Help! One Of My Rummynose Is Weird!

[l_l_l]

I have finished stocking one of my tanks and now I'm starting to fear the worst!
 
I came back from work, and did my routine check, to make sure everything was ok with my fish.
 
Well.. 
I WAS SHOCKED!
One of my tetras was laying on it's back, twitching, gasping for air, his nose no longer red, no apparent mark on him, didn't look injured.. But he was still alive!!
 

My water specifications are as follow:
Ph of 7.5
Nitrates at 5-10
Nitrites at 0
Ammonia at 0
Temp of 24.5
 
I am starting to be concerned as I am seeing three of my tetras with small white spots on them, one of them has 3, the other has 2, and the other has one.
 
They all have bright red noses, indicating that they should be fine, my CPDs are having fun everywhere in the tank and shinning like crazy, and the Gourami is starting to be more and more iridescent..
When I pulled the tetra up, it started floating. I looked closer to see if e was injured, having marks on him or white spots, nope, he looked perfectly fine..
 
I am spooked, and fear of the white spot disease taking over my tank. 
I must add that the first time I saw one of these white spots, was about 4 days ago, and on the same fishes, but decided not to worry about it, as it might be normal for them if they are stressed due to the new tank environment..
 
I have added the fish last week.
 
Any clues on what could have caused his death? I did absolutely nothing different than usual. Only thing I'm thinking is that I might have put my hand too far in the tank, I do have an open wound of about 1cm..
Would that cause some outbreak or something?
 
The fish is no longer of this world as we speak, I just couldn't stand seeing him like this :'(
 
 

 

[Blondielovesfish]

I'm sorry for your loss!
 
Unfortunately, I think it may have just been a bad fish from the LFS, I'd ring them up and ask for a refund/replacement.
 
What do these spots look like? Do they look like grains of salt?

 

[SimpleDog]

That tetra in the pic is looking kind of fat. Was the fish pineconing or anything? I cannot tell from the pic.

 

[l_l_l]

He was not pineconing no

He did look a bit fat on the picture but not in front of me, perfectly normal.
I think I identified the fish earlier as it's inside was a bit different than the other fish, more "opaque" and weird.. This same fish is no longer in the tank, which makes me think it must have been that one.
Maybe a parasite got him.
One thing worth mentioning, when I moved him out of the plant, he was floating, belly up.
 

I'm sorry for your loss!
 
Unfortunately, I think it may have just been a bad fish from the LFS, I'd ring them up and ask for a refund/replacement.
 
What do these spots look like? Do they look like grains of salt?

Yeah they look like grains of salt exactly.. I have decided to play safe and started treatment for Ich. One of the fish that I was monitoring was missing half of his tail when I got him (LFS gave it to me when I told them about it) and he has recovered most of it, didn't have any of the spots on him before and now has one. It's definitely an outbreak.. 
Hopefully it's manageable.
 
I'll hit my LFS up and see about the tetra that died, look if they can refund/replace the fish. After all, I spent a lot of money already there..
They have never been difficult about returns (bought a timer once and was not satisfied with it and just returned it, they credited me without issues)..
 
 
Hopefully they wont bother asking questions or "proof" that this was one of theirs

Especially that I just placed a 70$ order worth of anubias

 

[SimpleDog]

Be sure that after you complete ich treatment that you do water changes and possibly add carbon to the filter to strip out any remaining meds. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[l_l_l]

Be sure that after you complete ich treatment that you do water changes and possibly add carbon to the filter to strip out any remaining meds. I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you! 
I am going to use Kordon's Rid Fungus, which has been reported as an effective treatment against ich, and it's all natural and won't hurt my inverts.
Water change is scheduled on sunday which concords with treatment completion. 

 

[SimpleDog]

Kordon is good stuff. 

 

[Blondielovesfish]

Yeah, definitely sounds like ICH! Good call on starting the treatment, hopefully you have caught it in the early stages.
 
If you're a frequent buyer then hopefully they will refund/replace!

 

[l_l_l]

Thank you
I have learned that the sooner you diagnose a disease, the higher your success rate is.
No casualties to be reported this morning,
I fed them gut loaded brine shrimp (frozen) this morning and they ate everything really fast, it was fun to see them swoosh aroung for bits and pieces!
My Gourami was going crazy about them as well

 

[l_l_l]

it looks like my Gourami also has ich! :O
Nooooooooooooooo!
I didn't notice until now.

 

[Meeresstille]

Is he in the same tank? 
If not he may have gotten infected by equipment used in both aquariums!

 

[l_l_l]

Is he in the same tank? 
If not he may have gotten infected by equipment used in both aquariums!

Yes he's in the same tank, and the three tetras I identified as infectious are showing more and more white spots on them..
I'm worrying this treatment might not be working..
 
I don't see any new infected fish tho but it might just be a matter of time.. 
 
I'll do a large water change tomorrow and clean the gravel as well. Hopefully it can still be controlled. 

 

[Meeresstille]

Ich is very treatable. I've read that there are supposedly strains that are more resistant to meds, and recently also found out that there have been strains that are resistant to the heat/salt treatment, but I believe those cases are not the norm.
 
It is recommended to turn the heat up a little in the tank to speed up the parasite's life cycle. The sooner the parasite morphs into the free swimming stage, the sooner the meds can start working. You probably already found out that this free swimming stage is the only stage where meds or the salt (if one were to be doing the salt treatment) has an effect on the parasite.
 
Doing daily gravel vacs helps to pick up any cysts that have fallen off the fish. These cysts are just laying in the gravel waiting to morph into the free swimming stage so they can go looking for another host. So, the more you reduce the number of cysts in the gravel, the more you reduce the risk of re-infection on your fish. (make sure you add enough meds back into the tank to replace the meds you've removed during the gravel vac!)
 
I've read on a post on another forum that these free-swimmers home in on the protein of the fish, that this protein is left like a trail in the water column, and this is how the parasite finds its host. If you add aeration to your tank it not only increases the oxygen level in the water it also breaks up this protein trail which makes it harder for the parasite to find its host. This in turn will increase the time the parasite is free swimming in the water column which also increases the time the medication or salt can take effect. 
 
Don't panic, you are doing just fine. I think most of us have had to deal with this nasty critter in our tanks as well. In the future you can reduce the risk of bringing ich into your tank by quarantining new fish for 5-6 weeks. I have a little bag of ceramic media tucked into one of the filters running on my larger tank and whenever I need to quarantine new fish I just transfer that little bag over to the filter of the QT.

 

[l_l_l]

Yeah exactly! I've been too impatient and immediately brought the fish in my main tank, it was fishless before so...

 
I'll continue as I mentionned earlier..
My fish seem to settle quite well now, less and less white spots, I'm hoping I'll win the battle

 

[Meeresstille]

Yeah exactly! I've been too impatient and immediately brought the fish in my main tank, it was fishless before so...

 
I'll continue as I mentionned earlier..
My fish seem to settle quite well now, less and less white spots, I'm hoping I'll win the battle

Well, if they were the first fish to go into the tank I would have done the same thing. The main tank became their QT then! Only problem with that is, that you have all that gravel where things can hide in which in a QT if you leave it bare bottom it is easier to clean!
 
Glad to hear your fish seem to be getting better now!