HELP! One fish dead, two others sick. What do I do?

Question

There's something terribly wrong with our tank and we're not sure what it is, and have been recommended different things to do.

Here is our situation. Yesterday, we arrived home to find one of our beloved clown loaches dead. We normally take good care of our aquarium, but in retrospect we realized the fish have been leaping to the top of the water more often and hanging out by the airstone more.

I see now after some research that this is indicative of a lack of oxygen, but we also have noticed on the remaining fish some stringy threads emanating from their skin, little white flakes on their body, and some raggedness/thinning of the fins. It seems to have developed so quickly!

The sickest guy is our pleco. He keeps gasping for air at the top, his fins seem to have holes, his eyes are getting cloudy, and there's fuzz all over him. The bigger clown loach is better, but is lethargc and doesn't have his normal appetite.

One friend of ours thinks it's from the new plants we put in our tank. He thinks parasites have infected our fish, and he recommends that we develop more "good bacteria" by putting in a big amount of Cycle in the water, turning off our carbon filter, and adding an extra airstone to address the oxygen.

I had read some recommendations online and last night we changed 50% of the water, threw out the plants, and put in these medicines called Melafix and Pimafix that I heard worked really well for sick fish. Our friend doesn't approve of this though, he thinks that stuff only makes the fish sicker and pet shops make you buy unnecessary stuff.

The pet shop people say we might have overfed the fish (leading the leftover food to create a harmful bacterial environment in our tank) but our friend says the bacteria is necessary and we need to put more flakes in so the Cycle stuff can work.

I don't know who to believe, but I need help fast. We're sad enough to have lost one fish, we don't want to lose the rest. Can anyone offer any advice?

Answer 1

check your tanks PH level, test the water.

Answer 2

Flush them down the toilet and start over.  

It sounds bad but you cant exactly take it to a vet and get it treatments.  When things go wrong with fish they go wrong and you dont want the sick fish to contaminate any new stock you get.  

Answer 3

Cycle is garbage.  You may need to build up more bacteria but it won't do it and adding extra food won't either.  It sounds like you already have a huge ammonia build up so doing 50% water changes daily would be a good idea for a few days.  Adding chemicals if you don't know what the problem is doesn't help.  Treating with the wrong thing can just make the problem worse.

Rinse your filter media in old tank water to make sure it's able to do it's job but then you won't lose your bacteria.  Tank maintenance is extremely important and you need to be doing 25% water changes weekly as well as vacuuming 1/2 the gravel.  When feeding keep in mind that a fish's stomach is about the size of it's eye.

The fish you have would need a very large tank so if yours isn't that could be part of your problem.  An overcrowded tank gets toxic very quickly.

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Answer 4

I can tell you it is not a pariste. you said it has fuzzy stuff all over it. that is a fungus. all the fish will get it and it is really hard to get rid of. I only use jungle fungus guard and that always worked for me. I also put all sick fish in a hospital tank of at least 10 gal. with a heater and an airstone. raise the temp to 82 and follow the directions. good luck with the sick fish. you will also be starting your fish tank from scratch so you will have to cycle your tank all over. you will not be able to use the same water it all has to be new.

Answer 5

well when my fish got ich, i used those medicines after ALL my tank was infected and it worked good. there are just so many parasites that i dont know wich one it could be. try signing up on a aquarium website and you can post questions on some and people that know more about fish will answer you

Answer 6

well you only have a real prob if they were pricy

Answer 7

The water change was probably the best thing you can do, I would do another one today.

It's possible that overfeeding, or just not enough water changes has led to a buildup of toxic chemicals in the water. Ammonia / Nitrite / Nitrate, hard to be sure without water tests.

But getting your fish into clean water ASAP is the best option, Take care not to upset your filters at this time though, only rinse them out in old tank water if they are blocked up.

I have had a similar thing happen to me in the past when I have been slack doing water changes and cleaning. Waste slowly builds up in the tank, and eventually kills the most sensitive fish. Then the dead fish just adds to the water pollution and the whole tank system collapses.

Fresh water and a good gravel cleaning is the best fix.

Also get a water test kit so you can monitor your water quality and spot problems before they become fatal.

Good luck

Ian

Answer 8

The white spots sound like ich, and the white fuzz sounds like some sort of body fungus.  Melafix and Pimafix are useless; don't use them again.  Instead, you need to treat your tank with anti-parasite and anti-fungus meds, although from the sound of things it may be too late for some of your fish.

Secondly, how big is your tank?  Plecos and clown loaches both need very large tanks, so I hope it's at least 55 gallons.  I suspect that your problems stem from bad water quality due to either over-crowding in a too-small tank, or water changes that are too few and far between--you should be changing about 20% once a week.

Fish jumping out of the water/gasping at the surface are another sign of bad water quality, not necessarily lack of oxygen.  Do you have ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate test kits?  If not, you need to get some immediately and test your water.  Your ammonia and nitrites should both be 0, and your nitrates should not be above 30.  If you get any ammonia/nitrite readings, or nitrate readings of 40 or above, do small water changes every day until your readings are good.

More info about your tank set-up would also help.

[edit] Unfortunately, both clown loaches and plecos need a larger tank, unless you have a small pleco like a clown or bristlenose.  Most of the plecos you see in petstores are commons, though, which get over a foot long and produce a lot of waste.

Also, more than half of those "aquatic plants" that come in plastic tubes are not actually aquatic.  I'll give you a list of the ones I've seen that are, and if yours isn't in here, chances are you'll have to remove it:

"Tropica" (Java) Fern

Wisteria

Argentine Sword

Amazon Sword