Help, at witts end with a death tank...

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Racersk

Racersk

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
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Covington
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I'm coming to the community because I'm tired of loosing fish, this is getting expensive.

I have been keeping fish for 25 years and have never had issues like I have in the last 6 months. I will start with, I did it too myself. Petco should be avoided at all costs with community tanks.

Long story condensed... Added a donated gold fish to my 300G tank. Weeks later lost 80% of my stocking to what I thought was ick. I turned up heat and it seemed to accelerate the dying.

I got some close up picks, but this Red tail giant in the Pic is a newer addition... after the 1st wave of death by the same symptoms. White dots that end up covering the fish and the slime coat starts 'melting' off the fish. This 2nd wave immediately took out 3 small balas, and the red tail took weeks, but finally sucummed. (sepsis?) I have 6 Convicts, all fine. Multiper bichirs, all fine, some new additions, one did die with Brite red along its back, it was stunted and another donated fish.

water was tested by 2 local stores and is within parameters. Hundreds of gallons of water has been changed...

Please help.

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I did not add to the original post, but this is not ick. Have tried to also treat for this and the mucus of the fish got worse.
 
kno4te kno4te danotaylor danotaylor
 
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Looks and sounds like velvet to me. When I encountered this I lost most of my stock in multiple tanks, tried several treatments but once it got established only the few toughest fish survived. Highly contagious and deadly. I can't recommend anything other than what can be found on Google search, maybe somebody here knows a magic trick though. I wish you the best.

I've observed more strict and lengthier quarantine procedures with all new additions since that incident.

Found this on YouTube, could be worth a try, ould be tough with that big gourami in a large tank though:
 
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Backfromthedead said:
Looks and sounds like velvet to me. When I encountered this I lost most of my stock in multiple tanks, tried several treatments but once it got established only the few toughest fish survived. Highly contagious and deadly. I can't recommend anything other than what can be found on Google search, maybe somebody here knows a magic trick though. I wish you the best.

I've observed more strict and lengthier quarantine procedures with all new additions since that incident.

Found this on YouTube, could be worth a try, ould be tough with that big gourami in a large tank though:
Click to expand...
Last time I got through this I used antibiotics. But this round, it didnt do anything to reduce symptoms.

There is a non copper based MICROBE-LIFT Herbtana I am going to try. It lists velvet as one of the parasites it fights specifically, not just ick. I dont have inverts, but the ability to kill my stock by overdosing copper base meds, or does nothing if under dosed, kinda scares me off this treatment. Will follow Microbe-Lifts instructions to the letter and let the group know what happens. So far, only a few fish died this time around. My other albino giant is hanging in there.

 
I’d lean toward velvet as well.
 
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Sorry to hear. If you don’t want to use copper, you could try adding malachite green and formalin mix like Kordon Ridich+ or Hikari Ich-X. And an antibiotic like Kanaplex to treat the secondary infections. You can use both together at full strength unless you have knifefish or something extremely sensitive.

Or if you don’t want to use meds, I’d add least clean out the filter materials, do lots of water changes, and add salt
 
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