is answer a few more questions.

How big is the tank, and what have you got in there (both before and after the deaths)? How long has it been set up and how did you cycle the filter (ie how did you grow the 2 colonies of bacteria)?

Have you done a recent water test? What kind of test kit did you use? What are your results for pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate (in numbers not verbal descriptions)?

These white spots on the fish, can you describe them or post a photo? Do they look like little grains of salt, or are they a bit bigger, like little tufts of cotton wool?

 

[caige]

I had this whole thing typed out and it didn't post.

Basically, I think it's something called Ich. My fish have white spots on it.

My Tiger Barb went missing for a few weeks it was dead and stuck hiding, and allowed the body to deteriorate in the water. I believe that is what started for all my fish to die. Since I found the body 4 fish died and I performed a 75% water change.

My tank has been up for 8 months. Levels are normal, PH is a little high due to the water in my area. But I've been using 50% filtered store bought water to lower ph.

I have 2 Angel Fish (they stick at the top corner of my tank and don't move much)
4 Cherry Barbs (2 died so now I'm at 2) (white spots all over them)
6 Tiger Barbs (2 died, so now I'm at 4)
3 Turquoise Rainbow (1 died, so now I'm at 2)(white spots all over it)
1 Red Tail Shark (white spots all over it)
6 Panda Corydora
1 Blue Powder Gourami
1 Honey Gourami
4 Danios
1 Pictus Catfish (died)

http/www.my-tropical-fish.com/images/ich.gif

http/www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http/www.vet.cornell.edu/microbiology/FishDisease/aquaticprog/highlights/Ich/ICH1.JPG&imgrefurl=http/www.vet.cornell.edu/public/fishdisease/aquaticprog/highlights/Ich/Ich.htm&usg=__a64LoyBTtXm5c-1RDut-5VMte0I=&h=288&w=360&sz=134&hl=en&start=6&zoom=1&tbnid=GlIjCaF_gKEZhM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=121&ei=oxu4ToHwHerm0QGjhunRBw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dich%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1

http/tropical-fish-pictures.blogspot.com/2010/12/white-spot-tropical-fish-disease.html

 

[nanoMama86]

Pop down to your local fish store and pick up some QuIck Cure. There are other products, but with this bad of an infestation, you need the big guns. It is going to take longer to treat than it says on the bottle.

 

[caige]

they didn't have any quick cure. But they did give me something to cure Ich from API.

 

[caige]

I'm not sure if the medication worked or not, I followed the instructions to cure ich, but half my fish already died and I'm not 100% sure if it's safe to put in new fish or not.

- I added the medication as per instructions and left it for 48 hours
- added the same dose as per instructions and left it for another 48 hours
- turned filter back on and did a 25% water change.

during those 96 hours half my fish died and I don't see any fish with white spots on it anymore.


Does anyone have any suggestions or can further guide me?

Thanks!

 

[HayzH]

96 hours with no filter?

 

[colleen0309]

You shouldn't have turned off the filter. Remove any carbon from the filter and left it running. Hopefully you haven't lost all of your beneficial bacteria. I would not get more fish right away. Wait to see if you get a big ammonia spike. If you do, do very large water changes every day until ammonia and nitrites go down and stay down to 0.

 

[caige]

No, I left the filter in for the first 72 hours, but was recommended to take it out about 24 hours ago. I'm actually not sure what the carbon filter is, it's one of those already made ones that I just pop-in and out.

Sorry I typed the wrong thing in my prior post, I've edited it.

Would it work to just buy a small 10 gallon tank, transfer all my fish to that one while I do a full-tank clean top to bottom and just use 100% fresh new water?

 

[the_lock_man]

There are various different parts to a filter, for various jobs. Generally, you get sponges, to take physical debris out of the water (mechanical filtration), ceramic noodles, rings, tubes or whatever, to grow bacteria on (biological filtration), and activated carbon, for taking heavy metals out of the water (chemical filtration).

Most aquarium medications are based on heavy metals, so the manufacturers recommend that you remove carbon from your filter. They never recommend taking the entire filter out, as this will poison your fish. In the 24 hours or so that you removed the filter, ammonia will have built up in the water, and your fish were already weakened from the whitespot and the whitespot treatment (which is basically poisonous to the fish as well, but hopefully at such a low strength that it doesn't actually kill them). I reckon that's what has caused these deaths.

If you can take a photo of the internal bits in the filter, and post it up, we can tell you which bit is which, if you like.