Terrible Dire State, I Don't Think There Is Anything Else I Can Do

[DEANO72]

Hi,
First post,
but unfortunately not a good one.
I have a 180litre tank, and have been keeping fish for four years and not a single death due to illness ( I guess I was lucky).
Three weeks ago, I bought three new baby Clown loaches to keep my other 2 (four yearold ones) happy. Until last thursday everything was great, no obvious signs of stress, no problems....or so I thought.
I then spotted some Ick on the new baby loaches and also then on my tetras......
To cut a long story short, 4 days later (yes I started by raising the temp to 28C and using King British WS3 for Ick, this was as SOON as I noticed the whitespots on the loaches) I have lost 15 fish!!!!!Including my 4year old loach pair.
I now have only 4 fish left (2 black ruby barbs, and 2 golden barbs) which seem to be unaffected through all this, the male ruby is still chasing the female and is his normal nice red colour......
Throughout all this death my stats have been : -
Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 12.5
Nitrite= 0
These stats have been the one thing I am happy with....lol
My question is this, if the remainder survive, how long will I be able to wait until I can start to re-stock (slowly though)?
Also, if they all die, and I then wait how long will my bacteria in my external eheim survive for without fish (as I do not want to start stocking straight away if ick is still present (though I assume the free swimming stages of Ick will be gone soon, as there are no spots on any remainder fish and I am still treating the water).

Any advice please will be great....It is a real downer over xmas and the newyear to lose your 4 year old fish , they were a funny pair......
Cheers,
Dean

 

[WILDER]

If the clown loaches were four years old they need to be in a 90gal tank by now,have you increased aeration as med and the high temp will reduce 02 alot in the tank, are they laboured breathing.

Sorry about the 4 years old clown loaches such a shame when you had them all that time. R.I.P.

 

[DEANO72]

yep, forgot to mention i have an air curtain in there and also my spray bar on full
the four year old were only 4.5 inches long.....
None of the fish (that died) were labouring for breath at the surface. And the remainder look fine too

 

[WILDER]

You didn't over dose the med did you, also sometimes you have to half dose with whitespot meds with certain fish as they are funny with the meds, especially clown loaches, some tetra's, and cory and plecs can be abit funny, and some fish can't tolerate high temps.

 

[DEANO72]

the dose of the ws3 was 1 drop per 7 litres, so that would make 26 drops, i used 13.....

 

[WILDER]

The only other thing i can think of is that the new fish fetched something else into the tank with them, did the new clown loaches die.

 

[DEANO72]

yep new loaches died they went very quickly (on friday and saturday)
If they broght some other disease into the tank as well as ich, how would I best prepare the tank for re-stocking?

 

[WILDER]

I would wait a least a month before you add any new fish, as to wipe that many fish out, i think they also fetched some else in with them.

 

[DEANO72]

ok, how about my filter, will that be ok to run with reduced fish (or no fish if the remainder die) ?? I don't want my bacteria to die and start the need to cycle again, since my water stats are nice

 

[WILDER]

As if the other don't survive only a if, you will have to strip the tank down and start again, by sterlising everything.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

The meds won't be able to affect the whitespot parasite until it has passed its visable stage, here is a link explaining on how the parasite lives and effects the fish ;

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=7092

So things may get a little worse before they get better unfortunatly, the reason why you raise the temp is to help speed up the parasites life cycle so the meds can kill it off quicker. Personally i would not buy fish for at least 2-3weeks after the whitespots have disapeared as the parasite can have a habit of coming back after it has seemingly been wiped out.
Lots of small water changes with dechlorinator will help get the fish through the worst, what do you feed your fish? Altering their diet a bit may help give them some energy . Other than that, all i can advise you to do is to keep medicating the tank with the whitespot med and keep an eye on the levels of med in the water.

 

[WILDER]

If the other fish die, you will have to start cycling again, as i would sterlise the filter and throw the sponges away, or boil them a couple of times in the microwave.

 

[DEANO72]

thanks tokis, since the remainder fish are still alive i will keep on medicating. I have read about the free swimming/post cyst stage, and hope the meds will do their work.
I guess it was just too virilant too quickly? my local LFS said that there are some virilant versions of ich around at the mo (??) I will keep on changing water and dechlorinate (is stresscoat good?)
Cheers, dean

 

[WILDER]

Don't no never used it sorry, it's a shame that you have lost so many fish, just hope the remaining fish survive, good luck.

http/cichlid-forum.com/articles/ich.php

 

[tttnjfttt]

I couldn't see how using stress coat could hurt. The theory behind it is to help replace the natural slime coat all fish have. With ich, the parasites are in the fish skin, and then burst open. So I could see the stress coat feeling good. Maybe a compairison for this would be aloe vera on a sunburn.