Hi everyone I'm a first time poster fairly new to the hobby dealing with my first fish disease and I'm having a bit of trouble. First to start off my water parameters are:
Tank Size- 55 usg
Ammonia- .25
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 5
PH- 7.4
KH- 0-30 GH- 0-40 (Hard to tell as I only have the strips for these measurements)
Tank maintenance- 30% water change weekly
Ok well where to start. The fish in my tank are: 1 Female Jack Dempsey 3 Tiger barbs (used to be 5 :-() and there was a common pleco that I had but it only made it a week and it passed (didn't show any signs of stress just woke up one morning to find it at the bottom of the tank).
Two weeks after I put the pleco in I noticed that the rest of the fish were getting Ich so for 10 days I raised the temp to 84-86 degrees F and added 3 tsp aquarium salt per 5 gallons Which cleared up the Ich. A few days later I notice the jack starting to flash of rocks / driftwood etc.. as well as the Tiger barbs also the JD was jerking her head quite hard, opening her mouth really wide as if yawning frequently (not sure if that's normal or a symptom) and also her eating habbits are kind of odd she won't eat as I put the food in the tank maybe 3-5 minutes after she'll start and when she does she'll eat and spit it out a lot before she swallows it.
So I spent some time on the internet and the best thing I could come up with was that they had gill flukes. I went out and bought some meds for them (maracyn, coppersafe, primafix, and melafix) and added began treating with maracyn. 2 days into treatment the Ich came back. The maracyn box says that coppersafe can be used at the same time as maracyn so I used that as well.
I finished treating with the maracyn so I do a 50% water change. The fish looked great. The JD's color was better than ever, normal behavior, still eating erratically though. The barbs where back to normal as well. This was 3 days ago.
Now all the symptoms are back, I don't know what to do and I don't want to do anything unnecessary again. Did I misdiagnose? Did I treat wrong? Is there something I'm missing?
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and I hope I didn't leave anything out.
Tank Size- 55 usg
Ammonia- .25
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 5
PH- 7.4
KH- 0-30 GH- 0-40 (Hard to tell as I only have the strips for these measurements)
Tank maintenance- 30% water change weekly
Ok well where to start. The fish in my tank are: 1 Female Jack Dempsey 3 Tiger barbs (used to be 5 :-() and there was a common pleco that I had but it only made it a week and it passed (didn't show any signs of stress just woke up one morning to find it at the bottom of the tank).
Two weeks after I put the pleco in I noticed that the rest of the fish were getting Ich so for 10 days I raised the temp to 84-86 degrees F and added 3 tsp aquarium salt per 5 gallons Which cleared up the Ich. A few days later I notice the jack starting to flash of rocks / driftwood etc.. as well as the Tiger barbs also the JD was jerking her head quite hard, opening her mouth really wide as if yawning frequently (not sure if that's normal or a symptom) and also her eating habbits are kind of odd she won't eat as I put the food in the tank maybe 3-5 minutes after she'll start and when she does she'll eat and spit it out a lot before she swallows it.
So I spent some time on the internet and the best thing I could come up with was that they had gill flukes. I went out and bought some meds for them (maracyn, coppersafe, primafix, and melafix) and added began treating with maracyn. 2 days into treatment the Ich came back. The maracyn box says that coppersafe can be used at the same time as maracyn so I used that as well.
I finished treating with the maracyn so I do a 50% water change. The fish looked great. The JD's color was better than ever, normal behavior, still eating erratically though. The barbs where back to normal as well. This was 3 days ago.
Now all the symptoms are back, I don't know what to do and I don't want to do anything unnecessary again. Did I misdiagnose? Did I treat wrong? Is there something I'm missing?
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and I hope I didn't leave anything out.