Should I sterilize everything and start over?

My new 90 l (~23 gallon) aquarium that I set up in July has been a horrible disaster. I had some experience with aquariums in the past + I did a lot of research before starting it, so I thought I was well prepared. My fish, Pygmy cories and lambchop rasboras, got sick almost immediately after getting them (main symptoms - itching, paleness, sometimes rapid breathing) and nothing seems to help. I have tried a range of different medicines with barely any improvements in fishes' health - anti-fluke meds (praziquantel), anti-protozoan meds (formalin, malachite green), antibiotics (nifurpirinol) and careful dosing of salt, all with proper treatment schedules. I have tested water conditions at home and multiple times at store (yes, I know about cycling). If you want to know my parameters in more detail you can check my older post - Itchy pygmy cories, nothing seems to help | Freshwater Fish Disease and Fish Health Forum | 516249 Nothing has helped. So my big question is - could putting fish in a hospital tank and sterilizing everything help? Like - throwing out old gravel, boiling driftwood, bleaching equipment and tank, sterilizing plants with alum, and starting the cycle all over again. And then perhaps, before putting fishes back, giving them a quick dip of some general meds like copper?

 

I doubt that would help. Unless its something like parasitic worms sterilizing the tank probably won't help. Plus moving the fish will be a further shock. Have you tried an ick med? How many fish are left? I would not add anything to the tank until this is over [fish, fertilizer, ph adjust, decorations] and treat with an ick med for two weeks. If ok do nothing but water changes for a month. Then quarantine any new fish.

 

I doubt that would help. Unless its something like parasitic worms sterilizing the tank probably won't help. Plus moving the fish will be a further shock. Have you tried an ick med? How many fish are left? I would not add anything to the tank until this is over [fish, fertilizer, ph adjust, decorations] and treat with an ick med for two weeks. If ok do nothing but water changes for a month. Then quarantine any new fish.

5 or 6 cories and 4 rasboras. I have used several meds that should help with ick like JBL punktol, Sera protazol, and Sera Goldfish Goldmed. As I didn't see any white spots characteristic of ick, I didn't try to treat them according to the ick treatment schedule. Can ick be causing fish deaths gradually over 5 months without ever showing up as white spots?

 

I read your earlier post as well and I am really sorry to hear what’s happening with your tank.

Have you considered using hydrogen peroxide in the tank? I’ll see if I can find some good links in terms of dosing the tank. It is fish and plant safe in low doses. It gases of into water and oxygen within 24 hrs or so, doesn’t really build up in tank. I have used it before at a 1:4 and 1:2 ratio of ml to liters of tank water ( well gallons in my case) I believe it can be dosed as much as 1:1 or more but don’t quote me. Deserves further looking into.

For example I dosed 5ml to my 20 gallon and went as high as 10ml. It is an oxidizer so best to start low so as not to affect your beneficial bacteria.

Since you are at the point of wanting to tear everything down and start over: maybe try this first. Especially if you see them itching/rubbing less.
Get a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide if you do decide to try. Sealed. Once open they degrade to water in about 6 months.

 

I read your earlier post as well and I am really sorry to hear what’s happening with your tank.

Have you considered using hydrogen peroxide in the tank? I’ll see if I can find some good links in terms of dosing the tank. It is fish and plant safe in low doses. It gases of into water and oxygen within 24 hrs or so, doesn’t really build up in tank. I have used it before at a 1:4 and 1:2 ratio of ml to liters of tank water ( well gallons in my case) I believe it can be dosed as much as 1:1 or more but don’t quote me. Deserves further looking into.

For example I dosed 5ml to my 20 gallon and went as high as 10ml. It is an oxidizer so best to start low so as not to affect your beneficial bacteria.

Since you are at the point of wanting to tear everything down and start over: maybe try this first. Especially if you see them itching/rubbing less.
Get a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide if you do decide to try. Sealed. Once open they degrade to water in about 6 months.

I think I only saw it once suggested somewhere as a dip or a topical application. Didn't know its possible to dose the whole tank. What was the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide that you used? I think here, where I live the most common one sold in pharmacies is 3% hydrogen peroxide. Have you tried using it in a tank with snails?

Btw thanks a lot. I looked it up also in my Clinical Fish Medicine book. It seems to be effective against everything external, which is very cool. They however were suggesting only short exposures. Well, I guess If I don't gather up the courage to dose the whole tank and let it gas off, I will for sure do fish dips in H2O2 before adding them to sterilized and restarted tank.

 

I think I only saw it once suggested somewhere as a dip or a topical application. Didn't know its possible to dose the whole tank. What was the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide that you used? I think here, where I live the most common one sold in pharmacies is 3% hydrogen peroxide. Have you tried using it in a tank with snails?

I don’t have any snails so not sure on that.

Yes, 3% solution the pharmacy or grocery store should have in first aid section. Just make sure it has a seal between bottle and cap. It does literally become water after a few months of being opened. Learned that when I was researching whether to use it or not.

If you look online for an blog/thread/article titled: what l learned about columnaris… it was very informative. This isn’t to say you or I was specifically dealing with columnaris BUT nothing else seemed to be working. I did this along with salt and deep frequent water changes. And I kept doing it. That was one thing that person pointed out is this is a longer slower method but can help to save your fish.

 

The reason i'm thinking ick is the scratching, heavy breathing mainly. The scratching is very symptomatic with ick. The recurring nature also is classic ick. On small fish its sometimes hard to spot. Usually you can see it on transparent fins if you look closely. I would suggest your best guess at what the disease is and treat that for at least 2 weeks. The recurring nature bothers me, i'm guessing you're not treating long enough to kill the parasite and keep the eggs from hatching, starting the whole process over. I know it can be frustrating i hope you can see this through.

 

I think I only saw it once suggested somewhere as a dip or a topical application. Didn't know its possible to dose the whole tank. What was the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide that you used? I think here, where I live the most common one sold in pharmacies is 3% hydrogen peroxide. Have you tried using it in a tank with snails?

Btw thanks a lot. I looked it up also in my Clinical Fish Medicine book. It seems to be effective against everything external, which is very cool. They however were suggesting only short exposures. Well, I guess If I don't gather up the courage to dose the whole tank and let it gas off, I will for sure do fish dips in H2O2 before adding them to sterilized and restarted tank.

I think the shorter exposure is related to higher dosage just like with a salt dip. Hopefully you’ll be able to get things squared away after tearing the tank down and starting over. Are you going to try and save/sterilize your plants? Hope you are able to.

 

I don’t have any snails so not sure on that.

Yes, 3% solution the pharmacy or grocery store should have in first aid section. Just make sure it has a seal between bottle and cap. It does literally become water after a few months of being opened. Learned that when I was researching whether to use it or not.

If you look online for an blog/thread/article titled: what l learned about columnaris… it was very informative. This isn’t to say you or I was specifically dealing with columnaris BUT nothing else seemed to be working. I did this along with salt and deep frequent water changes. And I kept doing it. That was one thing that person pointed out is this is a longer slower method but can help to save your fish.

Thanks! I will do some more reading on it to ensure that I'm doing everything safely and then try it. I guess I could stuff my snails in a bucket with airstone for 24 h. But then again I had some baby assassin snails that I didn't manage to pick out last time when treating with formalin and malachite green and they survived, so maybe they are unkillable. About doing it together with salt treatment I'm not so sure though. I've heard that prolonged exposure to salt can damage kidneys in fish with scutes, because they can't release excess salt through their skin. The longest I have salted cories so far was 48h with 2 tbsp per 10 gallon. Did you have any catfishes in your tank when treating with H2O2 + salt?

I think the shorter exposure is related to higher dosage just like with a salt dip. Hopefully you’ll be able to get things squared away after tearing the tank down and starting over. Are you going to try and save/sterilize your plants? Hope you are able to.

Yes, definitely. I have some expensive bucephalandras and very beautiful, happy anubias plants that are growing fast (for an anubias) and flowering - would be very sad to loose them. Also growing my java ferns took forever. In my local fish store they suggested using alum to sterilize plants.

The reason i'm thinking ick is the scratching, heavy breathing mainly. The scratching is very symptomatic with ick. The recurring nature also is classic ick. On small fish its sometimes hard to spot. Usually you can see it on transparent fins if you look closely. I would suggest your best guess at what the disease is and treat that for at least 2 weeks. The recurring nature bothers me, i'm guessing you're not treating long enough to kill the parasite and keep the eggs from hatching, starting the whole process over. I know it can be frustrating i hope you can see this through.

It could be ick. But from what I read in Clinical Guide to Fish Medicine there seems to be several protozoans that can cause similar symptoms - Trichodinids, Sessile Ciliates, flagellates. And many can infest fishes repeatedly, as its very hard to eliminate them from the substrate (this is one of the reasons why I'm considering throwing out old substrate and sterilizing tank). It could also be praziquantel resistant flukes or nifurpirinol resistant bacteria (although for bacteria from what I understand these symptoms are less typical). To be fair at this point I'm afraid to do another unsuccessful treatment, as these medicines are also damaging to fish. I think formalin worked the best from what I tried, but its also the most damaging med. To add to the mystery - when fishes gradually started itching again after using formalin, I brought one of them for microscopic examination. The only thing they found was some gill damage. But it could have been that I caught one of the least infected fishes and they missed it because of it. Also, i think flukes are harder to miss than protozoans.

 

The book sounds like a wonderful resource to have! I looked it up and had a mental spit take moment over the price. Since you already have it in hand it sounds like it has helped you firm up the best course of action. Please let us know how everything works out. Rooting for you and your tank!

 

The book sounds like a wonderful resource to have! I looked it up and had a mental spit take moment over the price. Since you already have it in hand it sounds like it has helped you firm up the best course of action. Please let us know how everything works out. Rooting for you and your tank!

Thanks a lot for your support! yeah, the price was quite steep, but I have a friend who runs aquatic animal sanctuary with whom I share the book, so I thought its a good investment.

 

An update on the situation:
I ended up doing 40 min dips in formalin (Tetra Goldfish Goldmed) 2.5 ml per 5 l with an airtstone and then moving fishes to a bare bottom hospital tank. To the hospital tank I gradually added 1 g per liter of salt. Now waiting for two weeks in salt water to ensure that all infectious agents are dead. So far so good I haven't seen fishes itching since and cories seem to have much better appetite now. Fingers crossed that it works out. Will be using bleach to sterilize their aquarium.

 

And here is another update if anyone ever reads this thread - I got them a brand new aquarium, bleached filter, heater, and the plants that could withstand it, got new and clean filter sponge, changed substrate. Everything was either new or sterilized with bleach. All fish were externally "sterilized" with formalin and kept in salted water before going into the new tank. But the disease came back. Apparently it is inside them. As I mentioned in my previous posts I tried parasite meds, I tried 2 types of antibiotics (both in water and in medicated food), heck I even tried topical application of meds with a q-tip on nanofish to treat their ulcers! Oh and not to mention that I brought one of my fish for testing to a pathology lab, but unfortunately they didn't find anything (I was warned that one fish might not be enough, but I didn't want to sacrifice more).

So how does this story ends? I have accepted that they have something incurable, probably non-tuberculous mycobacteria - a guess also made by pathology lab based on my description of symptoms. I give remaining fishes the best care I can and most of the time they feel well (they don't itch or display other symptoms), but once in a few months the disease decides to "activate" and take another fish. Luckily its just one fish at a time. As I can't get more fish for my very lightly stocked tank, I have gotten a gang of amano shrimp and some interesting snails. Well, I guess I can at least pride myself at being good with amano shrimp - not a single one has died or escaped and females are constantly carrying eggs.

 

The timing and slowly dying of individual fish can be mycobacteria as you suggested but the main symptoms just doesn't fit for me. Flukes especially gill flukes are a huge PITA. Often though people will fail treating it for example with Praziquantel because they will just follow the dosing bottle instructions and do 2 treatments. When it comes back many will assume they have a praziquantel resistant fluke. What really needs to be done is to do like 4-6 treatments in a row. This maximizes your chances to get the flukes in non egg form. Anything in between is just a guessing game unless you know the exact lifecycle on when they hatch and have the right temps to predict it. Even having a scope is difficult as you would need to do a intrusive gill biopsy in each fish.

The only real way to deal with it is do the multiple treatments along with multiple tanks and constantly shifting the fishes to new tanks and rotate them out as you try to outpace the fluke life cycle (which is not fun for you or the fish). Sort of like with ich. I wish it on no one as it's a huge pain to completely eradicate those buggers. In the end I hope you overcome this whatever the issue is.