No it's not a newly setup tank, and I did do a water change prior to starting treatment.. I started to treat my tank when I went to petco demanding answers about the fish they sold me that came from the same tank that they had a sign for quarantineing the tank.. Here's what happened.. I bought 2 silver dollar fish from petco that the dude selling them to me Said that the gouramis in the tank were attacking the silver dollars and thats why some had abrasions on them.... He even made a joke saying that one lost an eyeball... Me feeling so horrible about the fish fighting like that decided to take 2 fish home with me anyway.. Not the one missing the eyeball of course.. These had not a scratch on them.. I put them in my 10g tank that had nothing in it for only 24 hrs before I then put them in my tank with my jack dempseys. After about 5 days my jack dempseys were displaying breeding behavior so I took the silver dollars and put them back in the 10g tank.. A few days later one was not doing well and it randomly died and the other one did too right after.... I went back to the pet store with them and returned them to then notice the tank on observation not for sale.. Weird ok... Asked if there was something going on and was told no.. In this process my jack dempseys and my 2 spotted silver dollars (I've had these ones already) starting not eating... I didn't think anything of it.. Days go by.. Still not eating.. I take my spotted silver dollars out and into the 10g..one developed white spots on its Fins and body.. I figured ich.. I dosed it 1 day with ich... White spots disappeared.. Never saw them again... While this is going on with silver dollars, my jack dempseys are starting to act weird.. They are rubbing and darting throughout the tank all day.. This is when I starting thinking maybe something was happening, but I know they also flash when in courtship mode so I left it alone... This is when it got noticeable.. Oh Ya before I forget I test my tanks everyday and was testing them all at this point with ph same as always 7.5..temperature at 78..ammonia at 0..nitrites at 0..nitrates at 5 in jack dempsey tank and 10 in the 10g tank.. Ok so anyways I noticed my jack dempseys start laying on the bottom of the tank breathing real hard... Just not moving unless they were coming out to thrash themselves off decorations In the tank. They had not a single spot on them anywhere... Someone told me to look for velvet disease so I turned my light off and yes they had a gold dust on them but Idk for sure they are jack dempseys and already have gold on them.. Which anyways the tops of my fish later on looked gray and slimmy and scales missing.. This is when I decided to go to the pet store after sitting up for 24hrs straight posting my confusing situation everywhere and watching utube videos about fish disease and reading articles on the Internet, driving myself literally insane thinking my fish had every disease from a/z.. Until someone posted here that I need to go to the pet store aka petco... I did... Also to return a dead giraffe ciclid I bought the day before which I may add this is 3 weeks later of when I put the silver dollars in my tank, that the same tank is still on quarantine... WOW.. it just so happens the same dude is working the day that I bought the silver dollars.. The one who told me it was because of them fighting in the tank with the gouramis.. I said hey remember me.. Ya wtf is going on this tank.. I've had 0 sleep at this point.. He tried start off by telling me that there was still nothing going on in the tank but aggression.. I said bull*** tell me what u are treating that tank with right now.. My fish are dying and I need to do something I cannot treat my fish until I know wtf to treat it for.. He then told me that it was a bacteria infection (after he just told me it was still nothing but aggression).. I said ok a bacteria infection.. (I forgot to mention that the day before this when I was buying the giraffe ciclid, that there was still some silver dollars in the quarantine tank with big lesions on it that were red and white around the edges with another one that had an eyeball rotted) he showed me the medication that they were treating the tank with and it was for a bacteria infection... I forget the name it was tall and like 17 $.. I explained my situation to him, he had no knowledge of what kind of bacteria infection to be exact and then told me upon treating the tank it wasn't working... But then told me I should buy the same medication he was using.. I literally just walked away and was about to leave the store until I realized I was going to go home and watch my fish suffer and still have no answer... So I went to the Manger and explained my whole story again.. She went to the fish side and came back with the observation paper with everything that was going on in the tank.. Cloudy eyes.. Lesions, nor eating, and summed it up to bacteria infection... Now remind u my fish are itching so that's already different.. And dude said medication wasn't working.. The manager said it was working and the fish are cured and I proceed to tell her that her employee just told me it wasn't.. And that 2 fish died this morning.. Aka the one with rotted eye was gone.. She said she had no real knowledge in aquatics shes sorry...... Then tried to tell me to but melafix... Wow again... Needless to say I went to petsmart and bought marineland all in one remedy.. And started treating my tank with no real knowledge still of what is going on.. I know after 3 days that my fish aren't laying on the bottom with clamped Fins and they ate once, also there is no flashing or rubbing of any sort.... Expect now my cycle is killed probably from the meds.. So my numbers have been spiking, nitrites being the highest at 1....hope everyone can understand the situation a little better with the whole story.. It was so long of one that I only ever put bits and pieces of what was happening day by day lol.. Let's hear the input guys..
