# API Tetracycle?!??!?!? Almost killed my fish?!



## autumnwhiteee (Nov 22, 2016)

My moms tank has cichlids, and some of them have fin rot. We put some medication in for fin rot and other diseases twice, and it didnt work. A few weeks later she bought the API Tetracycle medication and all of her fish, even the healthy ones, went to a corner of the tank and sat at the bottom. They were rapidly moving their fins and looked like they were going to die. One of them even looked like it was tilting to the side a little bit. We immediately did about a 20% water change. A few of them started twitching weirdly, like a twitch in their head to their middle almost? Although After about 2 minutes they began to look better. Within 5-10 minutes they moved out of the corner and started to head to the middle of the tank where they usually swim and started acting more normal.

Does anyone know what this was? Why it happened?
We followed all the directions on the package so i dont understand why this happened..


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. It sounds like the fish are under a considerable amount of stress. With that being the case, you have to understand that the fish are already in the process of dying from what's going on. Adding additional stressors, even though they may be beneficial in nature, can have a negative impact on things.

I think you did the right thing doing a partial waterchange - that's always the first thing to do when something looks like it's going very wrong. Perhaps next time you're in such a situation, it would be better for you to administer the medicine in 2 doses rather than all at once. That will give them a chance to adjust a bit before the mess get to full strength.

Without more information it's really tough to offer any other advice. What kinds of diseases are you fighting?


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## autumnwhiteee (Nov 22, 2016)

Just fin rot and its about a 35 gallon aquarium with around 7 cichlids (biggest is about 4 inches) and a pleco (about 5 inches)


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

You had mention "fin rot and other diseases", which is why I asked.

Fin rot is almost always a result of water quality, which also manifests itself in a variety of other diseases as well. What kind of maintenance do you do? What kind of filtration do you have?


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## autumnwhiteee (Nov 22, 2016)

no water changes for a while and since the fin rot came probably 30% every 2 weeks because it had the medication in it


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Without providing more information, such as water test results, list of species, tanks filtration, history of illness, etc, I don't know what else to tell you.


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## aussieJJDude (Jun 9, 2012)

Even though I don't have a comprehensive list of your water quality, frequent - some reccomend even daily - water changes can help. around 25% every few days will help, and let time heal them as well. If necessary, upgrading to a larger tank can help. A pleco - aka: the poop machine - and cichlids are not going to have stable and a healthy water quality, especially if water changes were not in effect for a few weeks.


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