Freshwater Fish Dying

I purchased some new fish and now all of my fish are sick and the babies have died. One of the fish has white patches (not like cotton or sprinkles of salt, as seen in ich) on him and all of the fish are not eating and hanging out at the bottom of the tank.

I have treated the water with aquarium salt and Aquarium Pharmaceutical's, "General Cure" tablets which contain metronidazole, copper sulfate and trichlorfon.

Does anyone know what this is or could be ? Any suggestions would be appreciated.... I feel like I'm racing against time.

[LisaLuke]

Hi, was the tank new?  Did you treat the water with dechlorinator and bacteria before you put them in.  Also how many fish did you put in at once?

If you added the fish to a tank where there were already other fish, you may have overloaded your filters, causing your nitrite levels to rise.  The only thing that breaks down fish waste is bacteria, so if you haven't added any or put too many fish in then more waste is produced and your fish waste will turn to nitrites because you haven't got enough bacteria to cope with it.

If you added fish to a new tank then your filters (where all your bacteria grows in your sponges) have not matured enough to cope with the waste.

It is recommended for a new tank that you should do a 25% water change every week for the first six weeks, then every other week thereafter.  When you take the water out from the tank it needs to be syphoned off from the bottom and not scooped out of the top because most of the fish waste lies at the bottom.  All new water that is added to your tank will need to be treated with dechlorinater and bacteria everytime you do a water change.

To help with your problem i suggest you do a partial water change of 25 % twice this week to bring your levels back down to what they should be.  Keep adding the salt as that helps the oxygen flow more freely over their gills, but take any carbon out of your filter, as this will neutralize any medicine you have put in.  If after a week the fish still haven't gotten any better then you might want to try an all round general disinfectant that treats a variety diseases, or an anti fungus and finrot treatment.  Interpet do a very good range or medicines.  Hope this helps :)

[PlateletGal]

Hi Lisa,

Thank you for your reply. I have two tanks and one of the tanks was new. In addition to the new tank, I also purchased some new fish. I only put two fish in the new tank and used the dechlorinator, but did not purchase the bacteria. (I was waiting for them to create their own)  Now that I have been doing some more research online, I'm wondering if I did cause the nitrate levels to rise in the other tank ?    = (

I have been doing the water changes, but did not know about taking the water from the bottom of the tank. I will implement that ASAP and also purchase some bacteria ASAP.

I have been treating  the fish with aquarium salt and antibiotics. I have to use the recommended dose of salt in one tank, because I have a Cory Cat in there. In addition, I've been using Rid Ich + (which also treats fungus). I did take my fish to a local pet store yesterday and she first told me that there was nothing wrong with my white molly. It was OBVIOUS there was something wrong with the molly -- and the molly died last night. The catfish and some other fish have white patches on their gills. Not salt like or cotton like.... I believe it could be gill disease (?) The people at the pet store didn't seem to be very helpful, but they did tell me that my city is going to be changing their water again, so I may purchase bottled water now for my two aquariums.

[PlateletGal]

Good news. PetsMart was actually open today, so I bought some bacteria and also had them test my water (from both tanks and my faucet). The water was fine and this afternoon, my fish started to perk up and all except one of them are eating again.

Thank you so much for the information. I may have to consider purchasing one of those reverse osmosis units.... it depends on what changes the city is going to make to our drinking water.

[LisaLuke]

Hi again, Some shops are very quick to sell you something without the right information.  Bottled water may be better, but that might be more of a shock to your fish because the conditions would be so different.  The shop where you bought your fish, providing you don't live miles and miles away from it, should have  the same water as you.  They should have the same PH levels and the same water hardness as you.  Therefore it's better to try and keep the fish in the same conditions as where they came from, as they were reared in those water conditions.  It can sometimes do more harm than good to change their conditions so dramatically.  Good luck, sorry to hear about your Molly.  It sounds as though you really care about your fish :)  Hope this is of some use to you.

[purr]

If you can purchase a reverse osmosis unit to use for the water changes - DO IT.  I have one and its wonderful but I still have the nitrate problem and I cant get rid of it in my saltwater tank.  Cheaper than buying bottled water in the long term as it will practically pay for itself, not only you can drink the water from the unit too!

[LisaLuke]

Thats great news, good luck with your tanks :)