new fish bring new disease

[Dangerdoll]

What a dilemma! I believe my problem is general, though has a lot to do with starting a cichlid tank. Ok, I did a little rearranging (thank goodness!) and decided to do a Cichlid tank. I moved the puffers out of my one 55 gallon and purchased a few dwarf cichlids without quarantining and thought because the lfs I bought them from could never bring me problems. That was my biggest mistake. I'll even go as far as saying I "assumed" and you know what that made me!!. I left the Angel and my Ram, believing they'd be fine with the company though I'd watch them for any problems. I've left the plecos and red tail shark in there along with a few assorted cories for floor duties. Well, the first sign of trouble was the clouding up of the Angel eyes. I checked the parameters of the tank and all seemed pristine, did a water change of 50% and rechecked the parameters, nothing had changed, there was no fluctuation, everything was still perfect. I read up on the cloudiness and believed he had come down with "cloudy eye", though this is a disease said to come from "infrequent" water changes and unpleasant water, 2 things I know are not the case so came to the realization, the new tankmates brought in the problem. I continued to watch the Angel and one by one, these new cichlids began dying off..... even while doing weekly water changes, the Angel seemed to not get any better. Eventually, I had to put the poor guy down as he had come to the end of his battle. Tonight, I have just lost the Ram. The shark, the cories, and the plecos seem untouched by this catastrophe and are eating and looking as normal as ever. I've never had anything like this happen before :( but have learned a very valuable lesson.
While watching the parameters still and the water changes, how long would one suggest I give the tank to run this disease out so I could add new fish without them being infected? Is there anything I should add to the water?

[ChilDawg]

Those fish could have been affected by high nitrites prior to the introduction to your tank...I think it would be best to buy the fish from elsewhere, but quarantining them for almost a month prior to introduction to the main tank.

[Dangerdoll]

you think a month should allow the tank to run this disease out?

[ChilDawg]

Yes, but I'd remove the bottom-dwellers so as to give the parasites no chance to latch onto anything...you can keep the cycle going without fish.

[Dangerdoll]

I figured that'd be best, thanks for the input.... ;)

[Slappy*McFish]

I think most of us have bought fish without quarantining them 1st, at one time or another..sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. Now I usually have my lfs hold them for me for a couple of weeks after I pay a deposit on them...some lfs are actually willing to do this. I never buy "new" shipments though, and I always ask them how long they've had the fish in stock. I don't have a quarantine tank, myself...but I haven't bought any fish in quite awhile now. My 10 gallon used to be a quarantine tank..but I ended up turning it into a planted tank..lol. Hated to see it not being used.:rolleyes:..oh, the shame.

[Turin Turambar]

Maybe the Angel fish got stressed and his immune system went down. I doubt that nitrites have anything to do with this - you have an estabilished and big tank and one-two days are simply not enough for that.
People are often paying too much attention to the water parametres. They are important, but what's the most important is the stable environment.
For example, my water is almost always pH 8 even with adding 1/2 of distiled water when doing water changes (my water is very hard). But there's no pH fluctations, it is stable and all of my Tetras, Ramirezi, Rasboras are doing just great. If I wanted to try to make it perfect or to match Amazon-type water, I would ruin the equilibrium and put the fish in danger.

[Dangerdoll]

What I believe Chil was saying was that perhaps the tank they came from had the nitrite problem (which could be likely), and when put in my tank, came down with the disease because of the difference in water parameters (they were stressed as well being put into a new "clean" environment). The introduction of the new fish could have stressed the Angel as he'd had no additions in quite a while, so that could be, but I believe the new fish introduced the disease in the first place. My tank has always been stable and I've never had a problem until this past month or so, with the continued demise of fish after fish, day after day. It just sucked that I lost what used to be my favorite.