a little help over here

charlie_stubbs

Built Horde Tough
Jun 24, 2007
129
0
0
Ogrimmar
Well everything was going fine. My fishless cycle went well. I added 12 cichlids all at once and carefully monitored water parametres. Everything was fine. 2 weeks later i added 2 bala sharks, a juvenile and a large. Two days later noticed spots on the large bala, and began to do some research. Very quickly a couple spots turned into many spots, (like sprinkled salt) which i think was ich. I was to go to LFS next day to get medication when, in the morning, i found both balas dead. I removed them then had to leave for the weekend. I used a auto feeder while i was away. Today (sunday) i returned to find most of the fish had died. Dammit!!!!! I tore the tank down and removed all the carcasses, vacuumed the gravel and changed 50% of the water. I am left with 2 electric yellow labs and three electric blue johanni, but have noticed the color of the electric blues looks washed out. I am saddened at this loss but will not give up. I am going to add more yellows and blues but don't know whether the remaining fish are infected, they seem to be acting normally. Any suggestions???
 
That's definitely ich.

What size tank?

What is the temp in the tank?

Buy a 10 gallon to quarantine new fish in. The balas probably already had ich which is a good reason to quarantine.

The sprinkled salt you see on the fish is the egg cyst stage of the ich parasite. When the egg cyst is fully developed it falls off then the new ich hatch out and go free-swimming to find your fish to attach to and repeat the process. You can ONLY kill them when they are free-swimming.

I like Aquari-Sol and raising the temperature to 85 degrees, but some ich strains are tough like the one I have right now on my little ancistrus cats. I've yet to find something that works on the tough strains without killing a bunch of fish.
 
Treat the tank for ich.

QT next time before adding fish to an established tank.
 
will the ich treatment kill my bacteria??? if i remove the fish and lte the tank run fishless will the ich die off???
good idea. without a host, the ich will soon expire

yes, the ich meds will kill of the bacteria in the filter
 
Well ive removed the fish and am goint to start my fishless cycle over, raising ammonia to 5ppm tonight, and am going to consider ideas on what to keep. My tank is 55 gallons with penquin 330 HOB filter. Any suggestions??? Anyone??? Attached is a pic of the tank as is, and i don't want to make any changes, just add fish.

aquarium 050.jpg
 
Could it be that you added 14 fish in the matter of a couple of days and the bacteria aquarium couldn't handel the load?
 
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