Dying Fish Kuhli Loaches/ Swordtails; Ich and Angels

[Kaligma]

Hello,

Thank you so much for everything that this community has provided. We are so grateful and have had a blast with everything involved in our fishy friends but our concern is red flagged!

We are worried about the health of our fish. We had a couple kuhli loaches die and now a swordtail; each has been a heartache.

The first the kuhli was lethargic, as they frequently rest wherever they choose. We then noticed red sores on his belly. They deteriorated from that moment and only spent time in that spot.

The sores were a concern, absolutely, but we had no idea what was going on. We saw what we thought was ich(white spots on a couple fish and them scratching themselves on plants/substrate) and got Seachem's Paraguard and dosed for about 1.5 weeks during.

A few days later, another loach was found dead in the water.

One of our swordtails, Wolf, had been sedentary and slow moving. She has had those raised scales since before the initial concern of ich/medication but was acting natural otherwise.

We stopped the Paraguard for a week and turned up the temp over that week, one degree a day(Edit 2: from 81 to 86), while we waited for API's general cure. She faded in color and basically had stopped moving around.(edit: her gills were wide open before the API, too)

We had hoped that we could get her back with API's General Cure; alas, she did not make it.

We have tested our waters and have kept up on changes.

Parameters:
pH: 7.0
Am: 0
Ni: 0
Na: 5
Phosphate: 5

Phosphates are a concern but we've more recently acquired the testing kit and don't have much knowledge about them.

I'm posting this on a phone. I hope that it all makes sense and we can find help.

As always, thank you for anything. We appreciate it. (Wolf in image)

Oh(Edit 3): The Angels were not eating for awhile and hiding most of the time. They're doing better but had stringy white poop during their stint. Apologies for not having brought them up, as they are a part of the community too. They were having weird behavior as well. They have been eating again and seem to have got their shimmer back. All of their non-appetite and shy behavior was happening during the initial concern times. Things seem to be going all right with them.

 

[Noroomforshoe]

They only thing that I can think of is that you could have added too much medicine for the loaches, and possibly for other species, but that doesnt explain your initial problem, so,,,
can you please tell us the tank size and all living inhabitants. what do you feed and when, how do you clean and how often, filter type and brand,

 

[Kaligma]

There are two angels, now 5 swordtails, now 3 loaches, a bn pleco, and one nerite snail. We have java ferns, a small vallisneria, and two anubias.

It's a 55 gallon tank with a Fluval C4 HOB filter. We typically do at least a basic vacuuming and/or water change every week and a big clean once a month with a python gravel vac and a seachem algae scraper. We generally replace filter media with Fluval C4 products every couple of weeks, aside from bacteria media, but occasionally goes up to a month. We also recently got an air pump and two bubblers.

Most often we feed them a pinch of TetraMin Tropical Flakes in the morning and at night. About once or twice a week we will give them a San Francisco Bay Brand frozen bloodworm cube with just a couple flakes because the angels generally prefer the flakes but the swordtails nom on the worms. Usually in night time feedings we will drop an approximate 1/2 a NorthFin kelp wafer for the pleco but pull it in about 0.5-1 hour if she doesn't hop on it.

I think that's everything? Sorry for the delay in response. Thank you in advance for any insight.

 

[Noroomforshoe]

I am going to be very nit-picky, since that is all I can offer helpwise, Its not intended to be rude.

You should gravel vacuum every time, if your are just changing water, that's like flushing the toilet but leaving the BMS.
You don't need to replace filter cartridges, rinse them in tank water, or dechlorinated tap water, or if you have plenty of filter media, just rinse them in the tap if they are that dirty. I mean if you were going to toss it anyway, at least this way you still have some of the nitrifying bacteria. chlorine in tap water takes time to kill that stuff.

Tetramine is total junk food.
Fish Meal, Dried Yeast, Ground Brown Rice, Shrimp Meal, Wheat Gluten, Feeding Oat Meal,

Kuhli loaches are 90 percent carnivorous, Which means 70 percent of that food is nothing but fiber. And its not the right kind of fiber either. Spirulina, Algae, spinich...

And the more I hear about blood worms, the more I want to throw mine out. Please at least realize that it is not very quality food. and also an entire cube is too much for your small amount of fish.

Please consider switching to New life spectra and or any of the bug bites. Variety is important! I use bug bites algae crisps for my loaches, bug bites cichlid formula fo the bigger fish, new life spectrum thera +A for everyone else, zoo meds can of worms blood worms, rinse off, and frozen into small portions in a cyclone dived try.

 

[Kaligma]

I don't find your help rude. Being nit-picky is not a negative thing, as it increases awareness of details potentially overlooked or misunderstood. I appreciate knowing details to help tighten up overall knowledge and experience. Thank you.

I had already been looking into better foods and am happy to have knowledge of your recommendations, as New Life is one of them I was considering. I was aware that the TetraMin was certainly not the best but had them come with the tank that we got. We will acquire better foods for them ASAP, as I had been researching but your response is pushing for necessity.

We're looking forward to the hopeful improvement with everything involved.

Thank you, again.