Feeling Frustrated

[njnauticalnut]

I am feeling kind of frustrated. I did a fishless cycle on my 75 gallon tank which completed about 2.5 weeks ago. I followed the process to the letter. It took about 6 weeks. I made sure that the tank was fully cycled before adding any fish and it could convert 5ppms of amonia within 24 hours. I made sure the readings were amonia 0ppm and nitrite 0ppm. I did a water change to keep the nitrate at almost 0ppm. I then added the first bunch of fish. I had a couple of losses within a few days, then I noticed an unidentifiable spot/sore on my powder blue gourami (not ich) and now I have this breakout of ich, my neon blue gourami is breathing hard, 2 danios have red gills, and I have a platy who has ich and is clamping her fins. She is only using one pectoral fin, the left one she does not use at all and her dorsal and tail fins are clamped tight. I don't think she is going to make it.

The water parameters had a small spike of amonia .5ppm when I added the first fish. I did daily water changes to get it to 0. Since then the water parameters have remained stable at amonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate less than 10ppm (do weekly water changes, ph 7.1.

What am I doing wrong? Or is this just the possibilities of things going wrong with a new tank?

 

[shmax101]

Assuming this is not your first tank, why wait the 6 weeks for a fishless cycle. If you have an existing disease free tank, simply seed a new filter in your old tank and cross it over to the new one. As far as the ick goes, it sounds like the fish must have been chilled. Check your temp, and your heater. I just bought 24 juvenile to adult discus two days ago, and set up their 4 new tanks AFTER I brought them home, and they've all adjusted perfectly with 100% fresh tap water (dechlorinated) and a seasoned sponge filter from their old tanks. It's MUCH easier and faster that way, hope that helps, and sorry to hear about sick fish, there's nothing more sad than watchin the little beauties suffer

 

[njnauticalnut]

Nope, this is not my first tank, however, I only had a 5 gallon running and there was not enough material to seed the larger tank so I did a fishless cycle. The wait was not that bad.

Would the fish be chilled at a temp of 77 as the tank has been no lower than that?

 

[SilverDollar_03]

no 77 is perfect. chill couldnt have been it...

that seems like a big case of bad luck to me! sorry to hear this

 

[shmax101]

Your temp is fine, I say it's too many fish for a new tank without mature filtration. If it were me, I would put your survivors in a small hospital tank, treat them, and drain your new tank and start over, but this time, just add some hearty, healthy cory cats or actually, you know what, depending on where you live, you may be able to buy a native channel cat, they are PERFECT for cycling a tank. Tanks they are, cant kill on purpose without a lot of effort. Dirty too, make a cycle in no time.

 

[njnauticalnut]

Based on all of the info that I got from here, I thought that you could add pretty close to a full bioload with fishless cycling. Many of the folks I posted with have done this successfully.

I know that my tank is still new, but the filtration can handle over 5ppm of amonia easily within 24 hours. The water parameters currently are and have been, except for a couple of days when I first added the fish amonia went up to .5ppm, amonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate 10ppm and ph 7.1. I am not sure why I should start all over when the tank is fully cycled. Would a few corys give me as mature a tank as I currently have? Plus I did not have an issue with fishless cycling.

Plus all of the fish are surviving and could never fit into my 5 gallon tank that is currently set up. I currently have no other tanks. I may lose a platy and possibly a gourami, but since I caught the ich immediately, I think I should be able to treat it and beat it, no? I wasn't giving up that easily. I was just feeling frustrated that there is an outbreak of ich.

Do folks really think that I need to drain the tank and start over?

 

[sinistral]

I wouldn't start over if I were in your shoes. It can be frustrating to go through something going wrong such as an outbreak of ich when you feel you've done things to the letter. I hope you'll finish the ich treatment and that your fish get better

 

[Stryker]

Also, there was no delay between the time you stopped feeding your bacteria an ammonia source and adding fish?

well there should be no delay else the bacteria either kind of go into sleep or die off when there is not enough food.

 

[njnauticalnut]

No, there was no delay. I added first amount of fish about 26 or so hours after the last "feeding." My water parameters speak to basically how stable the tank has been. No one was sure why I had the trace amounts of amonia for a few days .5 then down to .25. But the daily water changes cleared that up. I never had a spike or saw any nitrites.

The fish are all still doing fine considering the ich. The only fish displaying symptoms, other than a white spot, is the platy who still has her fins clamped. I am continuing treatment for ich, well the treatment I put in works for a month so I only need to re-treat the tank when I do a water change which will be tonight.

I wasn't sure why it was suggested to drain the tank and start all over.

 

[luxum]

Your bioload is fine, your cycle had a little hiccup when you first added the fish, but as you can see it's stabilized. This is theorized to happen sometimes because the bacteria that convert organic wastes to ammonia didn't form during the inital cycling, hence there was a little more ammonia in the tank or perhaps in a different form, than when the tank was cycled. This is why i usually add a little fish food at a couple points during a fishless cycle, to get the organic converters going, but i don't think it's mentioned in the links off this site. Re-cycling your tank is absoutely not needed.

The problem is likely to be disease related, imo. Dwarf gouramis in particular are noted for having problems like TB and general inbreeding difficulties, depressed immune systems due to hormone treatments to get their colors bright, etc. The red gills on the danios are probably ich, it seems to start on the gills before the spots show up on the bodies, and you mentioned another fish with visible ich.

 

[njnauticalnut]

Luxum,

Thanks for the info. I thought that my tank was stabilized and that this was a disease.

I do have an ich breakout--a gourami, 2 platys, and the danios are showing symptoms which I am treating. As all but one platy seem to be doing really well, I hope the meds kick in and knock out the ich. I gave the tank a good cleaning today and a water change and added additional meds.

The other three gouramis are fine so hopefully they will remain that way.

I am hoping for the best.

Thanks!

 

[Pearlie]

Something I find highly irritating, and dangerous, is that most medications tell you to only treat your tank 3-7 days. However, Ick has a life cycle of 20! days!, and, unless the medication has a special mode of attack, only kills the organism while it is free-floating, ie, *not* on your fish!

Good luck with your tank and hopefully it turns around soon!

 

[shmax101]

I suggested starting over because you said one of your fish showed signs of disease "not ich" and with the group of fish you added, there are more than a couple species known for carrying fish TB, and the platy I would say is the culprit. I had 2 beautiful sailfin mollies that had it, and one crescent moon platy. they all started showing symptoms after about 2 days being in the same tank. In my experience, once a tank has a serious outbreak, which I couldnt possible be sure that yours has, then it never seems to truly go away. I hope that im wrong, and that your fish will kick the ich, and be healthy!

 

[njnauticalnut]

I suggested starting over because you said one of your fish showed signs of disease "not ich" and with the group of fish you added, there are more than a couple species known for carrying fish TB, and the platy I would say is the culprit. I had 2 beautiful sailfin mollies that had it, and one crescent moon platy. they all started showing symptoms after about 2 days being in the same tank. In my experience, once a tank has a serious outbreak, which I couldnt possible be sure that yours has, then it never seems to truly go away. I hope that im wrong, and that your fish will kick the ich, and be healthy!

Thanks for the info. I hope so, too!

What are the signs of TB?

Two out of the three platys have ich. One died overnight, the other I am sure will not be far behind. The third is thus far symptom free, no spots.

The neon blue dwarf gourami also has ich and the meds must be helping as he is no longer breathing hard. His white spot looks smaller as well.

I am treating the tank for one month. The meds that I have actually state that.

The danios still have the red gills and no spots. I didn't know that this was a sign of ich. They show no other syptoms as they are eating like pigs, flying around the tank, picking on the poor sick platys. In fact, I swear that these zebra danios are evil as they terrorize any platy that is in the tank. They were nipping at the carcass of the dead one this morning! When they eventually "go", I have decided to stay away from danios. In fact, I was thinking of getting them a new home. The last time I had danios they were not this aggressive. I started with six figuring that would be a decent size school. I accidentally scooped a danio out and found it in the net the next day, so I now have five. I felt awful, not sure how it happened as usually netting them is quite a task. They were still aggressive when they were six as well.

I think the stress the platys were under from a new tank and then being terrorized is what caused the breakout of ich. Anyone want any danios???

 

[love fishies]

If you are talking about your 75 gallon I think you added too many fish all at once, that is why you got ich from the fish being stressed and ammonia spike. I was always taught to SLOWLY add fish to a newly cycled tank. Keep on treating the ich and add melaflix or maracyn 2 these are good for internal diseases and a wide spectrum of diseases. It took 2 weeks to cure the ick for my fish but they are ok now. Good Luck. Do not start over just try everything possible to get your fishies all better.