bout to give up on my fish

my temp is about 83-86. should i lower it?

i just changed 10 gallons of the water, and i didnt put in any new salt.

one barb has officially passed away...poor thing dies with his mouth wide open like he was going to gasp for air :[

the two green barbs still shake and tremble in place really fast. other barbs still like to nibble/kiss the green ones. other barbs still swimming upside down or randomely losing all color.
 
Here is how I treated both rummy nose tetras and neons on two separate occasions. They all, but one rummy nose, came through it and weren't affected by the high temps.
You may want to research your types of fish for temp. tolerance. The above named tetras took it fine.
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I used no salt and no medications.

If you choose to use meds. check to see if heat can be used in conjuction with them.

SLOWLY raise the temp. to 89 degrees and keep it there for 3-4 days. If you can bring it up to 90 that's even better. Watch your fish and add an extra airstone for turbulance.

Lower heat to 86 degrees for an added 7-10 days.

You want to keep a temp of 86 to 88 for 10 to 14 days AFTER the last spot has been noticed.

Do a 25 % water change daily.

90 degrees kills them. At 87 degrees they can't reproduce.
Although there has been statements that there are now heat tolerant Ichthyophthirius multifflis.
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I don't know what to tell you about the salt at this point. Only that whenever I used in a tank I dosed it in quarters over the course of a day.
You may want to google "adding salt to the aquarium". If I find any info I'll post it for you.

Keep notes on your water changes to see how much salt you have removed so far.

As others have said it may be something else the rams carried in. But I'd stick with your current treatment to see how it works.

Also, as said, keep checking your nitrite and ammonia counts.

Best of luck. It's tough when things like this happen.
 
so after all my barbs die, how lnog should i wait till i can add new fish? like i mean, how long will it take for any of that bad stuff in my water to die, whatever it was that is killing all my barbs.
 
What other fish do you have in the tank? Anything besides the rams and barbs? Is anyone else showing ANY symptoms?

Regardless of anything, I would highly suggest you quarantine any new fish going forward. The biggest reason I've started doing it is because I KNOW there's been a hardcore bout of disease in my tank, that I'll probably never get rid of 100%. My fish have developed strong immune systems towards it. I want to ensure that the fish I add have the healthiest immune systems possible and have acclimated to my water 100% before I expose them to it.

I also think there's a point where you have to look at your tiger barbs and really assess how much you think they're suffering, what their chances of pulling through are, and if euthanization is the best choice. I once had to do this to about 15 fish at once. IT's hard, but it's better than watching them slowly drop like flies. The best method is clove extract. Jsut put hte fish in a bucket of water and gradually add a few drops at a time. They fall asleep and then eventually pass away.

Other than that, without any other obvious symptoms, all I can say is heat and salt heat and salt continue with heat and salt.

AS far how long to wait, I would say give it 2-4 weeks of everyone remaining showing 100% health before adding new fish.
 
neons
platies
rainbow sark
german blue ram
tiger barbs



1 other tiger barb died sometime last night
**no wait, another one just died right now**
1 neon tetra died last night

my rainbow shark is looking very ill.

the tiger barbs that had almost no control and kept floating at the top and acting weird, seem to have control again. ndont get me wrong, the barbs still just float all together still in a corner, but they idk arent upside down now?

the two green barbs, and the rainbow shark all have messy dorsal fins. like they are kinda freyed. i dont know if its cause theyve been nipped, or its cause of some srt of parasite making them like that?



i really dont know waht to do today. another water change? i dont wanna shock them with losing the salinity in the water, but at the same time i want new water in there.
 
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man this is tough. At this point I see three options.

1. since you're not sure what yuo're dealing with and there doesn't seem to be an obvious symptom, do a last ditch effort with some broad spectrum antibiotics. This is probably the WORST option. Once you get in a med cycle, it can do more harm than good. I wouldn't do this.

2. just wait. Have you seen improvement from heat and/or salt yet? It doens't really sound like it. If it looks like the ich is gone, I would probably stop with the salt and heat and try to get conditions as normal as possible. Sometimes just keeping the water CLEAN and doing nothing is the best thing you can do.

3. start euthanizing. I know it sounds terrible, and maybe I'll get flamed for saying this, but you have to gauge how much more you want to put them through and be honest about which direction it looks like they're going.

I know these situations can be daunting. A little story; when I setup my 150, I battled the worst case of columnaris you could imagine. I tried everytinhg. battled for months, did all the research. I was ready to quit the hobby for a few weeks there. I ultimately ended up euthaizing half my fish, broke the whole tank down, bleached everything, re-cycled and put the healthy fish back and started over. Today, I'm SO HAPPY I didn't give up. The tank is a wonderful aquaworld full of happy life again and it brings me so much happiness every single day. That was a blip. a blip that had me in tears and tore me up inside, but it's gone now.

That was extreme, and it may sound like a lot of work, but sometimes it's the best option.
 
wow i couldnt imagine months.. im struggling with a week here.i know asking for help on this is hard because sometimes there just really isnt any answer. i mean if my conditions are normal, but my fish are still freaking out, what much else can you say? lol

someone said that putting 2 teaspoons of salt per gallon was an obscene amount. and when i tasted the water, it was pretty effin salty!! but i read from here 2 teaspoons is the way to go. regardless, none of my fish seem to be doing any better from it.

so i just did another 20 percent water change. im just gonna do what you said, and try to get my tank back under normal conditions. it may be that my fish just couldnt take that much salt, or maybe i put it in tere too fast. but upon doing the WC, i noticed another dead neon..sad cause ive had those guys since i first ran up my tank in the very beginning last year.

looks like my rainbow shark might be the next to go though. im gonna see what this WC does first.
 
I'm having a kinda similiar problem right now. I know what's going on now, but I don't know what caused the problem in the first place. I came home a couple days ago, and found 8 dead guppies. I checked, and nitrItes were high out of sight. I believe this was from the guppies, but not sure. If it was, I don't know what killed the guppies. If it did, I don't know what made nitrItes skyrocket. Anyway, did 5x prime dose, many waterchanges, got nitrItes down... find another dead guppy or shrimp once in a while... and last night my silver angelfish died. I've got like 4 guppies left, and the male pearl looks really stressed.... So, I'm not really sure what caused it in the first place, but now I'm dealing with the aftermath of nitrIte poisoning, and hoping no more fish die. Oddly, my kuhli loaches, and otto are just fine. They are usually the most sensitive...

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is that sometimes, for no apparent reason, this stuff happens. All we can do is our best.
 
I really do wish you the best of luck and hope you don't let this discourage you from the hobby. Just get the tank 'normal' again and hopefully you'll be left with a few survivors that you can monitor and build on again. When you DO start adding again, I would only do 1-2 fish at a time at first so you can assess if they get sick or not.
 
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