Fish are sick, hopefully it does not spread!!!!!

[Bleeding]

I have a community tank that houses guppies, platys, danios, and a beta.

I was out of town for a day, and I had come back to discover that one of the mid sized platys had died, and was lying on the bottom of the tank. I have quite a few baby fish with all these live bearers, and this was the first fish death in months. So I removed this fish to discover that there was a good sized ulceration where its side fin would be. Im not sure what this is, but I assumed it was one of the other fish eating on the deceased fish, but i dunno.

So the next day I noticed my largest female guppy acting lethargic, and her tail fin looked as to have some sort of minor fin rot, and she looked in an overall poor condition; this meaning that her eyes were seemingly glazed over, she is looking more transparent or opaque, and now is developing red sores. Her breathing is very labored and now her entire tail fin is gone. Also, she will not eat.

I did a good inspection of the other fish, and none of the others seem to have any of these same symptoms, all very active and want to eat. So at this point, I have isolated the sick fish, changed 50% of the tank water, changed the carbon filter, replaced water and added some stress coat and another product called "Melafix". This is a menthol smelling solution that is supposed to treat some of these fin rot and red sore symptonms. Hopefully this treatment is ok as a preventative measure incase whatever is in the water is passed to the other fish. I also treated the sick fish with this medication. It says to dose for seven days and then do a water change.

Any ideas of what is going on here, and what precautions I should be taking???

 

[rkc772]

on fin rot i use Fungus Clear by Jungle. it works for me really good even on icks. it has saved my fish many times. i agree on putting the sick one on a Q-Tank and the rest treat them all, just for one to 2 days to see if they are infected. remember to take out the carbon first before using medication. the sick one just treat it with meds, until it heals up. mine goes around 5-7 days. 25% water change everyday before putting new medication.

 

[guppy]

Sounds like it could be aeremonas or even furunculosis, so some thing like sulfathiazole, Furan-2, or Furanase should work, they all also work on several other bacterial and fungal infections.

 

[Bleeding]

So the quarantined fish has expired.

What precautions should I now take to ensure this does not happen to the rest of the population. As I previously mentioned, I am dosing the melafix now..

 

[guppy]

The melafix won't hurt and all the listed fish will accept 1 tbsp. salt per 5g water. Try varying the type or at least brand of food a bit and make sure to keep up with tank maintainance.
I think some apistos or german rams and small cats would go great in your 30g.

 

[Bleeding]

When you say to add salt, does this reduce infections, and what kind of salt??

 

[guppy]

Aquarium salt, canning salt, ice cream salt, any salt that does not contain iodine or clumping agents. Not Marine salt. The salt discourages many molds, fungus, and bacteria from growing, and also encourages a healthy slime coat on the fish while facilitating a healthy osmatic expulsion of waste gasses at the gills.

 

[ewurm]

on fin rot i use Fungus Clear by Jungle. it works for me really good even on icks. it has saved my fish many times. i agree on putting the sick one on a Q-Tank and the rest treat them all, just for one to 2 days to see if they are infected. remember to take out the carbon first before using medication. the sick one just treat it with meds, until it heals up. mine goes around 5-7 days. 25% water change everyday before putting new medication.

I use the same medication, it worked great for me.