I'll try and post as much info as I can to help everyone get an idea of what's going on . I have a 100 gallon tank . With Malawi peacocks . About 15 med sized fish . I let the tank run for a month and water parameters looked like the tank was cycled . Nitrites 0 , ammonia 0 . Very low nitrates . Ph 8.2 . So I put some fish in a few at a time . Everything looked good for the first couple weeks . I left town for work for about a week . Come home and the tank is cloudy and nitrites very high and fish are scratching the rocks like crazy . Couple fish looked like they either got picked on or scratched really hard . I think possibly my fish were over fed my by kids and wife . Anyway . I've been doing 25 percent water changes everyday and the nitrites are coming down slowly . Fish still flashin like crazy . I have added salt to try and help a little but not seeking to help . Today I did a 25 percent water change in the morning and it didn't really help with the nitrites so this evening I did a 40 percent and finally got a very very low reading . My buddy calls and has to get rid of a couple fish asap as he is moving so I add 5 med sized fish into the tank and 10 min later they are flashing like crazy . I was thinking for a min before I out the fish in I may have a parasite but after these new fish were in the tank for 10 min and started doing it I'm now back to thinking a water issue . No signs of ich , no salted look or anything . Just scratching a lot Any advice or thoughts ? Sorry so long . Thanks guys and girls ?
