Dr. Google isn't helping my sick fish

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice or guidance from some of the experienced fish keepers here. Have you seen these symptoms and what did you do to treat? Not asking for a diagnosis, just some guidance so I don't lose anymore fish. I haven't done the medication route yet, but I'm not against it, just wanted to try some more natural approaches, but at this point I'm willing to turn to a more medicinal approach. Thank you for any help you can give.

Tank information.
Size: 55gallon (approx 48x12x20)
Start up/cycling dates: Nov 1-Dec 1 (cycled with seeded media and 1/2 gravel from another cycled tank)
Equipment: Marineland penguin 350 hob; 40 gallon sponge filter with air stone & additonal airstone, 300 watt heaters on opposite sides of tank and thermometers (digital and non on both sides)
Inhabitants added since fish start date (Dec 1): 1 adult spotted corydora; 1 adult Bronze corydora; 1 juv panda Cory; 1 juv albino cory; 1 juv threadfin acara; 1 juv electric blue acara; 1 juv blue acara: 2 juv firemouth cichlids; 2 juv Bolivian rams. Fish lost since start up (in the past 3 weeks) bronze cory, panda cory, threadfin acara.
Important details: after adding electric blue acara around 12/18/16 (not quarantined... I know, I messed up), noticed white spots on fin and scratching at substrate symptomatic signs of ich. Water parameters (API master test kit) at zero except nitrate which consistently ranges from 5-10ppm in that tank. Raised heat from 76F to 82F (my older 300watt couldn't handle heating the whole tank to 86F, and did 50% water change (used seachem prime).

Over the next 48 hours the blue acara, threadfin, and spotted Cory all started scratching bodies against the sand substrate, and the only other fish that showed ich like spots was the regular blue acara. Then I lost my threadfin acara (found him listless and unable to swim properly, so floating around the tank but still breathing and trying to swim, immediately bagged him and floated him in the tank since the other fish started nipping him, noticed large red blotch on abdomen toward tail fin and 5 min later he died). Immediately did 50% water change, added additional heater which raised temp to 86F, added api aquarium salt at 1tsp per gallon ratio, water parameters zero except nitrate at 5ppm.

Lost the panda cory next, did another 50% water change on the 22nd (prime and API salt). This morning, the 25th I found the bronze cory had died and his abdomen is also reddened in a large blotch pattern, noticed the albino cory also has a red blotch along with the electric blue acara all in the same spot. Also, I haven't noticed any white spots on either of the acara's since the 22nd but have still maintained the temp at 86F (aiming for 14 days at this temp total). Master test kit today shows a slightly elevated ammonia between 0 and 0.25 and nitrate 10-20ppm.

Dr. Google has failed me. I can't figure out what this could be. I'm guessing since the electric blue acara showed signs of ich a few days after being introduced that he may have also brought along some type of bacterial infection or other parasite? Help?

I forgot to mention that when I took out the cory that had died his gills were purple. I've heard of this being related to ammonia poisoning but that doesn't make sense with the values being at 0 for the past month and below .25 today. Maybe with the addition of the heat on the salt this intensified the effect? There is a lot of surface movement from the hob filter, sponge filter, and two air stones so I don't suspect a lack of water oxygenation. I'm stumped

Are you positive your test kits are good?
I lost two Discus to a bad nitrite test kit.

Pretty quick cycle and stocking. You may have added too heavy of a bio load to quickly...ich outbreak is also a likely cause do to stress.

Flashing is not only a sign of ich...ammonia too, among many other gill irritating diseases

That makes senses about the bioload and maybe them being more sensitive to even low amounts of ammonia due to the ich stress. I should've let it cycle longer for sure. I added them all at once since I was worried about territorial aggression with those species. The only weird thing is the fact that my test kit didn't detect any ammonia at all until the most recent test and even that being between 0 and .25 wouldn't be considered a spike. Are any of the symptoms I listed related to overheating at all? Hypothetically all of those species should've been able to handle a temporary temp of 86F and I did raise it by 1 degree per hour but they only started dying as soon as the temp changed. I was also thinking maybe the increase killed off my beneficial bacteria and stopped the biological filtration, but that also brings me back to the fact that ammonia/nitrite have been 0 since cycling. What about nitrate? That's the only reading that's been a bit high at recents levels of 10-20 ppm?

Steve H. said:

Pretty quick cycle and stocking. You may have added too heavy of a bio load to quickly...ich outbreak is also a likely cause do to stress.

Flashing is not only a sign of ich...ammonia too, among many other gill irritating diseases

Click to expand...

Sorry Steve, meant for that last comment to be a response to yours

Also failed to mention that I was looking over my seachem prime dosing instructions and it states to use half the dose (normally 5ml/50 gallons) when the temp is 86 or above. I didn't realize this before and since I use a python water changer, I've been using the regular dose to treat the whole tank when I've done my water changes. So basically for my 50% water changes I use about 1.5 capfuls which would be 7.5mls. Could an overdose of prime have poisoned them? I'm not sure why exactly a lower dose is needed for high temps

Sorry. I use RO water in all my tanks, and haven't had the need for Prime or any water conditioner in years. I don't really remember anything about Prime...just know it as the good stuff

I mostly breed now which is kind of a different animal. I breed South Americans, so lighting and the softness of water are no good for plants. I only have substrate in a handful of tanks.
The only community display tank I have is a 46 gallon marine set up.

But, to try and answer the ammonia question. I am guessing a bit here.
It is possible that you had a cycle going for a small bio load, so you were seeing 0 Ammonia with some Nitrates present. You loaded the tank quickly, and then perhaps got distracted with the ich. All the while your Bac's are multiplying to keep up with the load, and Ammonia spiked without you noticing, and your catching it on the way down.
Remember this, Ammonia and Nitrites are always present in the water column. You get zero readings on tests because your bac's are consuming them as quickly as they are being produced.
A saw a good example of this is with my marine tank. I was getting a 0.02ppm reading on phosphates and a 0.5ppm reading on Nitrates. Awesome levels for a salt water set-up. But, I was still having algae issues with these great levels. Why? Because that was what was left that the algae couldn't consume. The levels were probably actually much higher.

Now, add the ich and possible poisoning, a lot of stress from stocking so quickly...it was probably not any 1 thing, but a combination of several.


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