40 Gallon Tank HELP! Ich outbreak and severe stress

[crazyrobzilla]

Tank
What is the water volume of the tank? 40 gal
How long has the tank been running? 2 years, but just recently replaced old water and cleaned it to get cichlids
Does it have a filter? Yes
Does it have a heater? yes
What is the water temperature? 86 (to help aid with ich)
What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.) 7 African Cichlids (3 inches or less)

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? once a week, but now a 20-25% change daily due to ich)
How much of the water do you change? 20-25%
What do you use to treat your water? API tap water conditioner
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water?Substrate

*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish?Yes
What do you use to test the water? API 5 in 1 test kit
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.
Ammonia: ????
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
pH: 7.5

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? once in the morning, once at night
How much do you feed your fish? enough for them to finish in 30 seconds
What brand of food do you feed your fish? OMEGA ONE and Wardley
Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods?No

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish? about 1-2 weeks
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? 3 days ago
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms? White spots, lethargy, loss of color
Have you started any treatment for the illness? Yes, aquarium salt, Herbtana, daily water change, and temperature increase
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? No
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all? Yes, they were very active before and very colorful and now 2 of them are very lethargic and lost color, and most of them swim near the top of the tank now

Explain your emergency situation in detail. (Please give a clear explanation of what is going on, include details from the beginning of the illness leading up to now)

I got these fish, and they were perfectly fine, and 3 days ago I noticed the ich starting to break out. I immediately went to a pet shop to get aquarium salt, and herbtana to suffocate the parasites, I bumped my temperature up to 86 degrees F, but nothing has worked and my OB peacock seems to be getting worse. He has lost more color, and gained mroe spots even though I vacuum the substrate, and started treatment to aid getting rid of the ich.
my ob peacock died. i dont know how he died even though ive been doing treatment.

 

[LeviS]

80-82 degrees is the recommended high end for peacocks. Ich is stressful, then higher temps is also adding to stress.
In my personal opinion and thats all it is as some use the heat method and ill catch flak from it.
Its easier to just use a good ich med and be done with it. Every fish I've had that got ich, I treated my tank with the jungle brand ich med from Walmart. The ich is usually gone in 2-3 days and I have lost 0 fish from using it. I follow the dosing guidelines on the bottle but generally 2-3 days and no longer see the ich, the fish aren't stressed, easy as it gets. If you decide to use meds, slowly reduce the temp. No reason to increase temp if going the meds route. Good luck, just my .02 and trying to get you an answer.

 

[crazyrobzilla]

80-82 degrees is the recommended high end for peacocks. Ich is stressful, then higher temps is also adding to stress.
In my personal opinion and thats all it is as some use the heat method and ill catch flak from it.
Its easier to just use a good ich med and be done with it. Every fish I've had that got ich, I treated my tank with the jungle brand ich med from Walmart. The ich is usually gone in 2-3 days and I have lost 0 fish from using it. I follow the dosing guidelines on the bottle but generally 2-3 days and no longer see the ich, the fish aren't stressed, easy as it gets. If you decide to use meds, slowly reduce the temp. No reason to increase temp if going the meds route. Good luck, just my .02 and trying to get you an answer.

one of my fish is starting to swim sideways... i got him like 4 days ago.

 

[LeviS]

My second guess is ammonia. Its odd that there is 0 nitrates which leads me to believe its not cycled. Was the tank actively running with fish for 2 years?
Id probably start reducing the temp, and get ich meds tomorrow.

 

[crazyrobzilla]

My second guess is ammonia. Its odd that there is 0 nitrates which leads me to believe its not cycled. Was the tank actively running with fish for 2 years?
Id probably start reducing the temp, and get ich meds tomorrow.

I reduced the temp to 80 and it is still going down, im aiming for 78-76. I got Super ick cure, so im going to be using that. 3 of my fish died today, two of which to ich and one died for some unknown reason. I was wrong about my nitrates, they were at 20 ppm. My tank had fish for 2 years until I got rid of them and did a 80% water change, leaving some still in, and then a fish I got had ich so im hoping to cure it within the next 5 days.

 

[LeviS]

I gotcha, you should be good when start ich meds, its the easiest thing to get rid of, dont forget to remove any carbon if you have it in a filter. If never used ich meds before just a heads up, anything silicone in the tank may stain a light blue. Ive had it stain a heater before but never noticed it staining the silicone on the tank. If it does stain it will go away over time. Good luck.

 

[crazyrobzilla]

I gotcha, you should be good when start ich meds, its the easiest thing to get rid of, dont forget to remove any carbon if you have it in a filter. If never used ich meds before just a heads up, anything silicone in the tank may stain a light blue. Ive had it stain a heater before but never noticed it staining the silicone on the tank. If it does stain it will go away over time. Good luck.

my 4th fish today died. he was doing perfectly fine, didnt have any signs of ich, but just suddenly stopped. Ive used aquarium salt, herbtana, AND super ick cure, and nothing seems to be working. 4 fish today have just dropped. my baby orange blotch zebra is doing perfectly fine, same with my yellow lab, but my yellow sunshine looks like hes going to go soon too. i dont get this.
6th fish. im devastated. i only have one fish left and shes the only one that hasnt shown any signs of any sickness, and seems overall very healthy. i dont know why all my fish died, but its heartbreaking to say the least.

 

[Cherryshrimp420]

If you have zeolite in your filter media then adding salt will cause it to release all the ammonia it has absorbed.

86 F is a big too high for ich treatment....and doesn't seem like the tank is cycled

 

[crazyrobzilla]

If you have zeolite in your filter media then adding salt will cause it to release all the ammonia it has absorbed.

86 F is a big too high for ich treatment....and doesn't seem like the tank is cycled

86 was what my local fish store and my breeder friend told me to use, and the tank was cycled. Im going to be bringing the dead fish into my local fish store to get store credit since my water levels were perfectly fine, no ammonia, everything was safe. Im gonna save up money and just completely restart my aquarium at this point, however i do have one fish who seems to be doing well, and she is fine with everything. I hope i get to at least keep her, shes my favorite fish.

 

[tomiyama]

I like Kordon Ich Attack, it's all natural and doesn't affect your biofilter or your plants and is safe for all sensitive fish. You have to keep it in your tank (see website directions) and dose daily. You don't have to increase temperature or add salt either.

 

[Demeter]

Sounds to me you may have jumped the gun a bit when treating them. IME you should either do meds or just the heat treatment. I prefer the heat treatment, when needed I always bump it to 86F and add an air stone for extra surface movement because warm water holds less O2.

Using a cocktail of meds plus doing the heat treatment is a lot of stress for fish. If you are using chemical meds then I wouldn't be adding the salt+heat. Mixing meds isn't a great idea either as you never know how the chemicals will react together.

If your last little fish is doing alright then I'd stop adding meds, add activated charcoal to remove the current dose of meds, and keep up with doing water changes. If you start seeing ich spots then either dose meds or use heat.

Normally, even if you are going through ich I don't think it should be killing them off so fast. I'd chalk that up to the mix of lots of meds and stress. I'd also want to check the readings for ammonia. Even if the tank was cycled before you added the fish, adding 7 messy African cichlids may be too much for the current bacteria population to cope with. It's likely too late to know if it was the ammonia that killed all the others as you've been doing lots of water changes but it is something to keep in mind for the future. If you are completely restocking a tank you should always keep an eye on all the parameters for the next few weeks.

Last thing I would add is the importance of quarantining new fish. If you've been adding new fish to an existing population you risk introducing new pathogens. Having a spare 10gal tank and keeping a cycled sponge filter in the main tank so you can quickly setup a quarantine may save you a lot of head ache.

 

[tomiyama]

I agree with Demeter, you should probably do either meds or heat/salt, but can totally understand why you were panicking as it is a serious situation that requires immediate attention.

 

[crazyrobzilla]

I agree with Demeter, you should probably do either meds or heat/salt, but can totally understand why you were panicking as it is a serious situation that requires immediate attention.

yeah, its just weird how my smallest fish is doing okay. I brought water samples to my local fish shop and my ammonia was at 0. It was my first time dealing with disease in ym tank, and my first time dealing with cichlids too. Honestly this was way too much stress for a beginner cichlid keeper... not even 3 weeks into keeping them and i had already gotten a disease in there.