Flukes Query

I have a quick query. i have a 60 litre {metric}tank which i think is by your terms a 3ft 1ft 1ft tank. it is densly planted and contains or did contain 5 platies, 1 catfish, 5 gold rosy barbs, 4 china barbs with the new addition of 5 white cloud minnows and 4 long fin danios. I had the tank cycled and going fine for 3 months. had done a few water changes in that time. always condition water. 1/3 partial water changes. also have mystery snail {large gold} 1 platy was never 100% but survives still. a little too thin. When i added the white clouds and danios i started losing fish. first 3 danios 1 at a time. then a platy. then the catfish then another platy and i have 2 platies also a little suspect. All started to hide a bit. Then just stopped eating. their gills were a little more flared than usual although i couldnt spy any fluke. I suspect fluke as one of the danios wasnt 100% and i was too eager to make a fuss { i bloody should have!!}. I have started a treatment of sterazin. Do you think that this is fluke or have I simply over stocked. No sign of ick or fin rot all looked healthy till they stopped moving. All seemed to become lethargic and increasingly slower to respond to stimuli. The catfish ended up lying on his side or back before the end and swimming as if blind. The others simply died. The mystery snail had a munch before i got to the platies. i did a partial change before i started treatment , have no active carbon and reduced the plant numbers { put them in another tank that i'm cycyling, should i treat it for fluke too?} no further deaths yet but its only day 2. Any input would be appreciated

Thanks Dunluce

I havent had any more deaths and I'm at day four of treatment for fluke. I do think that it is fluke as other fish are showing signs of it with slightly distended gills and breathing rapidly. they are also flicking themselves on plants and ornaments around the gills and mouth. no sign of white spot or any fungals. hopefully i clear it up soon thanks for your input
Dunluce

Yeah I'm up to day six and still no fatalities. They all seem to be looking better. The barbs are starting to eat again and no one seems to be flashing. I agree with what you said before I think the nitrates may have spiked, I need to get a kit to test for them. i have always tested for hardness, ph and neutralised chlorine but was never given the goods on nitrates. It explains alot of my initial losses when i first started years ago. having never been told about the nitrates and cycling I was cleaning my tank entirely every 6 weeks. I was washing the gravel out and even at one stage after problems with white spot and fin rot was actually washing the gravel in hot water to kill anything in it. And it worked. I apparently killed everthing, all my benificial bacteria. I was literally cycling my tank all the time. No wonder i was having fish losses. The only survivors were my swordtails. They are hardy little buggers. they had probs with finrot and white spot but my god why wouldnt they. I am thinking that some of my current problem is partly the stocking issue. I was soo excited to find the white cloud minnows as i haven't seen them available in australia before that a got 5 and also four long fin danios. Thats nine fish added to the tank in one hit and even though they were on the smallish side it was a fair increase. I would say that the stress that put on all of them made them an easier target for the gill fluke. If the fluke made it harder to get oxygen and there was less to get they would perish quickely. The fish that i lost were all the larger fish to think of it, maybe with the exception of the danios. They were the first to go but then they had the stress of transport and acclimatisation, one was also the first to look sick. So they might have had a longer exposure to pathogens in the petshop tank. bother the expense of another tank. I have never had the available cash to set up a hospital/quarantine tank. I'll have to find they cheapest option i can and set one up. Thats what i get for investing all in one tank. I am cycling a new tank but i didnt want to use it for quarantine. maybe I'll do that until things settle and i get a smaller tank for that purpose. i havent bothered moving sick fish from the origonal tank across as its not fully cycled and the stress would kill them and i dont want to contaminate the new tank. And my guess is that all the fish in the origonal tank have been exposed so are all possibly infected. Easier to treat as a whole. Does that make sense. Funny that the white clouds are showing no sign of disease at all. Healthiest of the lot. toughies.