URGENT unknown freshwater disease/parasite?!

[twiisted]

Right I know I haven't posted on here in a year but I seriously have nowhere else to turn. About 3-4months ago we ordered about 8 aaa+ flower horns, the shipment was returned to sender, to compensate he said he would send a "few" extra the next time.... That he did... as you could imagine it was sheer chaos, arriving from Thailand (I think) cold, individually bagged and oxygen starved, we opened up the box to find about fifty, after emptying them into a 6x2x2.5 tank that was ridiculously under filtered, we noticed there was another level to the box.. We opened it to find about another 70, we only paid £180 for the 8, so we were not expecting this... Like at all! We were so uneqquipped for 120-140 flower horns ranging from 1"- 7" this would be a dream if we actually had the tanks for all of them! Needless to say we tried to isolate the best looking ones into individual tanks (I'd say 20 new tanks were installed in the fish house) it was horrible! Because of the overcrowding in the 6ft there were at least 3 died everyday it was just sick to watch :[ needless to say the stress overwhelmed them and ich took over... Then something else started killing them off, even the ones in isolation, they would be fine and happy, next thing they would become lethargic, stop eating, lose colour. Then their stomachs would bloat up, they would secrete a White lumpy, long trail of mucus from their intestine, we tried treating individual fish with varying things dewormer, methylane blue, anti fungal, different temperatures ranging from 24-32c trying lots of water changes to none at all, nothing really made a difference, we lost about 85 fish we were only meant to get sent 8! WTF! Anyway the last of them pulled through, everything seemed fixed but 5 of the fish are secreting the mucus again and are losing their appetites :c amongst them are some aaa+ we have one that would probably be classed a masterpiece, please give me help as I don't want this thing taking over and killing off all my prized fish, we water change once a week, (amped up in the infected tanks) ph is a stable 7.6 ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are all under 10

I've spent a lot of time on the web investigating this since the incident 4 months ago, I've read countless pages, threads and stickys on multiple forum and I can't find anything even remotely similar any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance Andrew.

 

[RWaltman]

our ammonia and nitrites should be zero, it sounds like a parasite of some kind due to the large scale outbreak...If there is no 'external' sign that the fish have parasites (flashing, rubbing...clamped fins...sitting at the bottom...not breathing well) it could be internal. Any photos?

 

[F1 VET]

100+ fish, 1 of them are going to have something, and with already stressed conditions it came out. There's no way you had the bb at the time to handle that bio load, thus u couldn't convert ammonia and nitrites to no3, sounds fairly obvious to me!

You prlly needed Atleast every other day 40% wc, now u need Atleast once week 50% and they get better, add salt also. Taboespoon per 5gal


Go S. Vettel #1 rb8

 

[twiisted]

At the time we were doing 50% wc every 3rd day, half the tanks were also uncycled, we would have been fine if it were just the 8 as we had spare tanks pre cycled. Do you think Epsom salt baths would help dislodge the parasites in the farther gone ones? There's also no external signs, they just become lethargic, lose their appetite, bloat up, secrete that mucus then lose their colour and die. Thanks for the input I'll talk to my dad about adding salt, and unfortunately my laptops broke so I'm having to use my mums iPad so I'm not to sure about how to upload pics, I know about hosting and doing it on a pc, just not this lol

 

[twiisted]

P.s. turns out my dads tried aqurium salt and Epsom salt but tbh it seems that the biggest flowerhorn (who actually pulled out from dying, like he literally just started rolling about the bottom as if he was unconscious) has started feeding again, so what we're doing seems to be working, I'll just stick to 50% wc twice a week, if I find out how to post pics I will, especially the AAA+'s as a treat for you guys! thank you both