Sick babies, ornate bichir and wild oscar. Bad water?

[Mount_Prion]

I've noticed a couple of the fish in my baby tank seem to be sick.

I've been working 8-8 recently and haven't had a chance to do a water change in almost 2 weeks, and there's a fair amount of organic detritus that's built up.

They're in a very overly-filtered 20g, and I know that filtration is not a replacement for water changes, but frankly I've never had issues with that before as I take good care of my fish.

The bichir's eyes have gone cloudy, something I noticed yesterday but didn't think much of. And his little nostril-things seemed a little red. I sort of assumed that he was probably fine though until I saw him this morning. He was laying in the plants at the top of the tank and barely reacted when I prodded him with my finger, and he seems a little grayer-slimier than normal. He eventually swam down again, but I'm concerned that he might not even be alive by the time I get home.

The oscar also has been behaving oddly, sitting on the bottom of the tank when it's normally a top-dweller. It seems grayer (especially around the edges of its fins) and more lethargic than usual.

The other fish in the tank seem fine, although there's a chance the little common pleco I put in as a cleaner might be sick as well--his coloration seems to have lightened somewhat.

Could this be a result of not changing the water? Or does this not seem like symptoms of that and likely something else?

Regardless, I'm going to do a 30% change and solid cleaning when I get home today and probably do another 30% on Sunday.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[tothna]

This just happened to my tank. I recently put a pleco in my tank and haven't had a chance to do a water change in a couple weeks. Sounds like the same story as you. I've had this 150 set up for about 5 years with no problems, my clown loaches were about 3-4 years old and my butti was probably close to 10 years old. I was out of town for a few days and while I was gone my cousin who lives with me noticed one day that the loaches were all dead and the butti had cloudy eyes and white slime all over him. He called his buddy who is a pretty knowledgable fish guy. He said to do a 50% water change and put melafix in the water. We did that and the butti started looking a little better pretty quick. Unfortunately he died the next day. One thing I did notice was the amount of pleco crap in the gravel. It had been awhile since I had a pleco and I forgot how much crap they produce. Moral of the story is, you better do something about it sooner than later because if you've got the same thing as me, you could end up with some dead fish.

 

[Mount_Prion]

Thanks. Yeah that sounds like a very similar situation to mine. I hope my LFS carries melafix. Will ask.