Please help. My fish are dying

Steffiweff

I've been running two tanks now for the best part of six months.

Every week, I do a 25% water change. My fish have been really happy but for the past couple of weeks.

My Siamese Fighter got an eye infection, but that passed pretty quickly, but since then my plants have been turning furry (for want of a better word) and one-third of my aquatic life has died in my larger tank, including one of my prized clown loaches - poor Pascal!

I have now been left with (in my larger tank)

1 x clown loach
2 x x-ray tetras
1 x siamese fighter (male)
5 x harlequins
5 x neon tetras- these seem impervious to whatever it is
4 x cherry barbs
3 x ancistrus
1 x Dalmatian molly
3 x zebra danios

The x-ray tetras are looking decidedly ragged and quite opaque and the female cherry barbs are looking as though they've been dipped in icing sugar.

I've done a 50% water change today as a precaution, but I don't understand what's gone wrong. I clean the filter (in water taken from the tank) every other water change and I don't want to lose the rest of the fish but I seem to be powerless against whatever's ravaging them.

Also, I had some bogwood in the tank, and it had some white growths on it. I have now removed this from the tank and don't plan to put it back for the foreseeable future.

I expect to lose the rest of the cherry barbs and x-ray tetras in the next few days, but I'm desperate not to lose my final clown loach - they were a mother's day gift from my children.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Steffi

Steffiweff

Too late.

Just went to check on my tank - Coco is dead. :'(

Falina

I'm sorry to hear about your fish!

When you say they look like they have been sipped in icing sugar - do you mean they have little white spots on them? If so I would suspect whitespot.itch. Cheak out the sticky at thentop of this section for information on this disease.

Steffiweff

Hi Julie

Thanks for getting back to me.

I started treatment for ICH last week and they've just had a second dose. However, they not responding and it only seems to have made the problem worse.

I can have a chat with my lfs tomorrow, but I've lost some of my favourite fish today and I'm very upset.

I'm looking for a miracle cure.

I have whacked the thermostat up to 29 degrees on the advice of a friend and am hoping it stabilises matters.

Falina

Increasing the temperature will speed up the treatment for the white sopt.

I hope it works out for you.

Steffiweff

Been to see my local fish supplier.

Took in some sample water and a couple of my blighted fish.

He agrees that its ICH! Nice (not).

He seems to think that clown loaches are particularly susceptible to white spot - explains a lot really.

Like me, he's amazed that my neon tetras are still doing okay, considering the rest are dying left, right and centre. Apparently all I can do is wait it out now and see what happens.

Lupin

Loaches are scaleless fish and therefore were considered prone to ich. They will take the meds with a more fatal blow than most fish so half-dosages are recommended depending on the strength of the meds.

What are your water parameters so far?:)

Steffiweff

Water parameters are normal (or as near to normal as you can get in Yorkshire - hard water area).

It seems to have settled down a bit now.

All cherry barbs bit it, alongside my clown loaches.

I'm left with 6 neons, 4 harlequins, 3 zebra danios, 3 ancistrus, 2 xray tetras and 1 molly and a partridge in a pear tree!

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Trouble is, my other tank now seems to have developed the same problem. Head slowly being done in - painfully!

I'm setting up yet another tank in the next couple of days. At least I will be able to ensure that we have a quarantine tank then! At the moment it's touch and go with the second tank.

I'm using Interpet 6, but find the instructions very ambiguous - anyone else had that problem?

Mirta

Oh how I can understand you! We have lost our favourite baby angels and all the pretty neons as well as two cherries and a cory - all to that ugly itch. Oh I forgot - a great number of guppies who must have started it.

It is all over and we still have 5 more cories, three golden gouramis, seven cherries, one bristle-nose, and one tiny guppy, plus apple snails, who survived both the itch and our attempts to treat them. The fish have had some signs of disease for a while, but nobody has been dying for more than a week now!

We applied some green stuff to treat it, and raised the temp.

I am also thinking about a quarantine tank now. I will wait till the end of summer when I will buy some more fish for this tank. I really love angels and cories!

I wish you to recover soon and forget about this terrible experience!

Mirta

Oh I wanted to add that I too found the instructions ambiguous.

Do you think it may have come with the bogwood?