New here - need help PLEASE

[audrey]

I am new to this site. I have had aquariums for about six years now. I have a 55 cichlid, 29 community and a 10 quarantine.

Saturday I bought 3 rams and 2 clown loaches. After checking my ammonia and nitrites I put them in the quarantine tank. Sunday afternoon I lose a ram. Take it back to my lfs and he does his own water check. My nitrates are off the chart over 220. I go home and do some major water changes along with a very deep gravel cleaning. Nitrates down to about 80 and fish looking happier. This morning I get up and check them and my heater has decided to funk out. It was only 72 degrees and guess what I HAVE ICH . What can I use to treat the rams and the loaches. I may lose another ram today It looked fairly bad this morning. I did put my extra heater in the tank and it was up to 84 before I left. I really don't want to lose the rams. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hurley]

I would use salt. I have heard that loached are sensative to salt but I have treated mine with salt when my tank got ich and they were fine. You have to remember that salt is also less stressful then the medication you buy over the counter.

Here is a great article by Daveedka...it should answer any questions you have about ich.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39759


As for the nitrates, was your tank cycled when you put the fish in? if it wasnt you might want to think about getting some biospira to instantly cycle the tank or just do large and frequent water changed to keep the nitrates down.

Good Luck!

 

[Galaxie]

First of all, ease up on the massive water changes. Do 25% every couple days until your water slowly regulates back to normal, then you can get back to a weekly 25% water change routine. Massive water changes only shock your fish. They need time to adjust, so go slowly.

The same applies to temperature. Considering typical tropical temp is ~77 degrees, a 12 hour drop to 72 is not a tragedy. Is your temp at 84 to combat the ich? If not, that's typically too high.

Which tank are these fish going into? It sounds like the fish in the quarantine tank were dying? Does your Q-tank have anything else in it to keep its cycle established? On a fully cycled tank, you'll never see ammonia or nitrite, but nitrate continues to build unless removed with partial water changes. Fish can get used to high nitrate levels, but it is toxic to newly introduced fish.

If you don't change water often, your PH may have gotten very low also. I suggest a ph test kit to see if that has happened. Its called old-tank-syndrome & the effect is that old fish have gradually adjusted, but any new fish can't survive in the low PH & high nitrate.

I might suggest taking the fish back to the store until you get your tanks figured out completely &/or stabilized.

Good luck & keep us posted.

 

[audrey]

Yes it was a cycled tank. It has been used as a quarantine tank for awhile now. I had bumble bee fry and another fry in there until they grew and now they are in my 55 then I had angels in quarantine until saturday. The angels went to their new home then in the 29. I know that the nitrate spike was probably my fault as I had kept the old filter for good bacteria. I now have a new filter and a sponge to keep the good stuff.

I did treat the tank with salt this morning. 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons. Thank you for your quick response. I really feel better about the course that I took now. I am going to go home at lunch and check on them and will do another vacume and major water change tonight.

 

[mooman]

I'd like to add that the advice to ease up on the water changes to avoid shocking the fish is only becuase of the poor water quality they've become accustomed to. Once water quality is restored (slowly through several small changes), then large weekly changes are fine after that.

 

[audrey]

Galaxie - My lfs said the same thing as you about the nitrate spike - he said it sounded like old tank syndrome.

I have had this tank for a long time but it was torn completely down for about 6 months and when I did bring it back up I washed the gravel like really well and brought some other gravel over from my established tank (this gravel I put in a netting so that I could take it out) but I used a filter off of my 29 which I probably shouldn't have used. I used the qt to grow out some fry which were moved to the 55 and are growing rapidly. The day I moved the babies out I put the angels in and left them there for over 2 weeks to make sure they were healthy.

The ram and loaches are going in my 29 if I can get them nursed back to health. It currently has 4 angels (small just over a quarter bodywise) these were in the quarantine until Saturday. I am letting the angels grow out and when they get larger they will go into another tank which I haven't decided what size it will be but at least a 35-40 tall.

My qt is set at 82-84 to control ich. I haven't had any deaths until now. I was surprised that I didn't lose any of the fry. There were about 45-50 of them little buggers and I didn't lose 1. I am going to go see if I can reduce file sizes on my pics and if I can I will get you a pic of my set ups.

 

[audrey]

Mooman - actually these are brand new to poor water quality as they were just added to this tank on Saturday 4/1.

 

[audrey]

Went home for lunch. Lost another ram but it looked really bad this morning. Good news is the other ram and both loaches look good and temp is maintaining.

 

[Star_Rider]

crossing my fingers and hoping the treatment is successful

 

[budrecki]

Since these are new fish in a quarantine tank, not fish accustomed to OTS, i would do BIG water changes, 75%. Do one tonight and again tomorrow. That should give the 2 loaches a fighting chance.

Don't forget to add salt again after water changes to replace what you take out.