Seachem Excel problem

[SkySouza]

The I dose with seachem excel and flourish once a week. flourish on tues and excel on thurs. The last two times i have doses within an hour all my fish are swimming at the top of the tank gasping. I do not over dose. Last week I did an emergency 50% water change and just lost two yoyo loaches and five ember tetras. This week to be safe I under dosed and i woke up at 4 am to one of my discus slapping the hardwood floor and two others dead on the bottom of the tank. I managed to save one by tossing him in my nano. He was still alive this morning.

My question is do seachem liquid ferts go bad after a period of time? I honestly have no way of knowing how long it was on the self and I didn't notice an expiration date.

All my water params are normal according to my kit. I'm bringing a sample to the lfs today to make sure my kit isn't bad but like i said I just did a 50% wc last week.

Really bummed about this one. I rescued 3 of the 4 discus from a trade in. they had sever fin damage from a pleco muchin on em and I had been working hard to revive them.

I have also been dosing melafix and pimafix. could the mixture have been a problem?

I've lost a bunch of fish recently to these two instances and then a hear accident with my dario dario.

Lost this guy too:

 

[SCGeordie]

I'm just guessing, but as all the products you're using are supposed to be safe for fish it could be the combination of the fertz and meds that is causing problems. With fertz I would think that the only way they would 'go bad' with age is maybe they would become more concentrated due to evaporation.
Do you refrigerate your fertz, could they be subject to excessive heat?

 

[MonsterMinis]

Did you increase the temp of your tank when useing pima/melafix? why where you useing it? I've had limited success with excel and inverts ( i use regular flourish and the tanks fine, excel gets added.. I lose all my shrimp/snails /ect) I think it's likely not the excel 'cept maybe teh case of your cray. the gasping at the top is a common symptom of ODing with Pima or Mela. And what does "Normal" mean in reference to your test kit?

 

[aclockworkorange]

I agree it's likely the mela/pima combo.

 

[SkySouza]

My LFS told me specifically to dose both at the same time. I was unaware that that could be dangerous. I should have looked into before dosing. I should have known better than to listen to them with out doing some research

 

[Laticauda]

I don't use Pima or Melafix on anything in my fish tanks. Some people swear by it, but I believe any problem you have that you would want to solve with Mela or Pima is better treated with clean water. Sometimes salt can be used, and if it's too bad for clean water and salt, then antibiotics should be used.

EDIT:: yes, LFS will tell/sell you anything to get you to spend your $$. Even if it kills your fish. Two reasons, they don't care, and when you kill your fish, you'll have to buy more...otherwise, algicides would not exist! I'm sorry this happened to you, and to your fish.