My fish keep getting diseases. Help!

[nancyrenee]

I'll start off by saying I've always kept a 10-40 gallon tank at any given time. Never had any problems with diseases in 24 years. Then I upgraded to a 65 gallon tank. And I started seeing disease. My tank does not have a canister filter. It needs one I know. But how bad does it need it? I have a filter that filters a 60 gallon and it hangs on the side of the tank. I figured it would be ok since I have gravil and driftwood I figured that took up enough space to drop the gallons of water down.

First I put two oscars, a jack dempsey, a convict, blood parot, and a pleco in it. Way overcrowded. I first got planaria, then ich, then cloud eye. So after doing weekly water changes for a couple months and STILL having problems with the accumulation of fish poop I gave all of my fish to the pet store for a credit. Except my pleco and oscar. They are both in a 10 gallon right now and are doing great. no diseases or worms!

So I started up my 65 gallon again. This was about a month after selling my other fish and moving the oscar and pleco to a ten gallon. I bought new gravil but used my old plastic plants and my old driftwood. Still using the filter that hangs on the side and I have a bubbler that stretches the length of the aquarium. I'll also add that the tank was completely bone dry for a month. And the driftwood was outside on the porch and dry as a bone by this time. I thought maybe it could be a source of contamination from the old dirty tank but shouldn't a month outside of water kill everything?

I went and bought some swordtails, mollys, pictus catfish, and some assorted tetras. I had about 15 fish. My tank was beautiful and crystal clear and my fish were happy for a couple weeks. Then I saw the sores from ich. Then I saw fin rot on a few of them. I treated with melafix and coppersafe. The coppersafe didn't kill my oscars when I used it in the tank previously. Unlike malachite green that killed my friends fish every time she used it. So i felt confident. Then within a week all of my fish have died except three. And they still have fin rot and ich sores. And a couple aren't eating. I also have a bad infestation of planaria. But there's no food on the bottom.

I did a 25% water change yesterday and today. Looked like it perked the fish up right after todays water change but in about an hour they were just hanging out at the top again. Not gasping. But not well either.

Does anyone see something I'm missing? Oh I also treated tank with as much salt as the fish can tolerate. And have been since starting up my tank.

Since buying this 65 gallon tank i've spent so much money on fish and medications that i'm about to just sell it. It's so frustrating.

 

[Lupin]

Planaria is not really a disease. They are a sign that you are either overfeeding or you are not maintaining the tank well as you think you are doing. What are your water parameters? What test kit are you using?

As for ich, have you ever quarantine your fish? Ich will not appear until the fish becomes severely stressed. Test your water as this is very important and be sure to make one of your smaller tanks a quarantine tank. Always quarantine every new fish you get before introducing them to your main tank.

Cloudy eyes are a sign your water quality is deteriorating. Doing water changes is the only way to rectify your problem. For a stocklist like that, you should be doing daily water changes, not weekly. Weekly is not enough at all. What are you feeding your fish and how often do you feed them? Why are the oscar and pleco still in the 10g? If there is no way you can accommodate them, I must recommend giving them to anyone willing to take them. What size are both?

Finrot is also similar to cloudy eyes albeit deteriorating water quality or the fish were severely stressed by several factors. Test the water and please tell us your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Did you cycle your tank? Melafix will not help with finrot. It will only treat wounds and damaged fins but no more than that. Finrot can be associated with bacteria as well.

Coppersafe is frowned upon by several hobbyists. If you read previous topics, none of us would ever use copper sulfate to destroy any disease especially ich. The use of table salt and heat alone would be safer than dosing copper sulfate which can severely stressed your fish. How much copper sulfate did you dose? How much salt are you dosing right now? What do you mean to as much as the fish can tolerate? The salinity changes can eventually kill your fish.

 

[oscaremmy]

Nancyrenee...you just need to follow the steps laid out in setting up a tank; it seems like you feel in a real mess and are losing interest due to frustration - it's hard losing pets, but 65 g is a nice sized tank and you should be able to turn things around. Did you get a test kit? You might find some answers there. If all else fails, consider starting from scratch, cycling (I do fishy cycling, which I know many frown upon, but so far it has been fine for me and my pets - so maybe you can rehouse your survivors and make use of them to create a good environment in the tank). Sad to hear you lost so many fish. I hope more people offer advice, because I'm just a newbie and in no way qualified to tell you how to do things. Lupin has been at this much longer (as have plenty of other moderators and members) - they will help if you respond with some test results, or more information, I'm sure. Good luck, oscaremmy.

 

[yourchoice]

You need to understand and research what a "cycled tank" means.Need a liquid test .THe tank needs to estabish the cycle which may require many water changes for the first 2 weeks to 2 months.After that you can do 25% weekly or more depending on the stock.

Canniaster is not necessary but with hang ons it is recommending two times what spec say,so about 120 worth of filtering power.