I suck at having fish. --help!

[Tamara]

Well i've had soo many problems, i'm ready to give up.
within the past 1-2 weeks I had about 1 million supposivly..parania or something like that.
so I took all my rocks out, boiled those to get rid of them, then they were still there
--to small to get them out with a net so I had to COMPLETLY empty my whole tank...
I cleaned it with water only, then they were all over in my filter so I got a new one of those
it was good for about a week
so I slowly put the rocks back, and 3/5 decoration thing back in
now today or yesterday I went away for the night to visit my dad (divorce) and my mom took care of my fish
like she does all the time once aweek when I go to my dad's house.
I come back (10 minutesish ago) and I find 2 of my dalmation mollies stuck with their back fin in the filter
they were dead with there bodies out side of the filter thing because they were to fat to get sucked completly up
so I got them out, put some fish water conditioner stuff in (helps with new fish&dead fish&other)
and now I find out that there are some white dot things popping out of their head/body (like zits..but on a fish and they're white.)
I have no clue what that is, or what to do. there's i'd say maz 10 of the "zits" on the fish
and it's on 1 out of the 2 dalmation mollies that are left
and 2 or 3 of the 5 guppies.
PLEASE HELP ME...
or else I just might give up.

 

[chickadee]

White spots on fish that look like they have been salted? That size of a spot? That sounds like Ich. If that is the case, then you need to slowly raise the temperature of your tank to 85 degrees F or 29 degrees C and leave it there for 14 days. You do not need to add medication if that is what this is as the raised temperature will make the parasites leave your fish and go into the water and as long as the temperature stays at that level for the full 14 days they will die. If you do lower it before then however, they will settle back onto the fish and they will be sick again.

Rose

 

[Tamara]

the temperature was at about75F before so I turned my heater on high to get it up to 85F
anything else that I can do--without spending money?

 

[Butterfly]

Tamara the temperature should do it. But remember to leave it for the full 14 days.
Carol

 

[Tamara]

will the temperature affect the fish?
most of them are only supposed to be up to 79/80F???

 

[Tamara]

Update: now 3 of the 4 dalmation mollies have died..it's odd though because the strongest ones died..and the on I would have thought to of died first is the one still alive...well for now.

 

[Phloxface]

In your first post you said you completely emptied your whole tank and cleaned it. You should never do this. This means your tank had to cycle all over again with a lot of fish in it. Do you have a water test kit? You probably have very high ammonia levels especially with so many fish in an uncycled tank. The planaria you were trying to remove are gross but harmless. I have them in one of my tanks and removed them by simply wiping the inside of the tank with a piece of filter fiber (it looks like a big bag of cotton and it's cheap). Also vacumning the gravel after wiping the sides helps.
I would get a water test kit and post your results here. People here can instruct you what to do after seeing your readings. You need to do this quickly or you may lose all your fish.

 

[Timesdragonfly]

What's Planaria?

 

[Tamara]

is everythings at 0 except the nitrItes it's at about 0.5-1.0 but my fish hav e survived higher nitrites before and so far they've been quite fine.
(and yes I know I shouldn't have done that. but that was the only way to get rid of the bugs.

 

[Phloxface]

Planaria are harmless worms, not bugs. (they look like white fur sticking on the sides of the tank and some are floating around and covering your plants and decorations)  You can easily wipe them off with a piece of cotton, filter fiber or aquarium sponge. They will not hurt your fish.  It's a safer solution (and easier) than emptying your whole tank. Keep testing the water daily. If you started over with a completely fresh tank it will definitely start cycling and your ammonia will rise.

 

[Tamara]

they weren't planiara.
and if I left one single bug in my tank it'd repopulate to the millions within a 3 days most likely.

 

[Phloxface]

If the fish had white spots like salt on them then it was ick and emptying the tank won't help because they are still on the fish and will come back. You can get medications for ick that will help. Also raising the temp of the water to 85 degrees for 14 days will kill the parasites. Even if you have emptied the tank you should probably still get the medication and/or raise the water temp to start treating the fish before it comes back. Raising the temp won't hurt your fish. It's only 14 days and then slowly bring the temp back down.

 

[Tamara]

it's almost gone without any medication...so i'm glad that I followed my instincts--raised the water temp. and didn't waste money on medication
all the fish are fine now...but I would still like to know what the bugs were...

 

[Timesdragonfly]

I think I read somewhere about fish lice? Could that have been what they had?