sick fish help!

[julieanne257]

Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and am in desperate need of some help. I have a 75 gallon fresh water tank with 3 cichlids and a pleco and just recently lost one. Our fish began showing signs of ich so I started a treatment of nox-ich because that is the only ich medication from the only pet store in our town. The spots would come and go and one day I got up and he was barely moving, had white stuff under the scales, and had a white film over its eyes. needless to say he ended up dying and now my other fish are starting to show signs of the white film over the eyes. I did a 50% water change, and am now treating it with pimafix fungal infection medication.


we have a fluval 405 filter, should we do anything special to the filter while treating the tank? and also, what is the best medication I can use?


I understand I may lose all my fish, I just really would hate for that to happen because my fish are very important to me.

Any suggestions????

[ska d]

Not sure if what you have described is ich. But if it is then I don't think treating it with a fungal medication will help as ich is a parasite. Whenever medicating you should remove any carbon from the filter. One thing I always do for my fresh and salt fish is to feed garlic. I usually buy cloves and crush them up as finely as possible and then let that soak in the food ( mysis etc..) it works better if the fish actually ingest the garlic. Ich doesn't like the garlic and will fall off the fish in a couple of days. And if anything the garlic increases the fishes appetite and thus boosts their immune system.

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[julieanne257]

I took a water sample in and they said the nitrite was very high so they said I needed to use the fungal medication. I am unsure how to remove the carbon in our filter since its under the tank and stands up but i'll figure it out.

Thank You!

[ska d]

Don't know how the lfs determined you needed fungal meds from a high nitrite. But before that, what were the other test results ( ammonia, nitrate, ph) and most importantly how old is the tank. Has it cycled and or did you just move into a new tank and possibly start a cycle over again. The high nitrite is a sign that water quality is poor (not frequent enough water changes) or the tank is cycling. Either way there was an ammonia spike at some point which causes the high nitrite. Was the dead fish taken out immediately or left for a few days (there's your spike)?
Poor water quality can kick start bacterial infections which lead to fungal infections. The white could eyes sound like an infection called Eye Cloud and can be treated with pimafix and you could also treat with melafix ( both at the same time is OK) .
Removing the activated carbon is a must while treating as the carbon will remove the meds and your dosing will be useless. I believe to remove the carbon in the 405 you remove the filters (should be 4 stages) and the first stage should contain the carbon packs. If you haven't done any filter maintenance in a while don't clean the whole thing at the same time. Maybe just rinse out the sponges and save the rest for another day. And never clean your Bio media. This is probably ceramic balls or something similar. Getting your water quality back in good condition is essential or the infections will just come back. Try doing 30-40% water changes every day for 3 days and retest.

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[Rbishop]

What specific type of cichlids? Pics of the illness?