Help Please I Have No Clue Whats Happening

I already lost one loach now my other 2 clowns are breathing rapidly and laying on their sides and I had a bala shark die today also his gills were super red and he had a few red dots by his analfin am I dealing with some kind of fluke or parasite and what should I treat my tank with

 

I think red gills could indicate not enough oxygen in the water. Maybe try an air stone. But I’m sure someone more experienced can have more to say.

 

welcome to Fish Lore I'm sorry you're having troubles.

your profile says you don't know of the nitrogen cycle. my guess is that your tank is cycling & the toxins are killing your fish.

how long have you had the tank set up & running?

when did you add the fish?

so you have a freshwater testing kit?

if you don't understand the cycle here's a really simplified version:

put simply, your fish poo. that poo breaks down into ammonia which is toxic to fish. imagine breathing your own poo.

one type of bacteria eat the ammonia. those bacteria then poo and create nitrite. nitrite is also very toxic to fish.

a second type of bacteria (nitrobacter) start growing. these guys grow more slowly but they eat nitrite. when nitrobacter poo, they produce nitrate. nitrate is less toxic & perfectly safe for fish until it gets higher than 20-40 ppm. you remove nitrates when you do weekly water changes. most of us keep nitrates below 20ppm.

I hope that makes sense?

getting seachem prime will keep your fish safe as long as the levels of ammonia plus nitrite combined add up to less than 1ppm. (edit: example. ammonia at .5 + nitrite .25 = .75 total toxins = safe with prime)

when your levels are higher, you need to do partial water changes (usually daily) to remove the toxins back down to a safer level. you do this until your bacteria grow and can do it themselves.

the way you test your levels is test kits like the API freshwater master test kit.

 

So, I think it would be safe to say try testing your water, or take it to close fish shop they usually do it for free. Do 30-50% water change and get some bubbles in water. I don’t have air stone so I just take the outflow pipe of my filter above water surface and it creates some bubbles. But every filter is different

 

The red gills and spots are probably septicemia via ammonia poisoning. I'm curious how big this tank is, with clown loaches and balas in it.

 

I vote for ammonia poisoning. Get some Seachem Prime in their fast and learn how to cycle your tank. Water changes along with Prime every day until tank is cycled. Good luck! Jenoli42 has good advice.