STILL flashing!

[lithe]

So... I have a 29 Gallon tank that once had 10 fish, I'm now down to 6 and still no improvement.

I treated for Ick first. That seemed to help but as soon as the medication wore off, they would start flashing again. Only one fish died with pustules on its face and head so in the end, it didn't look like Ick but something else. Then, I noticed that my rainbow shark had thread like worms coming out of its anus and REALLY LONG stringy, feces. So, I treated for parasites with Tetra fizz tabs. This seemed to nearly put my shark on death row who now has clamped fins but is still swimming half ok after the second treatment. Still, despite an entire box of parasite treatment, my fish are still all flashing! I don't know what else to do. Someone at the store was telling me I should just euthanize the tank and start over... I'm not sure what else to do. I've started a new parasite treatment with API general cure. It's all the same medication as before.

I do have sand substrate and someone else was telling me that this can irritate the fishes gills. I'm not sure if that is accurate but I'm trying to not have to kill all my fish here...

 

[stormywendyann]

What are the tank parameters. Ammonia, Nitrite and Ntrate. This sounds like it could be a water quality issue?

 

[manda321]

While treating the tank add api aquarium salt. It helps the healing process and improves gill function.

Sent from my PC36100 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[AquaticAustin]

While for fungus or ich I am a fan of the fizzy tablets the ones for internal parasites never really worked for me, medications you feed to them seem to be more successful.

 

[stephcps]

Honestly, I wouldn't put anything else in the tank. Add a litle salt and do big frquent water changes for a few days and see what happens. Many times the meds are just hard on them. I don't know that I would treat "flashing" in the absence of anything else.

 

[lithe]

I have been doing big frequent water changes on this tank for weeks. It takes almost an hour to be able to do it correctly and the fish get freaked out every time.

My nitrates are 5, my ammonia is .5-1, 0 nitrites, ph is constant 7.6. I have added extra aquarium salt but backed off the heat after a week because it was raising my ammonia levels and really not helping anything. It's at 80 now. I have also added ammoquel a few times over the past 2 weeks because the guy from Petco originally had me remove my filter and drop in half a bottle of special blend. I was unsatisfied with that solution and when I began doing water changes, my ammonia started to climb a bit. Also, I had several fish die and one looked like it was gasping for air so I had to drop some in to see if that was what might have been causing random deaths after treatments.

I thought water conditions might be the issue at first, myself. The cichlids prefer a harder ph but mine is an acceptable range, although at the bottom. I would prefer not to mess with ph ups or downs for consistency. But, after that consideration, I began to see the worm like threads and between that and the flashing, a fish died with this pustules all over its face like pimples or something that were brown/gray.

The only fish not flashing is the serapae. The lone serapae left alive!

It's very frustrating. The cichlids look healthy otherwise than the flashing. The shark, not so much. I might just end his suffering because it doesn't look like he'll ever be able to swim correctly. The last serapae I want to move into a different tank but the likelihood he is carrying something contagious is too great. What a nightmare!

 

[lithe]

Oh and I should also add that I don't think it's water conditions because the shark was FINE for a week while the other fish were flashing and then he suddenly begun to flash when I turned up the heat and I assumed this was because it sped up the parasite/ich or what-have-you's metabolism and it was moving faster jumping from fish to fish.