# Sick Fish....HELP!!



## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

We have just started a new tank (as in 4 months old). We complete the full cycling as directed and started stocking fish. Everything was going good and fish looked great. Last Sat. I noticed white spots on 1 of our fish so as directed by LFS I started treating for Ich. We did 25% water change, took out the charcoal filter and added medication. Started to raise temp to 80-81 degrees and took out a dwarf frog we had as I was told this treatment would not be good for him. Ich started to disapear and things were looking good. Tuesday I noticed our pleco started to turn white??? As mentioned on the bottle I went ahead and decided to only do a 1/2 treatment to lower the amount of med to help with the pleco. I came home Wed. to find an awful smell from our tank. We noticed the Pleco was died, lying on the bottom the of tank and honestly looked like he rotted away completly?? Was this from the Ich treatment or something different? We then noticed that one of our dwarf barbs was also dead but his body looked health? We decided to only do another 1/2 treatment as most of the Ich seems to be disapearing, however noticed that 3 more spots showed up on our Gouronmi today. This morning (Thursday) we found 2 other fish not looking so good. 1 dawrf gourami is hovering at the top very lathargic and the other is a platty that seems have slimmed down ALOT and most of it's fins are gone? I tested the water and it shows the PH is good, the Alkalinity is at the highest (but was told thats from the Ich treatment) The Nitrites are 0 and the Nitrates are between 20-30. I couldn't test for the ammonia as I ran out of the testing stuff, I will pick some up today. We are planning on a water change as I was told to do one after 3-4 days of treatment to help ride the parasite in the gravel. I am hoping that it will help with the water as well since we have dying fish??? 

What else can we do as I'm not sure it's just Ich????

55gallon Tank with undergravel filter (2 Tubes. w/charcoal), 2 Power heads to help with water flow
1 Gold Gourami, 2 Blue Gourami (babies), 2 Dwarf sunset Gourami, 1 Dwarf Paradise Gourami, 5 Dwarf Tiger Barbs, 2 Rosy Barbs, 1 Tinfoil Barb, 1 Redtail Shark, 1 Bala Shark, 4 Platty's, 1 Glass Catfish, 6 Tail & Fin Healights


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## TwinDad (Mar 3, 2011)

What Ich medicine did you use? Also the nitrates are a bit high, but I'm not sure if it is medicine related.

Also can you provide pictures?


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

I ran out at lunch a picked up Ammonia test stuff, and went ahead a retested everything since those number were from last night. Here is the latest. Ammonia: 0, Nitrate: 30, Nitrite: 0, Hardness: 75, Alkalinity: 300, PH: 8.5. 
Kordon Rid-Ich is the Ich treatment I am using.


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

Had another fish die lastnight, but it was the dwarf gourami that was floating at the top. Very strange as his head started to "blow up" and his eyes sunk into his head???? Couldn't find anything on line about those symptoms??? HELP!!!! I still have the 1 dwarf barb that is acting funny.....spastic really. 

Completed water change last night and retested everything this morning, water quality hasn't changed much, the PH has come down to 8.0 and the hardness has dropped a little. That's about it, Nitrate is still the same.


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

*new symptom*

Had another fish die lastnight, but it was the dwarf gourami that was floating at the top. Very strange as his head started to "blow up" and his eyes sunk into his head???? Couldn't find anything on line about those symptoms??? HELP!!!! I still have the 1 dwarf barb that is acting funny.....spastic really. 

Completed water change last night and retested everything this morning, water quality hasn't changed much, the PH has come down to 8.0 and the hardness has dropped a little. That's about it, Nitrate is still the same.


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## condiman (May 15, 2011)

What was your pH when you started your aquarium. Because your current pH is high.


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## excal88 (Apr 4, 2011)

Yes, your current pH is borderline deadly for your fish; usually you don't want it going above 8.2 at the most.


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

My Ph has always been high.....bounces around 8-8.5, how can I lower it?


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## condiman (May 15, 2011)

What is the pH directly out of your tap?


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## SeaHorse (Dec 27, 2010)

Hi Michelle9843. I'm very sorry for your troubles... we've all been there!!
Take a moment to test your tap water as you must know your tap water numbers. I have been running a tank here in Ontario for 4 years now, with low ammonia .25 coming straight from the tap and a PH of 8.2 to 8.4. No deaths from PH at all. I do make sure that any new fish are entered slowly by resting the bag in the water and every 5 minutes over the course of about 40 minutes I trickle TANK water in to equalize/adjust any PH levels same as I would equalize the temperature in the bag to the temp in the tank. Do you do this too? 
You need to know all of your tap water settings. It is not the high PH that is deadly, but big changes in the PH. All the fish at the LFS are in the same 8.2 tap water. I still equalize it just in case. 
I would highly highly not recommend you try to adjust your PH because any addictive is only temporary and it will shift back on it's own. Plus you will be adding more water due to water changes. It is the sudden changes that are deadly. 
NitrAte of 30 is high. 
Do another water change or two to try to get it down to 10-20. If your tap water is 20 then that is the goal. 
Having said all of those "normal" numbers above, I would never attempt anything like Discus that needs an acidic water. It would be futile. I am better to home African Cichlids but as you can see from my aquarium list I do not have any. 

Now at this point.... who/what is left in the aquarium? 
When you buy new fish do you buy small numbers 2-3 at a time? so that you don't throw off the bio load and cause a mini cycle? Do you have any live plants? 
If you are using an undergravel filter do you also have a HOB? How will you remove meds with carbon when treatment is finished.? 
I'm not sure how you can rid yourself of the parisite from the gravel by doing a water change...? something is not right there. If you brought in a slow acting disease from one of the fish you may have to let it run it's course. Then tear down and clean the tank and start over. That is the worst case scenario... I don't think you are dealing strictly with ich. Hopefully one of our more experienced members can jump in with a treatment for the tank, but it really depends now on what inhabitants are left...? good luck.


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## excal88 (Apr 4, 2011)

Actually, there are a few natural ways of lowering your pH. One is the addition of drift wood, and letting the tannins leak out into the water. It'll make the water brown though. Another is the use of peat moss, or a peat ball, and you let it soak and it'll bring down your pH as well. Finally, which is the way that I use, is the mixture of RO or distilled water with tap water. I use something like .5-1 gallon of tap water for 4-5 gallons of RO/distilled water. I mix the two, use my dechlorinator, and then when I do water changes I use the mixture. It'll slowly bring down the pH, but it'll take some time. My tap water pH was between 8.2-8.0, and since using the mixture its gone down to 7.4 or so. 

These are natural ways of lowering your pH, and as mentioned, I would not use chemicals as they drop the pH too fast and do not last. 

In terms of the cause being a fish disease, that could be the case as well, but you should ask Byron or bettababy. They have a large information pool, so they should help you out in this case if its a fish disease or not. Best of luck!


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

My tank seems to be looking at little better. At least no more dead fish over the weekend. I went to my LFS and took in some water as well as the dead fish. They were SHOCKED to say the least, my water was ok considering. They said for my area the PH is normal and everyone here has high PH as we have a very high PH content in our tap water so the fish should be adjusted to that pretty well. As for the nitrate it's come down a little and they said since I have an undergravel filtration system and had to remove the carbon filters to do meds it will bounce around a little as it's not getting as much help, but to keep doing water changes each week after medicating. They advised me to change meds at this point since the ich was getting better and only 1 fish still had signs on it and the tail and fin rot was getting worse. Now they gave me Melafix to use along with some medicated fish food to kill anything internal to see if that helps as I can use both of these together. The fish seem to be acting better as well. Not sure if it's the meds or just weeding out the sick fish?

Yes, we adjust new fish we purchase with a similar process we float them for about 20 min or so to let the water temp adjust, then change out half the water in the bag with tank water and let them sit again for another 20 min then change out half again for another 10-20min before adding them. 

Over the weekend we purchased a small tank to use as a QT tank as I have been advised to do this with ANY new fish I purchase. Especially since my tank was doing great until my last purchase of fish...lol We only purchase 2-3 fish at a time, and things were good until the last set we purchased.

As far as the undergravel question you asked, we do a gravel cleaning every month normally, but were told to do it about every 2-3 days while medicating for ich to help remove it from the gravel. 

Here is our current set-up:

55gallon with underwater gravel filtration with 2 tubes w/ carbon and 2 additional powerheads for water filtering flow
2- Blue Gourami
1- Gold Gourami
1- Dwarf Paradise Gourami
1- Dwarf Gourami
2- Cory Cats
2- Rosy Barbs
4- Platy's
5- Tiger Barbs
6- Head & Tail Lights
1- Red Tail Shark

Temp Housing: 1- Tinfoil Barb (Baby) and 1- Bala Shark (Baby)
**We are currently in the process of cycling a larger tank for these two so they will not stay in this tank long.


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

*YAYA..we are doing good!*

OK, so after some great questions and a wonderful LFS "new friend" It seems I had a few issues but all is FINALLY well. The PH doesn't seem to be the issue, the test strips I was using was and a few pieces of rock. Upgraded to a liquid test kit (much better) and removed 3 pieces of ordametal coral rock I had in the tank and we are back in business. Ph is now between 7.2-7.4 depending, but looking good and steady. The fish have been treated with Melafix and a Internal Parasite Food Medication and they seem happy and health. Also corentiened the last fish with signs of Ick and after 2 weeks is doing great back in the main tank. 

The only issue I am now having just started recently (last 2-3 days) my most active Paradise Gourami seems to be hiding and his colors are getting darker??? I had a "fish friend" tell me he's fine?? He's eating but is not nearly as active as he use to be.

As for the bio-load with this many fish in a 55 gallon, my tank seems to be handling it ok for now. We have invested in 2 canister filter systems just in case though. I will post some new pictures as soon as possible. 

Since this tank's issues started we have now also set up a 30 gallon (soon to be Angel Tank) and a 75 gallon Salt Water tank. Can't wait!!


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## Michelle9843 (May 19, 2011)

*Update*

Well the tank seems to have corrected itself finally, everyone is happy and health and water is still stable across the board. Doing water changes 1 @ 10% per week and it seems to be doing very well.


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## MadeInHell (Jul 9, 2011)

Michelle9843 said:


> I ran out at lunch a picked up Ammonia test stuff, and went ahead a retested everything since those number were from last night. Here is the latest. Ammonia: 0, Nitrate: 30, Nitrite: 0, Hardness: 75, Alkalinity: 300, PH: 8.5.
> Kordon Rid-Ich is the Ich treatment I am using.


Yeah your PH is very high, it needs to come down if you wanna save the fishies!!!!


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