miraloma

I have had my tank for 6 months. In the beginning, as any newbie could relate to, I had a lot of trouble keeping my fish alive. Casualties subsided after a couple of months. Things were going well, then all of a sudden, fish started to die on me again. 2 platys have gone to the next world. Now, 3 more platys are flashing. The rainbow seem to have either ich or fungus on their tails. I've cranked up the heat as part of the ich treatment. What can cause such sudden outbreak? What should I do in this type of situation?

The last time I added fish was probably 2 months ago when I added the betta after a 2 week quarantine.

4 platys, 3 corys, 3 rainbows, 1 betta, ghost shrimp and snails.

Shawnie

sorry for the loss of your fish I hope things get better...can you get the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings for us?

susitna-flower

Usually an outbreak like this can be related to water quality. As Shawnie asked, what are the readings of water tests, but also how often and how much water are you changing?

Also what temperature have you raised the tank to?

Really sorry you are having problems, hope we can help.....

sirdarksol

I second the questions/comments above.
Also, what do the tails look like? Ich will look like little white spots, similar to grains of salt, while fungus will look fuzzy, or like splotches of color, or maybe something else. It probably won't look like little grains of salt. If it doesn't look like salt, I would lower the temp (slowly) back to normal, as many fungi do better in warmer temps. Aside from that, the higher temp is stressing to the fish, so if it isn't actively helping (by killing off the ich), it is doing a small amount of harm.

Good luck, keep the info and the questions coming. As Susitna said, we'll do our best to help you out here.

COBettaCouple

I'd order: Fish Protector, Vita-Chem, Garlic Guard and Rid-Fungus from www.thatfishplace.com if you could. All of those will help your fish no matter what's going on.

I'd agree the #1 probable cause is water chemistry. That can lower the defenses of fish and make them easier targets for disease. It sounds like you have a fungal issue in the tank.

miraloma

Last time I did a reading which was 2 weeks ago, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 5 ppm of nitrate. The female rainbow has at least 1 white grain on her tail every day. The male dwarf neon rainbow has some white fuzzy patches on his tale. I typically change my water once every 10 days in the amount of 20% or so. I just did a water change 3 days ago and also changed out the activated carbon. The water temperature is around 80F. I hope things will get better soon.

Lucy

Hi miraloma,
I hope things get better for you and your fishes too. I know it is stressful when our fish babies are ill.

It's recommended to remove the carbon when medicating the tank as your filter cartridge would have filtered out any meds you would have put in.
Have you used the meds coBettaCouple recommended?
The fuzzy patches sound like a fungus and the white grain sounds like ich.

Good luck, I hope things get better soon.

miraloma

I just did a reading. There's a slight bit of ammonia (0.25) but that could be 'cause I over fed a bit last night after a weekend away from home. No nitrite and about 10 ppm of nitrate.

I'm hoping that I don't have to medicate 'cause last time I did, it took a long time and didn't seem to help that much that time around. It's also a medium size tank (28G) that I would have to use a lot of medicine.

My current plan is to keep things as is for now. In a week, if things don't improve, I'll move the fish that seem diseased to a quarantine tank and medicate.

One more question. My platys like to swim around with their dorsal fin folded down making it look like they don't have dorsal fins. I think that's a sign of a stressed out fish but I don't know what that symptom is called and what would be causing it.

Lucy

I'd do a water change now, any ammonia is not good and could be why your platys fins are down.

Did you have the carbon in when you medicated?

I think any fungus is contagious, so yeah, putting him in a Q tank would be a good idea.

Let us know how they're doing.
For the ich, you can raise your temp to 84F for 2 weeks.

COBettaCouple

Rid-Fungus would be a good med to start with for the fungus - it's easy on the fish and raising the water temp is the treatment for ich, along with daily water changes of 25% and cleaning the substrate weekly.

miraloma

I took out the carbon when I medicated last time. I'll do a water change today and see if the diseased symptoms go away soon.

COBettaCouple, are you suggesting that I treat the fungus in one tank and ich in another? If I'm medicating, I shouldn't do daily water change, I'd imagine.

Also, do I need to get my corys out when medicating? The julii corys are resting on the gravel most of the time these days. The albino cory is still flapping up and down the tank all day long, like it used to do. I'm not sure if the more I try, the more harm I do...

So I have 3 tanks. I'd have to do some moving around, or I could buy yet another tank for quarantine. If I were to move them around a bit, I'm not sure what the best arrangement it is.
28G: 1 betta, 3 corys, 4 platys, 2 dwarf rainbow and 1 bosemani rainbow
14G: 2 yoyo loaches (1 week into quarantine), 3 neon tetra and 2 harlequin rasbora
10G: cherry shrimp and 5 rainbow fry (1" or so now)

COBettaCouple

The Rid-Fungus is a herbal organic solution so you can add it daily and do water changes before each addition. The warmer water and cleaning are all that ich needs so you could treat the one tank for both without really using any harsh meds on the fish.